Review of The Open House (2018) by Jesse L — 28 Jan 2018
It's that time again. Netflix is trying to get its fingers in every pie possible and this week they want a slice of Horror Pie. This isn't their first attempt at the genre, but it is probably the best attempt. (That isn't saying much thought.) Spoilers ahead.
Firstly, the story just isn't set up well from the get-go. The intent of the plot in the beginning to build a small introduction to the characters really feels like it falls flat. You could really skip the first 20 minutes of this movie and probably not suffer much for it later. The whole dynamic of the dead father was just blah and a way to try and create an atmosphere of depression and grieving, but really fails to do so.
Once the 'Horror Movie Vibes' start to kick in a bit later into the movie, it doesn't seem to get much better. There are times when you're curious as to why things are happening, that classic mystery appeal - unfortunately this suffers from being overly-cliche. (I.e. objects mysteriously move between rooms). We've seen it 1000x before in every horror movie, ever.
The actual action/climax of the movie only lasts a short few minutes, and really doesn't do much but leave you wondering when there's going to be some plot continuation or explanation of what's going on. You're basically waiting for those scenes to end, versus them being the highlight of the movie.
Once the movie concludes it leaves you in a pretty rough place. The main characters, who you will care so very little about, are dead - and you still don't know who killed them. The end of the movie seems to imply a travelling serial killer, however they just don't capture the essence of the 'scary vagrant' archetype they were going for.
The only saving grace of the movie was that its music was pretty well done, and overall it was an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere (In contrast to many other horrors which are shot in gloomy, grimy or spooky settings.).
I can't really say I'd recommend it to anybody else, and will personally never rewatch it - but in hindsight it could have much worse.
This review of The Open House (2018) was written by Jesse L on 28 Jan 2018.
The Open House has generally received negative reviews.
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