Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Netflix has had a handful of great horror movies hit the platform in recent memory; Gerald’s Game, 1922, and Before I Wake have all been strong entries to the genre, suspenseful, entertaining films with stellar casts, and have solidified the streaming service as a home for up-and-coming voices. It comes as a surprise, then, that their latest, The Open House, is such an obvious misfire. It feels as though the script could have gone through another five rewrites or so, and it’s a damn shame, because the actors really do give it their all – and there’s a salvageable premise beneath all the forgettable ruckus.
True to its name, The Open House is mostly set at a house that is open on Sundays. We wind up here after tragedy befalls mother-and-son duo Logan (13 Reasons Why‘s Dylan Minnette) and Naomi (Piercey Dalton) and they shack up in a relative’s on-the-market mountain mansion until they’re able to pay their own rent again. There’s just one catch – they have to be out on Sundays, during the open houses for potential buyers. A secluded home with the chance for strangers to sneak in sounds like the ideal creepy-house horror movie premise, right? Unfortunately, they never quite do anything with it – and we never quite get anything from it, either.
The first half of the movie plays just as inoffensively as any of the other tons of horror flicks that have come out in the last few years, but thanks to cringeworthy dialogue that spoonfeeds the audience (“Have you ever thought about how weird open houses are?” Logan asks his mom. “I mean, you give your keys to someone you hardly know, and they stay in one room and welcome in a bunch of strangers. And those people just roam around the house, and the realtor doesn’t check the house when it’s done, right, they just turn the lights off and go?”) There’s not much subtlety at play here, and many of the moments are completely unearned – including the shockingly violent ending that feels like a completely different film.
What’s frustrating about The Open House is that it consists almost entirely of red herrings, and there’s no inherent payoff. We’re given gimmes from the very beginning that we know will come back in the end (like Logan’s running skill and the fact that he wears contacts), but there are so many distractions in the muddled middle it’s difficult to know if anything has any significance whatsoever. Every fake-out is just that, a fake-out, and it’s hard not to become aggravated by the film’s apparent lack of belief in viewers’ intelligence.
The Open House could have shaken things up with a tighter script and better execution, but instead, it winds up being both tired and tedious, two sins no horror movie can survive. It’s a total shame, especially given the strength of both Minnette and Dalton as actors, and the rich setting, but it’s hard not to wonder if any of them (including Netflix) read the script before agreeing to do the project to begin with. The Open House can’t quite close the deal and never really comes near doing so. Potential buyers, beware.
