Director/s
Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote

Stars
Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton

One thing is certain after watching The Open House; Netflix still has a way to go if it’s to become the behemoth it seems destined to be in terms of film production.

This recent Netflix original offering had all the potential to be something great; an up and coming star, a great story idea and a picturesque setting, but boy did it fail to deliver.

The story revolves around Naomi (Piercey Dalton) and Logan (Dylan Minnette; 13 Reasons Why, Goosebumps), as a mother and her teenage son who, through tragic family circumstance, are forced to move into Naomi’s sisters secluded mountain holiday house. This premise alone creates more questions than answers about the motivations of our lead characters. It’s never fully explained why said tragedy means that Naomi and Logan cannot stay in their home, or why they couldn’t stay with other friends or family closer to home so Logan could finish high school. Instead we’re meant to believe that the best option is to move to the middle of nowhere, into a house that also happens to be on the market.

Anyway, let’s assume for a minute that this decision makes sense; we’re now thrust into the mountains, complete with creepy neighbours that appear from nowhere, and into a house that neither of the characters have ever been to, despite being owned by Naomi’s sister. Nothing weird about that. As mentioned, this house is also on the market and apparently has a recurring ‘open house’ every Sunday that requires Naomi and Logan to vacate the premises for about 8 hours. Seems plausible. Now this is where things should be getting interesting, however the Writer/Directors (relative newcomers Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote) start to play on all the familiar archetypes of this genre of film, but without doing any of it particularly well. Things are being moved around the house by some strange presence, the water heater is always turning off with Naomi in the shower (which apparently renders all of the water in the house immediately freezing), and creepy neighbours are doing their creeping…you get the gist. What starts to become clear is that this film is wasting the time of its actors. Dylan Minnette in particular, is solid throughout, but neither actor has the script to make their performance really meaningful.

There’s laziness to this film which really disappoints. It almost feels like two friends got together over a bottle or 6 of wine, had what they thought was a brilliant idea for a movie, got half way through and realized that no good decisions are made under the influence. The last 20 minutes of the film should have been what redeemed it, but instead it became the final nail in its cheap, pine casket. The ending felt rushed, like when you’re writing an essay in an exam and realize you’ve got 5 minutes left to try and make your point, and only after you’ve left the exam do you remember that you forgot to add the most important part.

The Open House “coulda been a contender”, but instead will be forgotten as an absolute pretender.

1 ½ stars

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