First and foremost, I feel like I should apologize for the hiatus. I know I have literally zero regular readers, and I’ve never had a very consistent posting schedule, but I still feel guilty since my last post was in October!
A new year means a new, fresh spreadsheet of movies. I failed at keeping track of the films I watched last year in about April, so I’m hoping to keep a full list this year. But anyway, enough rambling and on with the show… the show that ultimately leads… nowhere?
I wasn’t necessarily excited nor did I have high hopes for The Open House. It’s a Netflix original that just aired and it stars Dylan Minnette of 13 Reasons Why fame. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with his performance in 13 Reasons Why either. I found him to be a pretty flat stage presence and I think that carried over to The Open House as well, which isn’t really boding well for his career (although, I will say he was okay in Don’t Breathe).
The film started out okay, if not a little cliche – with a jolting death and a quick change of scenery. Our two main characters, a teenager and his mother, relocate to their relative’s mountain home which is a gorgeous, if not creepy, abode. Pretty basic plot, creepy things happen until suddenly *spoiler* things aren’t happening anymore. That pretty much sums up the entire film, actually. It was a whole lot of slow, ambling, “ooh, spooky” moments that feel like they’re leading up to something big, something earth-shattering, and then… nothing. I was let down! I was ready, I was prepared for some kind of justice, and justice I did not get.
It was just uninspired and unoriginal. It was nothing that we haven’t seen before, that’s for sure. There was no character development and there was no basis upon which to build a connection with any of the characters either. It was confusing, it was stale, it was unimaginative. I definitely would not watch this again or recommend it to anyone. I didn’t hate it, I just… was so disappointed.
