Was this made by a film student? Checking on IMDB shows an estimated budget of $100,000 but that _doesn't_ mean the story has to suck!

What this film gets right is completely negated by what it gets wrong: unanswered questions. The classic suspense build-ups are there: creaking doors, turn-around surprises, and questionable characters. I admit, I really liked the slow tension ascension - I couldn't tell if it was ghosts, or a maniac killer, or just in the mind of the main character(s). But then they pour on more _slow walking to scary area_ gimmicks and you just want to get past it, thinking: _Okay, okay....I get it!_

Then, in the last 2 minutes of the movie, we find out nothing. This is one of the absolute worst things you can to your audience: leave 'em hanging with no hint of resolution. This is why they suggest in film school to tell your story orally over and over again to people. If someone told me this story the way it was reflected on screen, I would say, "You got quite a turd on your hands there, wtf happens?! Go back and think it over, there is potential there."

This movie will leave you frustrated and I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, watch _The Others_ for a good mind-f*&$# ending!

_"Death. It's like it moves in and never leaves."_

What a dreary, slow, monotonous waste of 90 minutes! This film is like a checklist of horror cliches brought to life. They're all included just for the sake of it. Seriously, these things happen for absolutely no reason and are never explained (someone's nose randomly starts bleeding, there's a blocked off passageway in a cellar, some old lady acts like a creepy-ass bitch and so on). There is no point to them actually happening. None whatsoever.

**///// The following four paragraphs contain spoilers but please read them anyway because you should not watch this movie /////**

The antagonist is absolutely ridiculous. He just... does things. [spoiler]He moves someone's cereal bowl from their bedroom to the living room in the time it takes that person to travel between those two rooms. How? And, more importantly, why?![/spoiler]

[spoiler]He attacks someone, then while they're on the ground he pours water on them. Why? Did he want them to slowly freeze to death outdoors? Does he just think it's amusing when people are drenched in water? Why not, I dunno, kill them maybe?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]He lies down in bed next to someone while they're asleep. In the middle of the night this person wakes up and looks through a pile of family photos. The antagonist has somehow managed to take photos of this person while they're sleeping, develop/print them and sneak them into the pile of family photos in literally no time at all. How did he know they would wake up and start looking through photos? WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]You never learn anything about the antagonist. His motivations? No. His possible connection to a murder that takes place at the beginning? No. He just wants to murder these people because they had an open house.[/spoiler] What a giant middle finger to the audience.

It's almost like someone forgot to finish writing this film...

It starts off well enough, even if the basic premise is a little well worn. Son with a bright future loses his father suddenly, so mother and son have to shift to the middle of nowhere to make ends meet and cope with their grief. The house they shift into belongs to a family member who is trying to sell it, so on weekends it is staged as an open house.

Of course as soon as the open house viewings start, strange things start happening. This is where the film starts falling apart. The film-makers can't seem to decide between implying that the occurrences maybe supernatural or someone who came to the viewing but never left. Which is fine to add a little mystery, but the mystery isn't engaging, there is no hook to it. Slightly odd things happen for no real rhyme or reason. You keep expecting there to be a nugget of information as to why they are being targeted, but you get nothing.

When the film finally decides to settle on the menacing slasher route and stick to it, the wheels completely fall off, and this film starts crashing hard. The film spends 3/4 of its running time raising questions and answers none of them, but not in an ambiguous way, just in a sloppy writing way.

There's no explanation, no reason why, no back-story, and the killer is constantly blurred, out of focus or in shadow so you never see what he looks like. Those elements can work, classic films like Duel you never see the psycho truck driver, but at least he has motivation. In Halloween you never know why Michael Myers goes on a rampage but you get a physical sense of what he looks like, even if you don't really get a good look at his face. But combining no back-story stalking, with a complete lack of motivation and no decent look at the killer just doesn't work. You don't care what is happening because there is no reason for it, and not much to look at while it happens. The protagonists might as well be getting attacked by a shadow. There is nothing scary or interesting about the killer, because the killer really is nothing apart from a pair of boots.

There is absolutely nothing under the surface with this film. There is no metaphor, there is nothing to learn, no twist, no insight to grief, no character revelations. Just retreaded clichés poorly packaged to give you a boring and pointless final product.

Avoid this film, it is a waste of your time

Avoid this movie at all costs!

This movie had potential. It started off interesting and I thought it was going somewhere, but in the end it just angered me like no movie in recent memory has. I think the they had no idea where they were going with the story so it just seems like lots of unnecessary bits of plot were added in an attempt to make something "stick". You get nothing in the end aside some a feeling of "I just wasted almost 2 hours of my life!".

Sometimes a mystery can be what makes a movie. Sometimes, it feels like flagrant laziness. _The Open House_ is the latter. The acting is fine, and the characters constantly and blatantly saying things like "Isn't it crazy how there could be a person hiding in your house right now?" might get in your head some, but _The Open House_ is a far cry from any sort of actual success.

_Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product._