Movie Review: ‘OPEN HOUSE’

Ok so this film jumps right into a young man giving a tour of a house to some new prospective tenants, and you see someone walking in after them (only their feet) and they jump in a closet close the door. Cue credits and you officially have my attention. This film is directed by the real brother of “Sookie Stackhouse”, Mr. Andrew Paquin. Anna Paquin and her on screen and in real life lover Stephen Moyer also make brief appearances in this film. I will have to say from the moment this feature started I was intrigued and I was asking for more!

A young woman named Alice played by Rachel Blanchard (Are You Afraid of The Dark/Roadtrip) is going through a terrible split with her beloved. After the house is shown she comes back to complete the move out with her husband and get her life back on track but what she doesn’t know is there is someone lurking in the house with other plans. One night she decides to invite some friends over and her best friend Jennie decides to stay and hang out with her because she can tell Alice feels alone. Alice tired from all the preparation for the evening falls asleep and wakes up to Jennie missing.  After many calls to Jennie in the house she soon finds her body in the basement of the house and she is immediately snatched and pulled into the darkness. The next scene starts with a view of our lead actresses tied and gagged in the middle of a storage closet. We come to find out that our assailant is Brian Geraghty (Cruel world/Jarhead) and he is clean cut with a Norman Bates type of appeal and he is intent on telling Alice he does not want to hurt her, but he also is not alone. Geraghty’s character named “David” has an estranged relationship with his partner in crime a women named Lila, Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica/ Spiral) who is even deadlier than he is. She takes a quick glance at the house says it will do and immediately starts ordering David around in a very dark demeaning way. David has locked Alice back in the closet and has warned her that if Lila finds out about her then she will kill her. Lila also kills Alice’s husband while seducing him in the outdoor hot tub, all of which is videotaped by David who seems to have a fascination with lives on film as he watches all of the couple’s home movies before retiring each night. The interaction between Lila and David is what makes the film because Helfer does a great job of establishing that she in the one in charge in a kind a Bonnie and Clyde role reversal kind of way. To be honest this film gave of a feeling of Natural Born Killers  meets  Funny Games appeal because the couple was so ruthless with each kill and yet so gentle and assuring before they preyed on their victims. Lila was out right mean to David whenever she could be and that’s what kept him in his place. Alice devises a scheme to try and gain the trust of David because she knows he likes her and that’s why he is keeping her alive.

All the while there is some concern from Lila because they have killed over 5 people in the house and she is ready to move on to the next one. David is of course reluctant to go and wants no part of Lila finding out about Alice because he intends on staying and starting a new life with her. Lila starts to suspect something from David so she sends him on a bunch of errands to get him out of the house and she conducts a thorough check of the house to make sure no trails are left behind. Helfer does a great job of carrying parts of the film she is so intense in every scene ready to stab you in any moment. The body count was low but the film was still bloody enough to keep me involved and I thought the voyeurism and overall weirdness by Geraghty gave the film a Hitchcock touch and in my opinion was very satisfying in the end, The final scene was very predictable but I had no problems with it. It’s nothing new by any means but a straight to DVD release this good should not go unnoticed. It hits the shelves August 3^rd so I would say grab it at a Redbox near you!

Open House on Netflix