I am literally scared of every horror movie ever. I hate when the trailers for horror movies pop up because that's how chicken I am. When I saw the trailer for Netflix's "The Open House", it seemed like an interesting horror movie with depth and meaning. It was the first horror movie I wanted to watch. So that's what I did and now I am here to warn you to not waste your time. What did you do Netflix?! Warning, Spoilers ahead!
The story surrounds Logan and his family. Logan has an incredible skill of running really, really fast. Despite looking like a normal family, there are some issues. It is revealed that Logan's dad doesn't have a stable job and they are behind on bills. There is tension between Logan's mom and dad but they keep it hidden from Logan.About ten minutes into the movie, they kill off Logan's dad. You know, so the story can have a reason for everything to happen. His father is walking back from the store and Logan can see him through the car's side mirror. A car speeds through and hits his father. Cut to the funeral aftermath, Logan is depressed and Logan's mom, Namoi, can feel the world falling apart. Naomi finds it best that they move out of their house and take her sister up on an offer to live in her mountainside mansion.
Fast forward a bit and they are on their way to their new mountainside house. As soon as they approach the creepy road, Naomi almost hits a man standing in the middle of the road. As quickly as that happens, he disappears. Their red flags should have gone up then.
Continuing on, it seems like the whole town is full of creeps. They encounter Martha, an older woman who seems to know everything about Logan and his family. She claims she knows so much because Naomi's sister talks about them. She continues on to say that she understands what they are going through because her husband has also died. Red flags are waving high on this one.
The one rule Naomi's sister has for her guests is that they need to be out the house on Sundays because those are open house days. Seems like a decent deal. Nothing too fishy about it. From this point on is when the movie actually starts to pick. Items start to go missing and the water heater keeps turning off, which is located in the basement. Naomi keeps going into the basement and turning off the lights so she can light matches. Rule #1 in what not to do in a horror movie. Never turn off your light! Nothing actually happens but it's supposed to keep you on edge.
Things start to get even weirder when Logan hears knocks and bumps in the basement. He freaks out and tells his mom that he thinks there might be someone in the basement. His mom just shrugs it off. First off, no. If your house is making noises, it's probably trying to eat you.
Martha comes back into the picture because she's at their house in the middle of the night. She scares Logan and starts to cry, scream and then runs away. Logan doesn't know what to do but it was supposed to be a jump scare so that's probably why she was there.
The big climax is that their house has reportedly been broken into and they rush home to see what happened. Once they get inside, they freak out. The big reveal: their table had been moved and set up with three placemats and three chairs, with candles and music. The phone rings but no one is on the other line. The cops search the house but no one had been found so they blame it on the neighborhood kids. I mean obviously, teenagers think about how cool it would be to scare the new people by moving their table and lighting some candles. Really romantic. Logan isn't having any of it and tells his mom that they should go to a hotel. His mother gets mad at him and reveals that they have no money to do anything. So they stay. Bad idea.
The big ending was that there actually was a crazy murderer in the house. He knocks out Logan and leaves him outside to freeze to death. The murderer proceeds to knock Naomi out, tie her up, and breaks all her fingers. Logan comes to and rushes to save his mom. He tells his mom that he'll be right back and tries to find a phone. The phone lines seem to have been cut. His mom starts yelling for Logan. He grabs a knife and heads to the basement. He hears and sees nothing but continues on. He turns a corner and someone lunges out to him. It's his mom and he just stabbed her in the stomach. With her dying breath, she tells him to run. The murderer catches him and takes his contacts out. How nice. Then lets him go and Logan runs off into the night. Logan runs all night and stops at a creek for water. He gets up and the murderer is behind him. Logan dies.
That's the end of the movie. No explanation. It's just a murderer who sneaks into open houses and kills people. Also, Martha isn't crazy, she just has Alzehimers. Whoever was in charge of choosing what should be released didn't really watch this movie. The underlining point, it sucked. Sorry, Netflix. Next time, don't do horror movies.
