Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Stevieboy666 It would take a fair amount of skill to keep a very thin plot in a single location (in this instance a house) interesting over a period of 88 minutes. Watching this I found myself looking at the clock several times, wishing it would either step up a gear or simply end. The acting is fine & there are some pretty graphic kills, so it's by no means a bad movie. Just a bit slow and predictable.

MBunge Nepotism is not exactly an unknown occurrence in show business. There's a legion of folks who've gotten the chance to act, write, sing or direct because they happen to be related to someone who, at that moment, is something of a star. Well, out of that number there aren't many who made a more pitiful effort at it than Andrew Paquin. Open House is a psychological thriller that has all the tension of a wet noodle in a driving rain and is as psychologically complex as a 3 month old puppy. This is the product of someone imitating other films that he's seen but not understood.Before I get into the incompetent guts of this movie, let me point out that Tricia Helfer is a great example here of being two steps on the wrong side of the line that separates slim from "really needs to eat a baked potato". I mean, if you're shooting an actress from the front and you can clearly see the outline of sternum in her décolletage, she's too skinny. If you're shooting her from the back and you can clearly make out both the top and bottom of her shoulder blades as they move around, she's too skinny. When an actress has to do a scene in a bikini, as Helfer does here, does no one check her out a week in advance to make sure she doesn't look like someone who's recovering from a severe illness? I know body image is a horrible albatross around the neck of women in visual media, but somebody needed to step in here and force Paquin to delay the bikini scene for a few days so Helfer could go have a few good meals. She's an attractive woman and seeing her like this both makes you feel bad for her and angry at the industry that makes her look that way.Open House starts out as the story of Alice (Rachel Blanchard), a woman who's either soon-to-be, in-the-middle-of-getting or just-got divorced. That the film neither seems to know nor care which state of marital severance Alice is in sort of says it all for the care and craft being put to work here. Alice is trying to sell the home she used to share with her now/recently/soon to be ex-husband (Stephen Moyer) when a killer shows up and takes her prisoner. While Alice is stuffed into a basement crawl space, the killer (Brian Geraghty) and a sexy but too thin blonde (Tricia Helfer) start living in Alice's home and murdering people for kicks. The blonde doesn't know that Alice is still alive and Open house pretty quickly becomes all about how the killer is caught between these two women.I suppose the acting here is fine and the direction looks okay, though it's obvious that Paquin is just mimicking stuff from other films without knowing why those filmmakers did what they did the way they did it. The dialog is also unmemorable but unobjectionable. The plot and underlying structure of this story, however, is simply atrocious. It's established early on that the killer does not want to hurt Alice and will go to great lengths to avoid killing her, which sucks any drama or threat out of their relationship. I'd say for at least 60 or 70 of this movie's 88 minute length, there's not even a hint that Alice is in any imminent danger.And since Brian Geraghty as the killer shows all the personality of Star Trek:TNG's Mr. Data running on one-quarter battery power and none of the three main characters have enough sustained interaction to build or develop any kind of honest drama among them, you're left with a motion picture about home invading serial murders that's as exciting as a plain wheat cracker. Writer Paquin thinks he's being smart by throwing out hints about and allusions to the nature of the bond between the killer and the blonde, but you'd have to be awfully stupid not to figure out right away what he's getting at and then realize he's never going to go anywhere with it. Paquin also obviously believes that by making the main character of his movie a largely mute and impassive murderer, he's doing something clever or provocative. It isn't either of those things.This was as boring and pointless a production as I've seen in a long time. Don't be tricked by Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer being involved with it. Open House wasn't worth their time and it isn't worth yours

MrGKB ...which is to say, brief appearances by writer/director Andrew "I should stick with producing" Paquin's well-known sister and her husband/acting partner, Steven "True Blood" Moyer. The script is derivative to the extreme, offering absolutely nothing new in any way, shape, or form, never mind the silicon-enhanced but otherwise brittle and anorexic appeal of Tricia "I'm still a Cylon" Helfer, or the workmanlike performance of Brian "The Hurt Locker" Geraghty, who mines Anthony Perkins territory as best he can manage. "Open House" presents a home invasion scenario that stretches audience credulity to the breaking point, and characters that fail to engage in any significant way; it's quite obviously a vanity project to the extreme. There's absolutely nothing here to praise; it's pretty much a paint-by-numbers--of use as a soporific only--mess that kept a bunch of Hollywooders briefly employed, and further proof that public library video purchasers need more guidance in allocating their budgets. Completely dispensable.

TheHrunting A woman named Alice (Rachel Blanchard) is selling her house after a divorce and her agent is showing it off to potential buyers while she still lives in the residence. A person sneaks in and hides--hey, it's an "open house" isn't it--and awaits her to come home, not because this person wants to dodge the pesky realtor, but to meet her face to face and use her dwelling as a slaughterhouse for whoever comes in contact with it.You're introduced to David and Lila: a couple who make a sadistic partnership, as the female is spontaneous and seductive, and the male is the silent planner type. Lila arrives at the home after the bloody fact with a friend of Alice already being killed, but doesn't know David has the homeowner Alice locked away instead of slaying her too. Lila is gone during the day and David plays Mr. Nice to the traumatized Alice with some Stockholm Syndrome to smooth her over for a possible change of heart.Death after death is shown by both David and Lila with the weapon of choice being a kitchen knife and video camera rolling to catch the memory. Though this comes with no real point and has more forced scares going on than your neighbor's cheap garage setup during Halloween. This tries far too hard to make you uneasy without actually providing anything to substantially pull that off with, such as cuing the high pitched and grating music too early or late, or just the pacing having drastic ups and downs. Like "The Strangers" attempted, there's no background motivational factor to these perfectly normal looking villains except to show every now and again they have moments of anger and control problems. Not to mention there's only a quick little character backdrop on the victims but nothing that would make you care in the slightest. That might have been fine and dandy to creating fear of the unknown, but this is also missing the element to put you in their shoes if it was being any more minimalist. Could this happen to you when selling your house? From the tone of this movie, probably not, as the camera never bothers to leave the home and show someone enter at their own risk, or even get a questioning look through the blinds from a neighbor to put you on edge or their sadistic plans on ice. The safety barrier of the screen you're watching it on is never pulled away.For a film aimed towards horrific murder it's awfully polite and melodramatic by trying to play on what you wouldn't expect serial killers to act or look like as one is glamorous and model-esque and the other polite and clean cut. The tone tries to be two things at once: gruesome and personal. It shows the deteriorating relationship between David and Lila, as well as the growing one with David and Alice. You'll get the side that's warm and caring to each other, and another that delivers point blank killings to everyone else. The camera follows around David and will literally sit on him doing everyday household things as if something substantial is going on between the lines. As if you're supposed to feel bad but forget that he's a maniac underneath that wholesome '50s look because he's lonely and cooks a mean dish. The interpretations left up the viewer rely on luck than truly being open to them. The paper thin storyline all the while drops little hints, but strings you along by being so vague as to lose the audience's attention long before its conclusion. They could have told me who really shot Kennedy at the end and it wouldn't have saved this."The Stepfather" did something similar where he pretended to be somebody he wasn't and when after he was done with the people just disposed of them; the horror being that it's a cycle and he'll only do it again. "Open House" tries to dodge what you wouldn't anticipate if you watch horror films, with not only the characters but the drama-like story line that pushes away from tried and true conventions, though somehow it couldn't maintain the juggling act as basic as it was. "The Collector" was much more effective for a recent trapped in a house movie that balanced fear, mysteriousness and suspense. (Also submitted on http://fromblacktoredfilmreviews.blogspot.com/)