You won't be disappointed!

Best movie ever!

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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.

Watch this if....you are interested in watching a sub-par "serial killer" film, which has very little explanation. If you like watching people being killed in a house with no motive then you might enjoy it.Acting/Casting: 5* - First off, don't be fooled by Moyer and Paquin on the cover because they don't see but about 15 minutes of screen time the whole film. The obvious is that they put in their small roles as a favor to Paquin's brother, Andrew, who wrote and directed the film. For the people that are actually in the film, they do an okay job. Geraghty oversold the psycho roll a bit, but wasn't terrible. Rachel Blanchard does a okay job as the captive divorcée. Tricia Helfer is an attractive specimen and does a nice job in the seductive murderer role.Directing/Cinematography/Technical: 4.5* - The movie is pigeon holed a bit because it takes place primarily in a house and therefore doesn't lend itself much to work with. There is no doubt it was made on a strict budget, which makes for a lackluster product in most cases without a really creative director and Andrew Paquin isn't that due to lack of experience (directorial debut) and/or creativity.Plot/Characters: 4.5* - Two siblings terrorize a recently divorced homeowner when they sneak in during an open house. Again, this is Andrew Paquin's first screenplay and it shows. The story has some loopholes and never gives complete explanation you wait the entire movie to see.Entertainment Value: 5* - This is a marginally entertaining film, but isn't very satisfying when it is all said and done. If I recommend it to someone, then I would likely be ruining my reputation on what is a watchable movie.My Score: 5+4.5+4.5+5 = 19/4 = 4.75 Email your thoughts to [email protected]

This is quite a slick looking low-budget entry that is nothing if not well shot. It is a combination of Slasher, Home Invasion, Psychological Movies that has nothing new to offer. A sleek vista of external pretty structures and people who can be extremely ugly internally.This is finely acted and the killings are brutal and there is an air of tension but it all seems rather vapid considering all the carnage with some incestuous carnal knowledge that is hardly explored or explained.It is so thinly written and the short running time hardly allows for much in-depth display of interesting complex psychopathy. The Movie moves along with some intrigue but it is all as anorexic as the supposedly alluring and sexy dominatrix.After all, it is worth a view for fans of perversion and playful and detached sociopaths who look like the ordinary, well groomed neighbors who may live on your block in the last house on the left. The original owners should have put a panic room in the cellar. View with low expectations and you might find this OK from a first time Director that has a better eye for architecture than the arcane or so called Cult Movies.

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