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
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