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Parents' Guide to

The Open House

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Disappointing horror movie has graphic violence, blood.

Movie NR 2018 94 minutes
The Open House Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 8 parent reviews

age 12+

What's the polar opposite of "cinematic masterpiece"?

What an absolute piece of garbage. Don't get me wrong - the premise for this movie has tremendous potential for a thrilling, scary ride (which the trailer cannibalises to great effect), but there is literally no payoff or character development of any kind. Great avenues for exploration are ignored, yet there's enough pointless physical cruelty and gratuitous nudity to take something truly bad and make it truly worse. It would be unsurprising to learn that this film was made as an experiment, to provoke the maximum number of confused and angry negative reviews, which will undoubtedly be collected and published as a stand-alone. And the lead character's acting skill is... subpar, at best. Avoid avoid avoid.
age 18+

Ending terrible; had to check "official" comments about this as I couldn't understand.

I'd not recommend it, but I'm not a usual older parent of grown children and do not watch HORROR films. Far too much violence.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (8 ):
Kids say (14 ):

Perhaps the only good thing about this horror movie is the music. While the acting isn't bad and there's some initial hope that The Open House could be a satisfying scary movie, viewers are ultimately left with nothing but the feeling that 94 minutes of their life was wasted. There are some nods to The Shining and Psycho that suggest perhaps the filmmakers are savvy enough to make horror movie magic with a small budget, but it doesn't take long to see that the overuse of genre clichés -- such as the sudden burst of music and the jolting camera shot that merely reveals another character appearing seemingly out of nowhere -- reveals an amateurish ineptitude that might lead the viewer to wonder if they're being ironic. Is the movie a spoof of horror movies? It's unclear.

Spoiler alert: Viewers may be frustrated with the ending, or lack of an ending. Basically, it's like a whodunit without telling you whodunit. Teen horror fans are better off sticking with the classics.

Movie Details

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