If you enjoyed seeing Dylan Minnette as Clay Jenson in “13 Reasons Why,” he can grace your screen again in the new Netflix original movie “The Open House.”
While the movie premiered on the site last month, the Netflix Original has received mostly negative reviews from critics, including a 14 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the ratings though, I found Minnette’s performance a delightful mix of creepy and familiar.
As the film opens, Logan and his mother, Naomi, are faced with a family tragedy, followed by a financial crisis that leads to the teenager and his widowed mother staying at a mountain home belonging to Logan’s aunt.
Because the house is for sale, every Sunday, Logan and his mother leave the mountain home for a few hours while the realtor holds a weekly open house. Strange things begin to happen for the mother and son as things go missing, notices arise, a shadowy figure can be seen and the heat keeps getting shut off in the middle of winter.
While the film takes a while to pick up action, be warned that there are a couple of jump scares and some creepy vibes from Logan. Minnette’s performance is that of the typical teenager who can see that something is just not right in his new home.
“Have you ever thought about, like, how real open houses are? I mean you give your keys to someone you hardly know, they stay in one room and welcome in a bunch of random strangers, then those people just roam around the house. And the realtor doesn’t check the house when it’s done, right? They just turn off the lights and go,” Logan (Minnette) says to his mother after the first open house.
The film contains all the classic elements of a scary movie like the mysterious neighbor, the creepy small town vibes and even multiple shower scenes that conjure up memories of Hitchcock’s classic “Psycho.” Unlike most scary movies, however, just when you think you can figure out what will happen next, Netflix has other ideas in mind.
The film packs a punch in an unexpected and twisted manner that will leave audiences scratching their heads and wondering if there will be a sequel.
While the film may have negative reviews, you should watch it for yourself before you throw it out as a film that’s just milking off the success of Netflix Original “13 Reasons Why.” This film and Minnette’s performance stand on their own.
