Director: David Charbonier, Justin Douglas Powell
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Open House
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Trying to get over her husband’s death, a pregnant woman moves into his abandoned house for some peace and quiet while she decides to prepare to give birth, but when a determined stalker tries to interrupt the events, she must force herself to stop him and save her oncoming child.
Review:
Overall, this was an all right if somewhat problematic feature. The main aspect to be had with this one was the rather likable and fun setup that serves the film nicely, leading into the second half. With the film immediately giving us not only the main setup of getting a chance to know who she is quite early on with the late-stage pregnancy, fractured home life with her parents trying to get over the accident that killed her husband, and the desire to start a new life in America, the setup provides enough to like here about why she would take up the realtor job and why the particular house is useful to help bring her to a new life. By the time she starts to get targeted and tormented for being alone in the property, the stakes have been set up rather well so that the ensuing encounters in the second half are tense, thrilling, and immensely effective. Not only is the stalking itself enjoyable, with the chasing taking place in the large, labyrinthine house, but the situational plight established early on makes it quite effective as the struggle of seeing a likable, pregnant woman being stalked and chased makes us desperate to see her escape.
However, beyond that, there’s little else to the film holding it up. The fact that it’s so simplistic and one-note, detailing not just the necessary ingredients for the setup to work but also getting the stalking on board quite early on, means that it’s nothing more than a long series of setpieces without much else going on. As we never get to know the purpose behind the invasion, what the intruder wants, or even his name at all, this all feels repetitive and designed solely to keep going from one set piece to another with little story behind it, especially once this gets to the hospital finale where it ha little reason to be here with the supernatural inclinations hinted at being so out of lace in this kind of film but also managing to just make the film go on far longer than it really should for no reason. While it gives the film some decent gore and bloodshed on top of providing one more high-energy stalking scene, the fact that it comes out of nowhere and seems to exist outside of the realms of the plausible makes for a frustrating time overall. These do manage to bring this one down enough to be an issue here against the positives.
Overview: ***.5/5
An immensely fun and overall effective psycho/thriller, there’s a lot to like with this one that manages to keep it moving along nicely against the few minor drawbacks that do crop up here. Those with an interest in this subject matter or who are fine with the issues at play will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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