The 2018 American horror film The Open House is directed by Matt Angel and Susanna Coote. The thriller was released on Netflix on January 19, 2018. Already from the first scenes, the plot captures the fact that the family is experiencing the loss of a loved one, but these events will be followed by even more terrible situations associated with a new place of residence.
What is the movie The Open House about
The father of a guy named Logan died under the wheels of a car. Unemployed and unable to support herself and her teenage son, Naomi agrees to move to a secluded spot in the mountains. She is going to settle in her sister’s empty house until it is sold. After moving into a beautiful house, Naomi and Logan meet their elderly neighbor Martha, who is acting strange, and Chris, a pleasant store clerk.
On Open Days on Sunday, Naomi and Logan must leave the property after breakfast and return after 5:00 pm by the end of the event. After the family returns to the house, a series of strange incidents begins. Objects move or disappear, home phone rings but no one answers on the other end. Strange noises are also constantly heard in the house. One night, Logan saw a car outside the house. Outside, the guy meets Martha, who is acting strange. Martha later hints that her late husband is alive despite her earlier claim that he is dead.
Due to strange activity in the house, the water heater failed. The family called a plumber, who revealed that Martha’s husband had indeed died, and Martha had Alzheimer’s. Naomi was distressed when she found a crumpled family photo in the trash, and a repairman found Logan’s missing phone near the water heater. This leads Naomi to believe that Logan is bullying her mother. There is a heated argument between them, and the guy denies that he threw away the photo. That same night, the family begins to realize that there is someone else in the house besides them.
One day, Naomi and Logan discover that their home has been broken into and someone has cooked a candlelit dinner. They called the police, who found no trace of the other person’s presence. Not being able to afford a hotel, mother and son are forced to stay in a house that is terrible for them.
Logan contacts Chris, who agrees to spend the night on the couch at their house. In the middle of the night, Chris goes missing and Logan finds him with his throat slit in the car. An unknown man knocks down Logan and he loses consciousness. Naomi, meanwhile, is horrified to discover photos of her and Logan sleeping in their beds – she doesn’t understand who could have taken these pictures. She is then attacked, tied up and tortured.
The meaning of the film The Open House
In the center of events is the story of a mother and son who have lost their breadwinner and are forced to move to a new house, which kindly falls “from the sky” to them. There is only one rule – the house is for sale, so on the right day and the right time they must be outside it, then everything returns to normal until the new “X hour”. In their new home, they are surrounded by dangers that threaten their lives.
Mother and son find themselves in a difficult financial situation to buy a house or rent a hotel room for a long time. Due to the fact that the family has nowhere to stay, they have to go to the house of their relative. The very place where the house stands is a town surrounded by mountains. The house is attractive from the outside – it has two floors. To the nearest neighbors, you need to walk several kilometers through the thicket of the forest.
This could be an ideal place to live, but the family is in danger at home. Despite the beauty of the house and the nature around, the place is not at all paradise. Not without a dark basement in which something strange is happening. The inhabitants of the city also seem to be out of the ordinary, which puts Naomi and her son on their guard.
Much of the film’s unsettling atmosphere is created by the fact that the house the characters live in is up for sale (hence the title). They are forced to leave regularly, leaving it in perfect order and open to strangers. Probably, only those who have been in a similar situation, or rented an apartment from an inadequate owner, know what a vile and creepy feeling it is – a house in which people live, but events occur that are beyond their control in their own housing.
The film shows how a mother and son face a growing sense of dread as they try to unravel the mysteries of the house and escape from an intruder. The point of the film is that some secrets are best left unrevealed so as not to awaken evil.
Movies about the fact that people have to come to terms with the fact that it is not safe for them to be in their own home. The image of the house as a symbol of consciousness and subconsciousness of a person. Home is a place where people need to be safe, but at the same time, it is a place where our fears and secrets hide.
When strange phenomena occur in the house, this symbolizes the struggle of a person with his inner demons and the dark sides of his personality. The mother and son in the story are simply forced to face their own fears and undergo an internal transformation in order to survive. The events in the film are metaphorical, and they show how the family interacts with the outside world and the unknown that surrounds them in a new place.
The plumber is one of the prime suspects. He said that he had already been in this house. He knows how to fix a water heater and has Logan’s missing phone. The plumber’s height and build are the same as the killer’s.
Another suspected killer could be Martha’s husband. This woman is very strange. She told Naomi that her husband had died, but then she said that he was alive and well.
The third and least likely suspect is Ed. He works as an assistant to real estate agent Joanna McAllister. The man is clumsy and distracted, but can pretend. Ed has access to the house and knows all the rooms well. He is also young and strong. It is also possible that he lived in this house until the mother and son arrived. At the end of the film, the viewer can only guess that he dealt with the family, but the directors do not give an exact answer.
The latest suspect is Logan. After the death of his father, Logan was traumatized and could become the same criminal. This kind of mental disorder explains some of the odd things that happen in the house: things that move from place to place. By killing his mother and himself, he avenged his father’s death because, within Logan’s schizophrenic logic, they were both to blame for what had happened.
Movie ending explanation
Logan wakes up to find that his SIM cards are broken as he tries to call 911 for help. He rushes to his mother’s aid, but mistakes her for an intruder and stabs her. Naomi tells him to run before he collapses. The attacker easily overpowers Logan and removes his contact lenses, leaving Logan unable to see clearly.
At the end of the film, Logan runs into the woods and hides. He sits in the forest in the cold until dawn. Succumbing to hypothermia, he heads for the stream. The intruder reveals himself, grabs Logan as he struggles and screams, and chokes him to death. When we see the lifeless body of a guy by the stream, an unknown man leaves to get to the new open day at the house.
