ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

tdrish Wow, does this film have problems! The director has passed away, the producer has passed away, and the movie company went out of business in 1996. Sad stuff. As for the flick itself, well, it's not the best slasher movie ever made. That would be "Club Dread". This movie, unlike some of the other 90,000 slasher films made in the 80's, attempts to put together a...story. That's right, a story. Yeah, yeah, does Friday the 13th have a story? Not last I checked, and I checked out about 8 of those movies, if you critics want to call anything 'trash' or 'crap'. I don't understand how all a slasher flick needs is a high body count and no story to tell, and everyone seems perfectly okay with this?? Really? OPEN HOUSE was made in 1987, back when the genre was finally starting to die down. It has it's pro's and con's, which is more then I can say for some of the other loser slasher flicks I've seen in my life, and yes, I've watched quite a few. ( I think we all could have done without Evil Laugh, but hey, it's just my ADHD talking here!). OPEN HOUSE combines three main elements together, or at least, tries to: the cutthroat business of radio, the cutthroat business of real estate, and the cutthroat...the cutthroat...ummm, that's a pun, that's a pun. Actually, there are no cut throats in OPEN HOUSE, in fact, the blood and body count is kept to a minimum. I'm sure that's the problems with a budget, you know, only so much in petty cash and cash stash, you know....we're trying to make the money, not spend it. Isn't that the philosophy of a real estate agent, trying to talk you into a buying a house with a truck-load of problems. Hey, this house is missing a plunger, oh, that's right, that's the killers weapon...uh, you think I'm joking?? Hey, he's homeless, he don't have money to blow on much of anything. Okay, so enough of all that, let's talk about the body count. That's kind of hard to calculate, since almost all of them are off camera. Yeah, that's another thing, I hope you like your slasher movies both annoying and silly, because that's the offering on this table, pals and gals. Looking for graphic violence, look elsewhere, because these days, this movie is just and hour and a half episode of 'Criminal Minds.' It's not even scary, at least, I didn't think so. So, let's examine the story: Real estate agents are falling victim to an unseen mad slasher. A guy down at the radio station is accepting callers, and it's awfully brave of the killer to call in to the radio station, and saying stuff to tick the DJ off. He feels the victims deserved it. What gave them the right to live like that, when other people just want to eat? Enough said. So, the DJ (played by Joseph Bottoms, underrated actor ) has a different problem on his hands, and its the fact that his girlfriend is a real estate agent, and he fears that her life may be next. There's talk about tracing the killers call, no, that could hurt the ratings. Callers have to be confidential. Hmmm. Does OPEN HOUSE want to be a slasher flick, or play as a drama. Maybe it's trying to be both, what's wrong with being experimental? I dig unique. The slayings? Very comical. We got about 1 minute of what YouTube would call a 'scream sequence', in which we have a real estate agent sliding down a wall, screaming her head off, as if she was the one being slayed, but all she's looking at is a fly infested, blood soaked dead body placed in a bath tub. Well, we know why you're selling homes, and not a cop, because you can't handle it! We have a male victim with a dumb Donald Trump haircut style knocked off, that's after he loses his fingers trying to close a door...and, maybe I'm the dumb dolt here, but why was he holding the door with his hand WAY OVER the doorknob, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR EVEN! And, lock yourself in a bathroom, where there was another door to exit out of? Why didn't they just go out that door, shouldn't the agent know these things if she's trying to sell that darn house? Next off, we have an electrocution, we have a severed head (done with an axe just laying outside, you'd think people would put that stuff away after they're done.) And, let's not forget the finale... a silly, letdown ending that we'll leave you wondering why, why, why. Why wasn't the movie a little more creative? Why was it so choppy? Why wasn't the dialouge a little smoother? I'm wondering why there wasn't a sequel. For the most part, OPEN HOUSE is a good movie. Overlook the silliness, that's half the battle. It's not super saturated with profanity, gore, or nudity, so I would go so far as to say it's okay for children 14 and up to watch. Just a few more comments on this movie: I think this has just about the most useless SWAT team I have ever seen. Then again, kudos for a slasher flick that even has a SWAT team. I think that's the funniest scene out of this movie, is watching SWAT team members ordered into the house where the killer is, and the killer is upstairs babbling and babbling and babbling and more and more babbling, WHAT IS TAKING THE SWAT TEAM SO LONG TO GET UP THERE? Oh, let's train our guns down on a dead body, looks like someone beat us to our job, boys, pack the team up, let's go on home. Brother! Find this little oldie, and give it a peek, you may be surprised.

Michael_Elliott Open House (1987) * (out of 4) There's no question that by the time 1987 came along the slasher genre was on its last legs. The majority of the big guys were still being released to theaters but with smaller box office takes and the majority of trash was heading straight to VHS. Just about every holiday and scenario were used just as long as innocent people were slaughtered and the psycho in OPEN HOUSE is after real estate agents who are charging too much for houses. One agent (Adrienne Barbeau) fears that she might be on the psycho's list so her DJ boyfriend (Joseph Bottoms) starts working with the police to try and capture the nut before more are slaughtered. There's no doubt that this is a horrid movie made by people with no intent on making a good movie. It's clear they were just trying to throw something (anything) together in order to take a few more breathes away from the genre that was clearly dying. There's not a single ounce of suspense to be found in any of the killings and the majority of the performances are downright bad. The screenplay is beyond a joke as we get some horrid dialogue but we also get a terrifically insane ending where the DJ, a radio psychiatrist, tries to get the killer to discuss his emotional pain!!! This film, on a technical level, certainly deserves the rarely given BOMB rating but I just can't do it because this thing is so incredibly bad that you'll probably find yourself laughing at most of it. Take one example where a man and woman lock themselves in a double door bathroom trying to keep the killer away. The killer can't get through door one so he then goes around to door two. The duo never try to escape and when the killer finally gets in he neither try to defend themselves and instead one just sits by while the other is killed waiting for their turn. The murders are all extremely silly including one where the killer takes the handle from a toilet plunger and puts razors on it. Fans of Barbeau will probably want to check this out since you'll at least get to see her naked. She's actually pretty good in the film as you can tell she's at least giving some effort. Bottoms is downright hilarious during certain moments as is Rudy Ramos as that guy who is usually screaming when it's not really necessary. OPEN HOUSE has a silly plot, silly murders, bad acting, bad special effects and all of this badness is what makes it worth sitting through at least once for fans of the genre. There's no question that it's a horrid movie but thankfully it's bad enough to where you can at least laugh at it and the final five-minutes are so brain dead, jaw-dropping insane that you'll be wishing there was a sequel.

zeppo-2 Now, let me see if I have this correct, a lunatic serial killer is going around murdering estate agents....okay...what's wrong with that scenario, I can live with that.What next, a slasher with tax inspectors butchered? Traffic wardens sliced to death? Are we supposed to feel any sympathy for empty headed and shallow, money obsessed property people? Er...no.Sadly, joking aside, it's just not a very well made film with poor acting and crude effects, the climatic scene is particularly silly. You can almost see the director shouting, 'action' to the stuntman as he falls through the glass of the window.As another reviewer quite rightly said, after starring in 'The Fog,' this was the nadir of Adrienne Barbeau's career. Therefore I was happy to see that she had rekindled it by becoming the voice of Catwoman in the Batman animated series, while watching the extras on the live action Catwoman film. NB: not quite the awful film it's made out to be, by the way.This however is a bad film, think a poor episode of 'Kojak' or 'Streets of San Francisco,' and you will get an idea of what is on offer here.

movieman_kev Lisa Grant (Adrienne Barbeau) is a real estate agent who finds herself in jeopardy of getting killed by a deranged maniac who kills people in her profession who he feels make house prices too high. As motives go, this is pretty damn retarded. Lisa's boyfriend happens to be a talk show host whom the killer keeps calling on-air. At first I was positive this was supposed to be a comedy or satire of some kind, but as the endless minutes drone on and on, I realized that it wasn't and the film was just grossly incompetent in every way, shape, and form. I'm just surprised that something this horrid wasn't directed by Jeff Lieberman (yea, email me some hate mail again, Jeff you hack) Anyway, back to the film, poor, poor Barbeau, you can pinpoint EXACTLY when her film career went down in flames and it all started here.My Grade: F Where I saw it: The Movie Channel