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jlangford79
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The Open House (2018)
An Open Deception
I generally shy away from plot-twisting, content-reorienting flicks, but after watching the trailer for The Open House, it had me intrigued. That was until the last twenty minutes of the film.
First, the cinematography was brilliant. Lighting, hues, angles, and the locations were stunning; even the shots of the landscape illustrated the story's setting in way that most viewers readily forget when they are watching a movie.
As for the story, the film opens with a horrible accident affecting both son and mother. The family copes by staying at a relative's house that's on the market and is currently hosting an open house (re: the movie title). As the plot moves along, the relationship between mother and son builds, leaving the viewer with a sense that the traumatic incident in their past can start to resolve itself. The acting between Dylan Minnette (Logan) and Piercey Dalton (Naomi) melded into a seamless, integrated arrangement of blended emotions. For example, the scene at the diner where the mother has trouble with the credit card and the son pulls out money to handle the bill. The movie's writers nailed the tone. Even the fraught, emotional scene where the two are angry at each other after Naomi receives Logan's phone from the repairman. All great examples of contextualizing dialog. So what went wrong?
Whether it was production costs, time constraints, a last minute rewrite, or someone's attitude spoiling the whole project, I was left scratching my scalp.
Throughout the film, the viewers get to peek at interesting tidbits that make for a build up of an interesting whodunit or a Two Thousand Maniacs!-inspired town with a dark, cult-like reputation for handling strangers. Martha shows up in several scenes to relate sometimes contradictory accounts and statements. The camera follows Chris, the flirtatious retail clerk, as he tours the house and makes a suspicious dip into the ominous basement. Even the realtor's assistant gives off an air as if his being in the house after hours is seemingly innocuous. Finally, the plumber makes what would be a simple troubleshooting fix into a repair that takes quite a while for something as simple as a pilot light being turned off. These instances would ultimately negate themselves by the end of the film, a confusing amalgamation similar to the nutraloaf that prisons dole out as punishment-food for a prisoner's bad behavior. Simply put, the last twenty minutes were as painfully confusing as watching a beaver build a dam in a bathtub. I'm honestly glad that the movie didn't require payment for admission because my foot might be in someone's ass at Netflix's headquarters.
To those people responsible for The Open House's release, stop trying to placate your audience's sensibilities with cheap, derivative schlock in place of honest, thought-provoking writing.
Unacknowledged (2017)
An Extraordinary Review of Ordinary Evidence
I've seen my share of ET/UFO conspiracy fluff through the 1990s and into the 2010s. There's nothing unique or special about Unacknowledged. The problems with conspiracy theories are: 1. They use very limited evidence to support a theory that would take a massive entity to cover-up. 2. There is at times logical fallacies to support claims (e.g. - If the government isn't providing or denying the existence of evidence, they must be covering it up.). 3. There's a hidden agenda by theorists, production companies, book-sellers, etc to keep pumping up the rhetoric so more people buy their products.The producers wouldn't release the film if they couldn't make money from it, and that is the only motivation for releasing this film. There are loads of people that believe ETs are visiting Earth and want to reach out and communicate; that the government has suppressed facts about labor-freeing ET-technology that will save civilization; that the government is experimenting with alien technology. These are the same people that watch Doomsday Bunkers on cable TV, waiting for the next cataclysmic event instead of doing something meaningful with their time. The documentary uses a quote from Carl Sagan "The extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence." Unacknowledged is not supporting its extraordinary claims.
Hidden (2015)
Where'd They Use the Bathroom?
The plot and story held up until the last thirty minutes of the movie when the viewers are introduced to the antagonists. Without getting too far into the origins of the apocalyptic setting, we find out there is a "virus" that everyone is escaping from. Then the directors/writers/producers throw a curve ball, a cinematic Shyamalan-twist that belittles the audience's anticipation for a monster-ending. Instead, we find out the family is infected with the virus, and they turn into C.H.U.D.s (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers{or maybe just H.U.D.s}). They have the ability to flip the mutation/virus on and off when they feel threatened.
So yeah, a bit disappointed that the "breathers" weren't giant, mutated beasts, but not entirely disappointed with the movie overall. Decent story, plot, acting up until the last 30 minutes . . . and where were they taking shits?