Open House (1987)

There's a certain kind of 80's gunk that I can't wash off of me after Open House: a fiendish brew of Hollywood cheese and San Fernando skeeze. And no, it's not the neon, the permaperms, or the polyester; it's the unshakable feeling that Open House is an accident of a film, the unfortunate result borne from a group of filmmakers who were trying to make a porno, failed at that somehow, and decided to do a slasher movie instead--because, y'know, that's easier. I mean, just look at the lead actor('s name):

I'm sure he had a fantastic childhood.

But, funnily enough, despite the air of porniness that pervades the film, there's actually very little in the way of actual titillation; most of the boobage we get is more suggested at than actually shown, the director shying away from full-frontal nudity and instead exploring backsides and side-angles. No, the truth of Open House's origins come across in the camera angles, the title, the budget, and most importantly, the dialogue:

REAL ESTATE AGENT
Well, this is the master bedroom.

MR PEARCY
(running his hand through her hair, pulling her up for a kiss)
Mmmm, it sure is.

............................

DAVID
What really turns him on?

MARYLOU

Oh...wine, candles, those little baby carrots...and me, in black lingerie.

............................

BARNEY RESNICK
Your rear end is negotiable if I want it to be!

...and so forth, for 98 minutes straight.

For the most part, though, Open House fails to live up to its own self-created hype. A much better title would be Sexy Radio Psychologist Does Stuff; Bottoms plays the role of David Kelley, a psychiatrist who hosts a call-in radio show. Most of the film centers on David, who's only tangentially tied to the murders through most of the film thanks to his realtor girlfriend Lisa. Well, that and the fact that the killer likes to call in to David's show to constantly remind us that the victims of these murders are "uppity real estate bitches" (the phrase is used in every call he makes, which, by my count, was roughly five) who "had it coming".

Thankfully, David is as perplexed by this overt braggadocio as we are.

The film drags on at a languid pace from there, almost episodic in its presentation of its material. A realtor will be showing a house, she'll be killed, David's show will be called, we'll have some footage of the police investigation, and David will go to a house that his girlfriend was showing that day to boink her brains out and then sleep.

Inexplicably, said diddling requires a large array of balloons. No, I don't understand it, either.

Things only really pick up with about a quarter of an hour left in the movie; the killer (surprise!) kidnaps Lisa, sending David on a chase through Los Angeles in order to save her. David, sadly, reduces the time he has available to save her from one hour down to 30 minutes thanks to his inability to stop insulting the killer when he telephones the radio station. Some psychiatrist indeed.

And, in its most stunning moment of realism, the film doesn't shy away from the gritty realities of driving in Los Angeles.

But David arrives in time, and the day is saved. Almost. We have to sit through the obligatory lengthy rant from the killer, first, though--and it's a doozy, folks. You see, Mr. Killer is a homeless man, living in abandoned houses in LA that get bought up by real estate companies. Poor Mr. Killer takes good care of these places while he slums it up in 'em and then just gets tossed to the wayside when these "uppity bitches" (6!) try to sell his home. They've made homes too expensive! Them and the corporations with all their stuff! Poor Mr. Killer can't get by! The cognitive dissonance of the screenwriters kicks in to maximum overdrive, and yet David lets Mr. Killer just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and...fuck, it's enough for you to wish that someone would just come in and shoot the guy.

Which, thankfully, happens.

So we get our happy ending. The hobo gets shot (he comes back to life for a bit, but a little bit of They Live-ish fight choreography takes care of that), Lisa's saved, everybody pats themselves on the back, and we're able to go back to our standard running gag of Lisa calling into David's show and making innuendos as the credits roll. Yawn.

I'll give credit to Open House where it's due. There's some creative deaths, for sure: a plunger with razor blades stuck in it that might just be the inspiration for the razor-bat in Hobo With A Shotgun (2011) here, a woman bound and gagged and electrocuted by a light switch there. There's even a truly haunting moment when the film shuts up for a bit and just focuses on a corpse hanging from a garden hose as seen through an outside window in complete and utter silence.

By far, the best part of Open House is the character of Barney Resnick: a sleazy real estate agent in competition with Lisa whose only purpose in life seems to be to fuck everybody else's shit up. Barney hires local punx to wreck properties other realtors are planning on showing, uncomfortably hits on every female character that crosses his path, and damn near gets away with it all. The fact that he's played by an enormous ham who likes to yell all the time only helps his cause.

In a better world, this man has his own movie.

My biggest problem with the film is the fact that the killer cannot fucking shut up. Even before his horrendously long monologue about the evils of the late-80's real estate boom, he's a loudmouth. His calls into David's radio show last for agonizingly long periods of time and go absolutely nowhere, and during the slayings, he giggles uncontrollably, laughing like a Teletubby attacked by nerve gas and breaking any sort of creepy tension the film might have been setting up. The effect is less Norman Bates and more Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988).

Of special note is the soundtrack: it reeks of "we-stole-this-all-from-Bladerunner", with its silky tenor sax lines interwoven with cheesy Casio synth sounds, to the point where the music begins to grate on the listener by about a half hour into the movie; like I said earlier, that hanging scene is serious fucking respite.

Aside from that, the film falls apart due to its own damn clunky fault. Open House refuses to decide whether it's a sex romp, a straight horror, or a detective story, instead just joining all three together and hoping you won't notice. There's even lunkheaded attempts at making the film some sort of social problem picture, thanks to the homeless culprit. Of even greater note is the side story involving the LAPD and the character of Lt. Shapiro, the world's laziest cop, who refuses to do anything to actually investigate the murders and instead just mumbles/yells (he changes depending on his mood) about checking the local loony bins and sorting through the loony toons who might've done this and rambling about all the wackos in the world. It's enough to make you think the real purpose of Open House was to criticize the LAPD, a very easy thing to do in the world of the late 80's and early 90's.

And then it tosses something like this at you.

First boob: 28 minutes. NOT FULL FRONTAL.

First blood: 2 minutes, 46 seconds.

Overall rating:

Open House is available on VHS and Netflix Instant.