The Open House (2018)
Directed by Matt Angel
No — The Open House is not woke, scoring 6 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
The Open House arrives from 2018 as a Netflix release, directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote, and it concerns Naomi and her teenage son Logan, who lose a husband and father to a car and then lose their footing in the world.
Consciousness Markers
The cast includes a Black actor (Sharif Atkins) in a supporting role, but the film makes no comment on race or diversity and the character exists purely as a plot device before being killed off.
Co-director Suzanne Coote is a woman and the film centers on a mother-son relationship, but there is no feminist messaging, critique, or agenda driving the narrative.
The neighbor Martha is depicted with Alzheimer's-related confusion, but this is used as a red-herring plot device rather than an affirming or thoughtful portrayal of neurodivergence.
The family's financial precarity (unemployment, inability to afford a hotel) is a plot mechanic to trap them in the house, not a critique of capitalism or wealth.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext of any kind appear in the film.
The film contains no engagement with racial themes, systemic racism, or racial identity whatsoever.
There is no environmental or climate-related content in the film.
No body positivity themes or diverse body representation are present.
The film is a straightforward contemporary horror story with no historical revisionism or reframing of past events.
The film offers no social messaging, moralizing, or didactic commentary; it is a conventional slasher-adjacent thriller.
Why it received this score
The Open House arrives from 2018 as a Netflix release, directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote, and it concerns Naomi and her teenage son Logan, who lose a husband and father to a car and then lose their footing in the world. They take up residence in a mountain chalet owned by a relative, on the condition that they vacate every Sunday for the open house. Strange noises follow. Objects move. The hot water tank misbehaves. It is a haunted house picture in which the house is not haunted, only occupied, and the distinction does not improve matters.
For a work of this vintage, the social ledger is nearly blank. Coote shares a directing credit and the story orbits a mother and son, which registers as a faint pulse of female authorship with no argument attached. Sharif Atkins appears as Chris, a store clerk whose purpose is a single night on the couch and a slashed throat, and the film offers no comment on race whatsoever. The neighbor Martha has Alzheimer's, a fact deployed strictly as misdirection before the killer is revealed. This is not a portrait of cognitive decline. It is a clue. Naomi and Logan cannot afford a hotel, which keeps them in the house, and their poverty functions as a lock on a door. No lament for the working poor. Just a reason to stay.
The rest of the cultural inventory is empty. No LGBTQ content, no climate anxiety, no body politics, no historical revisionism, no sermonizing. The film has no message and no evident interest in acquiring one. Critics were unkind at the time and they were correct to be. The picture is a slasher-adjacent thriller with no agenda beyond the next open house, and it earns its 7 percent approval rating honestly. In the great ledger of social consciousness, this is a blank page with a corpse on it.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
A teenager and his mother find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house.
Questions about The Open House
Is The Open House woke?
No — The Open House is not woke, scoring 6 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does The Open House have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Representation Casting at 12.
How does The Open House compare to other 2018 movies?
It ranks #244 of the 325 films from 2018 we've scored; their average is 20. The wokest is Return (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.