Welcome to the neighborhood.

Genre: Movie; Horror, Thriller
Director: Andrew Paquin
Release Date: Premiered April 24th, 2010 at the Tribeca Film Festival; straight to DVD on August 3rd, 2010 (U.S.)
Status: Out on DVD (Region 1 & 2)
MPAA Motion Picture Rating: R

Cast:

Brian Geraghty … as David
Tricia Helfer … as Lila
Rachel Blanchard … as Alice
Stephen Moyer … as Josh
Anna Paquin … as Jennie
Gabriel Olds … as Carl
Naja Hill … as Bethany
Jessica Collins … as Lauren
Gerald Downey … as Seth
Kris Wheeler … as Brian
Larry Sullivan … as Oscar

• Overview
• Memorable Lila Quotations
• Said of Open House
• Open House Movie Trivia
• Critical Reception
• Open House Online

More Open House images of Tricia in our Open House Photo Gallery

Hurting after a tough break-up, Alice (Rachel Blanchard) decides to put her house on the market hoping to move on with her life. But the open house event she hosts draws unforeseen interest from a pair of psychopathic house hunters. After concealing himself in her basement, David (Brian Geraghty) emerges in the night, kills Alice’s best friend, but inexplicably keeps Alice alive, hidden away in the crawl space of her own home. She listens through the floorboards as David and his sexually predatory partner Lila (Tricia Helfer) move in upstairs for a week of playing house.

From there, Alice becomes privy to Lila and David’s perverse relationship, and she soon realizes David has kept her existence a secret, a small act of rebellion against the domineering Lila. As David’s relationship with his hidden prisoner grows stronger, his twisted partnership with Lila begins to crack. But any chance that Alice has of surviving her ordeal is threatened by the disturbing revelation of the true nature of the bond between David and Lila.

* * * *

Tricia Helfer portrays Lila, David’s psychopathic and narcissistic partner who freely indulges in her sexual perversions at the expense of everyone around her. Lila is ruthlessly domineering of the quiet David, but although charming and confident on the outside, secretly Lila is painfully insecure about herself both emotionally and physically.

Lila: “I love the marble.”

Lila: “I love it. It’s home.”

Lila: “Come on, have some wine. One glass won’t kill you.”

Josh: “So what do you wanna tell me?”
Lila: “You’re all business, aren’t you, Josh?”
Josh: “No, I just have the feeling that you’re totally messing with me.”
Lila: “What if I am?”

Josh: “What about you, are you with anyone?”
Lila: “There is someone.”
Josh: “How do you make it work?”
Lila: “We have an open relationship.”

Lila: “It’s a little frightening at first when you realize you have… other desires, you know? How do you admit something like that to the person that most completes you? But if you cross the line together, and you’re honest with each other, it can bring you closer.”
Josh: “You tell him everything?”
Lila: “That’s part of the deal.”
Josh: “And what about him, do you believe he tells you everything?”
Lila: “Of course.”

Lila: “It’s so quiet here. I can’t wait to meet the neighbors.”

[Lila comes home from having been out on the town.]
Lila: “Hi!”
David: “Hi. Did you eat already?”
Lila: “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Lila: “I’m sorry I yelled. I don’t wanna yell. You just… you suffocate me.”
David: “I’m sorry.”
Lila: “I can’t be the only one who has to change, you know.”
David: “I know.”

[David notices Lila coming down the stairs with the laundry.]
David: “Lila, what are you doing?”
Lila: “Laundry.”
David: “I can do that.”
Lila: “I want to.”
David: “It’s not a problem, I don’t mind…”
Lila: “David, please. I’m trying.”

Lila: “You’re such a prude!”

Lila: “I don’t think you really love me.”
David: “Of course I do.”
Lila: “If you loved me you’d make me stop. You’re so fucking weak.”
David: “I tried to make you stop. You left me.”

[Carl is showing Alice's house to Lila thinking she wants to buy it.]
Lila: “I just have one question.”
Carl: “Okay.”
Lila: “It’s a bit of a personal question, actually.”
Carl: “Fire away.”
Lila: “I was wondering, do you ever get tempted?”
Carl: [laughs bemusedly] “I… don’t really know what you mean.”
Lila: “You know what I mean.”

[David has just ruined killing Carl for Lila by appearing too soon.]
Lila: “What the FUCK, David?!”
[Carl is on the floor, choking on his own blood.]
Lila: [upset] “I can’t believe you!”
David: “I’m sorry.”
Lila: [composing herself] “Will you move him to the bath? I don’t want the blood soaking through the ceiling downstairs.”

David: “He’s not dead.”
Lila: “I cut his artery, he will be.”

[Carl is choking to death in the bathtub.]
Lila: “I’m gonna use the other shower.”

Lila: “Where’d you go?”
David: “I was in the garage.”
Lila: “Oh. Thought I heard you talking to someone.”
David: “No!… I had to check on something.”
Lila: “What?”
David: “One of the bodies.”
Lila: “Oh. [pauses] Are they rotting?”
David: “Yeah, they’re starting to.”

Lila: “We love meeting new people.”

Seth: “Oh, what kind of work do you do, David?”
Lila: “He’s a writer.”
Brian: “What kind of stuff do you write?”
Lila: “Oh, come on, don’t be so shy.”
David: “It’s really just a hobby.”
Lila: “He’s writing a children’s book.”
Lauren: “Really? That’s wonderful! What’s it about?”
Lila: “It’s about two little children living in the woods…”
David: “Lila.”
Lila: “One day, a creature comes, tells them about this magical place just outside of the forest that has everything they could ever desire. He tells them that he’ll take them there on one condition — they can never go back to their home. So the children follow the creature all the way deep into the woods, but he’s running so fast that they can’t keep up. He leaves them, lost and all alone.”
David: “I asked you not to tell it.”
Lila: “But it’s so good. You shouldn’t be ashamed.”
[Lila's voice echoes in David's head and he's distracted from the conversation by a sudden, splitting headache, until roused back by Lila's voice.]
Lila: “David? David. Is that how it ends, baby? Is it? [continuing the story] And they can’t exactly fall in love because they’re brother and sister. That is what you wrote, right? Twins?”

Lila: “What did you think, David? That she really loved you? No one will ever love you except me.”

Select quotations regarding the film from Tricia Helfer and her co-workers:

On her character Lila:
“What I liked about Lila, what appealed to me in the script was there was more layer to the character than just being evil, seductive serial killer, kind of one note, icy so to speak. I saw when I read as just a real truth, psychosis, to the character and I wanted to try to portray that. You know you don’t expect her to have vulnerabilities but when she’s by herself you do see some glimpses of vulnerabilities in this narcissistic character.”
- Examiner.com interview, April 29 2010

On the filming experience and working with co-star Brian Geraghty (“David”):
“It was great working with Brian Geraghty, he is the playoff between the two of us. We’re playing siblings and his character kept his emotions in and was very reserved in many ways until he lashed out. And it was a very dominate sort of relationship. So I think one of the challenges was playing with him and finding the right balance of the Lila character, who’s very strong and out there and outspoken. Definitely the dominant. And just her having to react to her brother and how she shows love to him but controlling him. [...] On set just working with Brian was great. He’s great to work with. He’s very much an active actor. The whole environment on set was great. It was a nice environment to be able to talk about the scenes, talk about the motivations, and not just show up and say your lines. It was really a supportive environment. And you know when you’re dealing with tough material like that you do want to bring a truth to it and a realism to it. You need to discuss it and have a good communication with your other actors and director.”
- Examiner.com interview, April 29 2010

• Open House was filmed entirely in director Andrew Paquin’s own home.

• Although it is only indirectly alluded to in the film, Lila and David are brother and sister.

• Actor Gabriel Olds (“Carl”) also appeared in the TNT series Franklin & Bash in 2011 in the same episode as Tricia. Unlike in Open House, however, they did not share any scenes together on the show.

• Although Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are prominently featured in the promotional material, they appear only briefly in the film and do not share any scenes together. Because HBO’s True Blood, in which Paquin and Moyer both star in leading roles, had become very popular at that point, their names were likely lifted to the front to boost the film’s DVD sales.

As Open House went straight to DVD in the U.S. and Canada, the film was never widely reviewed, and the handful of reviews from its Tribeca Film Festival premiere were largely negative, even though Brian Geraghty and Tricia Helfer’s respective performances were commended almost as frequently as the film was panned overall.

IMDb user rating: 4.3/10 (with 1,379 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes rating: No rating

Extracts from professional reviews:

“Where Open House‘s strengths lie are in its cinematography and direction. Paquin shows potential in this first outing for sure. The film looks crisp, moody, and Geraghty’s character is admittedly unsettling. Tricia Helfer also does a good job as the sexed up murderess. No doubt she’ll win over some portion of male viewers. [...] For a debut film, Open House shows promise from Andrew Paquin, but as a psychological thriller and/or slasher film, there are far better movies in these genres that one might want to view. With that said, Brian Geraghty and Tricia Helfer put on wonderful performances and the Blu-ray from Lionsgate will certainly give you an excellent home theatre experience.”
- Brandon DuHamel, Blu-RayDefinition.com

“While fans of the HBO vampire series may be disappointed to learn the two don’t have larger roles, Geraghty and Helfer both do an impressive job as the film’s resident psychopaths. Quick to slice and dice any unlucky schmuck who wonders in to investigate the missing Alice, David and Lila ooze with repressed danger like a coiled rattlesnake. At once both sexy and extremely creepy, the two are a loosely defined couple – their true relationship never established. The hints the film provides, though, are enough to unnerve. [...] The biggest problems with Open House have to do with the weak script. Instead of building strong characters to inflict fear and danger onto, Paquin throws one-note paper dolls against an intriguing scenario and hopes they stick. The script focuses too much on the sexual chemistry seeping from Battlestar Galactica star Tricia Helfer as she seduces and then promptly murders man after man. While Helfer is able to channel the right combinations of sexy and deadly, her role does not have much depth to it. The movie is filled with characters with as much dimension as M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender in 3D. We don’t need to see an elaborate backstory behind the characters but if Paquin had given the actors a little more meat to work with Open House could have been a real winner.”
- Robert Saucedo, Inside Pulse Movies

“A strange but not entirely unsatisfying mixture of sly social commentary and straight slasher flick, Andrew Paquin’s Open House is hardly the scariest or most original horror flick you’ll come across, but this indie feature (which premiered earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival) boasts a polished veneer, a tone that wavers between ferocious and slightly askew, and more than enough gory stuff to keep the splat fans happy. Toss in a few very strong performances, a few familiar faces you may enjoy (including the director’s sister, Anna Paquin), and a nice tightening of the tension once Act III kicks in, and you have a “straight to video” horror flick that actually has a little artistry to it. [...] It certainly helps that the three leads are so strong (particularly the domineering Helfer and the weak-willed Geraghty), that a few familiar faces pop up for a little carnage, and that Act III ramps up with some sincerely palpable tension.”
- Scott Weinberg, FearNET

Awards & Nominations

Open House has not received any awards or nominations.

Tricia Helfer Fan: Personal Thoughts

Sandra – I’m really, really not keen on horror movies, so I wasn’t very excited to see this one to be honest, but although blood was aplenty at times I was surprised by its restrained use overall as well as by the slow, reflective pace of the film in general, and in fact the film is really more a psychological study than a traditional slasher horror (although those elements are still there). It doesn’t quite keep it together all the way, but there’s an interesting contrast between the horror of what happens and the undramatic, minimalist way in which it’s presented which keeps you interested almost to the end. It won’t please everyone (especially not anyone who expected to see a lot of Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer based on the DVD cover — really think the distributor shot themselves in the leg on that one), but I think it will surprise many (it did me).

At the same time, as Lila, Tricia is simply outstanding, and really carries the film with Brian Geraghty. Although the vicious Lila is naturally neither very likable nor relatable, her being completely unempathetic and quite irritatingly dependent of David, as a character she’s an interesting departure for Tricia from her earlier roles. Tricia’s particularly great in the few moments in which Lila’s real insecurity reveals itself, such as one in which Lila quietly observes herself critically in the mirror, and another in which she completely loses it when she can’t figure out the washing machine. An intriguing, if a little one-dimensional, role which Tricia simply owns.

Below are some Open House-related links that may be of interest to you.

• Open House official site
• Open House TFL-approved fanlisting
• Open House TFL-approved Lila character fanlisting
• Open House on IMDb.com
• Open House on RottenTomatoes.com
• Open House on Wikipedia.org

• Andrew Paquin on IMDb.com
• Andrew Paquin on Wikipedia.org

• Anna Paquin on Anna Paquin Online
• Stephen Moyer on Simply Moyer