Review by Jason Minton

Open House – 1987



Real estate agents are some of the lowest lifeforms ranking just above used car salesmen. In the city of Angels, someone is killing them off. A local radio station talk show called the Survival Line begins receiving calls from a man believed to be the killer. Police begin working with the therapy talk show, trying to track down this Real Estate Killer. Unfortunately for the shows host Dr. David Kelley (Joseph Bottoms), his girlfriend Lisa (Adrienne Barbeau) is one of those low life real estate agents. “People are just dying to get in” to her listings. It becomes a race against time for the therapist doctor to try and stop a killer before his girl ends up on the list of dead bodies. “Now it’s open season for murder.”

Writer and director Jag Mundhra gets a little confused on whether he’s making a campy slasher, late night skin flick or a made for tv murder mystery. The campiness is found in the kills and the kills are the best part of the film, doubling down on the enjoyment factor. With a plot of a bunch of beautiful women getting hacked to death by a loose boot wearing madman, what’s not to enjoy? Bodies are pieced apart and comically placed, chopped off fingers twitch on the ground and actors stand and scream with little resistance as they’re slashed to death with a razor blade on a toilet plunger. Yes I said toilet plunger.

Unfortunately that’s where the 80’s greatness ends. The mesh of slasher, skin flick and murder mystery combines like oil and water. Adrienne Barbeau and Joseph Bottoms do the best they can with unrealistic story progression and dialogue straight from an 80’s sitcoms. Like the majority of slasher movies, most of the fun comes in the kills. There is 80’s greatness there. If nothing else this mostly forgotten slasher is worth a re-watch just for the sex and death scenes.

2 out of 5 Headless Critics