Do Not Open is a supernatural thriller about the dangers of an over reliance on technology. Written and directed by Brian Babarik (who also appears in a brief cameo), this paranoid horror focusses on one dysfunctional family and the computer virus that transcends media to infect them.
Daughter (Noelle Gutierrez) begins the movie by opening a strange email that promises her acceptance. This is the catalyst for all to follow, as this simple act somehow releases a virus onto the home network that slowly begins to cause technology to warp the minds of the family members. All characters are obsessed with technology, Daughter with her social media and music, Son (Kian Lawson-Khalili) with his video games, Mom (Johanna Smitz) with the self help videos she watches on YouTube, and Dad (Tomas Engström) with his affair partner's messages. The virus soon begins to insidiously twist and change the family members, leading to a violent eruption of misery and hate.
This was an odd film, and one that never gives the viewer the opportunity to like the protagonists. Due to the reliance on technology this family feel very separate from each other. This is best shown in the scenes where they are all sat together to watch TV, but each member is on their own device. The characters were all so weird, the Mom the prime example. Hinted to be suffering some sort of mental health crisis, she has a perpetual smile on her face, seeming to be existing in a delusional state where everything is great. This mental health situation is never really addressed, though it is hinted it stems from an abusive childhood the woman had. I don't know the age of the actress playing Mom, but I did find it distracting that she only seemed to be a few years older than her apparent biological daughter. Both parents looked too young to have children in their middle to late teens. I also have to add that the obnoxiously large text size on Daughter's laptop and phone appeared to be that size purely so that the viewer was able to read her messages. The characters were all heavily flawed, Son being a stereotypical angry teenager, Dad getting increasingly bad thoughts about Daughter, and Daughter herself under pressure in her online social circle. In addition to the bad side of technology, there are also moments that cover toxic masculinity which felt of the time.
The horror comes from the slow change that begins to transform the family from dysfunctional to increasingly deranged dysfunctionality. It is a bit of a slow burn, and due to the family not really being able to communicate with each other, it was hard to feel involved in the events of the movie. The first hour takes place exclusively in the family home, the viewer made to often feel like a voyeur, with plenty of shots set up as if the film was a found footage. Horror mainly comes from the digital virus affecting the world around the characters. Mom and Daughter both have hallucinations of ghostly assailants, while Son's gamer clan leader gets him to do increasingly bad things, as does the self help guru that Mom is obsessed with. There were some decent moments mixed in. I liked the guru increasingly appearing to directly be talking to Mom, and the third act that sees a scene shift to a technology-less cabin out in woodland finally had events picking up. I did feel for most of the run time that it always felt like Do Not Open was just about to get good, but unfortunately it doesn't really ever manage to be that.
I wanted to like Do Not Open more than I did, but the weirdness of the family dynamic, and little attempt to make these characters at all relatable left me feeling cold more than anything. It begin to show signs of getting good in the bonkers third act, but with the 'evil' of the film being so abstract I never really got a good handle on why things were happening like they were. Do Not Open released across English-speaking territories on November 12th, with Glass House Distribution set to sell to the rest of the world at the upcoming American Film Market in Las Vegas.
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