Open Windows and CHUCKY ALERT!

CHUCKY ALERT! CHUCKY ALERT!

The most wonderful woman in the world, Jennifer Tilly, has been tweeting up a storm as she begins filming Cult of Chucky out in Manitoba. And the photos are amazing:

The one of Tiffany made me so happy I cried a little bit. GODDAMNIT I CANT WAIT FOR THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!

Anyway, we've had like four major snowstorms over the past few days which is some complete bullshit and we have another happening right now. So I watched Open Windows because I've put it off for a long time thinking it would just be another version of The Den. But I was wrong! Let's talk about it....

OPEN WINDOWS (2014)

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Open Windows came out in 2014 and stars Elijah Wood, Sasha Grey and Neil Maskell.

Nick Chambers (played by Elijah Wood) runs a fan site for his favorite actress, Jill Goddard (played by Sasha Grey). Nick has won what he believes to be a contest where he will get to have dinner with Jill after her convention appearance for her new movie. When Nick is set up at the hotel he is watching the live stream of the convention when he gets a facetime call from a stranger named Chord (Neil Maskell). At first, Nick believes Chord works for Jill’s team and is cancelling the dinner meet and greet. But soon things get quickly out of control after Chord gives Nick access to Jill’s iphone and they start tracking her phone calls. Jill is headed to the hotel where Nick is staying at to meet her agent (and secret boyfriend) and Chord convinces Nick to set up a camera that watches their hotel room.

But when the agent spots Nick spying on them, things turn haywire very quickly and Nick finds himself wrapped up in a fight for his and Jill’s life.

Overall?

This film is…ambitious.

It’s very “Rear Window” like at the beginning but obviously plays on pulling this off with modern technology. Are we not all “rear window-ing” each other nowadays? The first part is also sort of commenting on that pop culture instinct that we see every day that celebrities “owe” us something. Chord complains about the lack of breast shots of Jill in the media and blames her for that.

The film takes place using various screens like Nick’s webcam, Jill’s phone, a dashboard cam, Chord’s equipment etc. But again, this film is ambitious and so comes off a little ridiculous really quick. There’s so many twists in this movie that it gets confusing and if you even stop for a second to think through the logic it quickly falls apart. And considering I was multi-tasking while watching this movie, I actually got more annoyed by the “logic” instead of just watching it straight through.

It’s edited in a way though that keeps the movie moving fast and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Elijah Wood’s performance is really great and believable which helps. But Nick as a character is questionably flawed – who accepts a random call on their computer and then does everything that person says no matter how ridiculous?

And again, with the lack of logic, I’m left with a lot of questions.

I did have a good time watching it, it plays more like a fast paced thriller than a horror film, and will most likely watch it again.

6/10

Stay spooky!