Open Windows – CBF Review

Sasha Grey’s boobs, especially. They’re out there, already.

I only saw this movie for two reasons:

1. I wanted to see if Elijah Wood could follow up Maniac, and become a bonafide Scream King;
2. And I plan to finally get around to watching Unfriended soon, and thought this would be a warm-up/proof-of-concept for the exciting new subgenre of “all on the screen” horror movies.

I was disappointed in both departments.

The plot starts out simply enough, with Elijah playing a fan of actress Sasha Grey. She supposedly jilts him out of a contest he won to meet her, and Elijah is then contacted by a mysterious hacker who helps him spy on Sasha without her knowledge. Things continually escalate, with the requisite nonsensical hacker hijinks, and in the end it turns out that Elijah is actually another super hacker who had plastic surgery and posed as Real Elijah to flush Phone Guy out of the woodwork (Phone Guy tried to kill Fake Elijah one time). Sasha seems to be merely incidental, but she and Fake Elijah end up going to live happily ever after in an underground bunker or something. And it all conveniently unfolds on your laptop screen.

I hate this movie because it ends up as a bizarre, ridiculous fuck-up (a plastic surgery twist-a-roo? Fucking really?); Sasha Grey, try as she might, is not a stellar actress; and part of the finale involves Phone Guy setting up Sasha in a death trap that she’ll only survive if her online fans don’t watch the live stream of it. Untraceable already did that, and much, much better.

But it’s not all bad because Elijah Wood fills the role perfectly, and turns in a decent effort; up until the clusterfuck finale, the plot had the makings of an adequate little thriller; and the trio of hackers who help Elijah were a pleasant surprise.

Verdict: 1 out of 5 stars.

I was tempted to give it 2 stars, but I’ll slap it with a 1, which leaves Unfriended with the chance to better it. Though, I’m not hopeful.

Not even your dreams would be as WTF as this movie’s final act.