Do Not Open (2024) – Horror Movie Review

Do Not Open (2024)

Written and Directed by Brian Babarik

After arguing with her parents a distraught teen opens an email promising acceptance, but what the message delivers infects the whole family.

There are some mild spoilers ahead for Do Not Open

We all know the internet and social media are inherently bad for us…

…don’t we?

Well, not entirely but, in a world where acceptance and fitting-in is key, it is a powerful and dangerous tool that can have both positive, but also very negative, impacts on those who rely on it a little too much.

Do Not Open drives this home in a weird and ultimately violent way in a movie that I suspect many will either love or hate, but which I found compelling despite its (to me) flaws.

Daughter (Noëlle Gutierrez) is a typical teen, wanting to go out with friends and explore the world while her parents are keen to protect her. She, of course, sees this as a dictatorship and arguments ensue. Upset by her situation she downloads an app that promises acceptance, but at what price? 

The audience gets to know this app may well be dodgy when the lights on the family router turn red in the middle of the night as the app infects the house and all of the devices within it.

As the days unfold, each member of the family becomes slowly more infected and affected. Son’s (Kian Lawson Khalili) promising career as a professional gamer is marred as he puts acceptance by his anonymous online clan over friendship. Mom (Johanna Smitz) becomes more and more obsessed with online self-help videos, seemingly watching them 24 hours a day while reliving the abuse of her past. Dad (Tomas Engström) falls victim to a scammer and Daughter’s sex-tape is leaked online and to all the family’s contacts despite her claims that it never happened.

In an attempt to escape the dangers of the online world, they drive out into the country to an old family cabin, without any devices, to get back to normality and reconnect as a family. And it works… for a time.

But someone smuggles a phone with them and the infection follows, leading to a violent and bloody evaluation of the impact of living online.

Once you write all that down it starts to sound a little dark.

And it is.

But I also found it a little difficult to take too seriously at the start.

Some of the acting feels ‘off’ and sometimes a little over the top. Mom for instance grins like a Cheshire Cat for half the movie, making it feel like she needs another acting class. However, as the movie develops and we learn more about the family and Mom’s past, it feels less like a smile than a fixed grimace, hiding her pain, and then things start to make a bit more sense.

Another issue for me was that, while Do Not Open is not listed as a comedy, it has some odd moments that are comedic, but which still felt a bit odd. When Dad gets caught masturbating to his internet sex worker by Son, the issue is resolved by a good old family laugh around the dinner table as Mom serves hot sausages. It is not a consistent trend throughout the movie, so it doesn’t feel like it is designed to be comedic, but it did, for me, mean the tone of the movie wavered and hence I took a bit of time to warm to it.

It may be a cultural thing

But it definitely took me longer to settle into the film than usual and I was worried that this was going to end up being a bit weak; an attempt to be ‘quirky’ which was going to fail against the seriousness of the overall message.

However, it is worth sticking with Do Not Open as, although it may not be the best film I have seen in recent years and the message it puts across is not a subtle one, the end effect is a film that has impact and will make you think a little more about your own use of the online world.

Images of the family sitting in front of the television at night, Dad and Daughter on their phones, Son playing handheld videogames, and Mom plugged in to her laptop are probably repeated in real life around the country/world every night and will definitely make you uncomfortable if you even just find yourself checking your phone in the company of you family.

I would have liked to have learned a bit more about the app

Especially the mysterious self-help mentor, the Evangelist (James Studdert) who Mom is obsessed with. He is only onscreen for a few seconds here and there, but it is clear he has a significant role in what is going on around the family, potentially even exerting some control over their actions and behaviour. But we never get more than a hint, but perhaps that will be saved for the sequel (Do Not Re-Open, anyone?) as, while the movie ends with a satisfying resolution, the whole story is just beginning.

Babarik has made a decent, if slightly odd at times, horror exploring the effects of social media on our lives. While most of us (hopefully) won’t end up down the same path to self-destruction as the family in Do Not Open, it will give you a bit of food for thought, next time you realise you have been doomscrolling on Twitter.

Do Not Open is available on streaming platforms from 12^th November.