Open Windows (2 Stars)

When I wrote my first review of "Unfriended" I called it outstandingly original as the first film in a new genre, which I called the real-time computer screen genre. A friend of mine said that it's not original, because it had already been done in a film called "Open Windows". That made me curious, so I would have bought it straight away, but it wasn't available. So I forgot about it.

Until now. I discovered that it's available on Amazon Prime, so I had to watch it.

Let me answer my friend first. "Open Windows" was made in 2014, a year before "Unfriended", but it's difficult for me to watch it without comparing it to "Unfriended". If "Unfriended" had been made first, "Open Windows" would be a poor copy, attempting to copy the atmosphere of the new genre but missing the mark.

"Open Windows" is a film that takes place in real time, and a lot of it takes place on computer screens, but that's it. Notice I said screens in the plural. The first hour takes place on one computer screen. Then we switch to another. Then there's a sequence that takes place in point-of-view mode, imitating a mobile phone's camera view, except it isn't. Finally there's a scene which isn't on a computer screen, but it's broken up into frames as if it were.

To concentrate on the first hour, we never see the whole computer screen, just one or two windows side by side, i.e. an excerpt of the screen. These aren't familiar applications, like Facebook, YouTube or Skype. They're artificial apps, videos planted on the screen by a hacker called Chord. They show things happening simultaneously at different places, so the camera jumps from one video to another. Whereas the computer screen is an essential part of "Unfriended", in "Open Windows" it's a superfluous gimmick. It could just as well have been a real-time film without using a computer screen. In fact, the film would have been better without the computer screen. The computer is just a distraction.

Now let me describe the plot itself. Nick Chambers is the webmaster of a fan site dedicated to the actress Jill Goddard. He's won a contest, for which the prize is a dinner date with the actress herself. When he arrives in the hotel he's told by Chord, who claims to be Jill's manager, that she doesn't want to meet him. Chord tells Nick that he has hacked into Jill's computer, her mobile phone, the hotel security cameras and many other devices, so he can arrange for Nick to watch Jill having sex with her boyfriend. This never happens. The boyfriend discovers that Nick is watching him and comes to his hotel room, where Nick knocks him unconscious with a taser.

Nick flees, while Jill is kidnapped by Chord, who she's never seen before. There are exciting car chases, or at least they would be exciting if they were shown normally instead of through the webcam of Nick's laptop on his passenger seat.

It's difficult to explain just how bad the film is. Apart from the (deliberately) poor cinematography, the level of the hacking is ridiculous. At the end Chord takes control of every computer in the world that's connected to the Internet. What? And the hacker can turn the light in Nick's bedroom on and off. Is that connected to the Internet as well? The hacker can also open a hotel door. Are the door hinges connected to the Internet? It's all too stupid for words. The director should have hired a computer expert to advise him on what's possible now, what might be possible in the near future and what will never be possible.

On the plus side, Elijah Wood is a good actor with his big blue eyes, and the gratuitous nudity from Sasha Grey is enjoyable. That's it.

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