ONE EYE OPEN movie poster | ©2026 BayView Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Kushi Beauchamp, Chris Bylsma, Maximiliano Hernandez, Tori Kilkenny, Laura Kirk, Addison Landes, Guy Messenger, Hadley Norris, RJ Mitte, Kevin Willmott, Paul Fellers, Jamie Addison, Maren Wilson
Writer: Michael D. Coffey
Director: Michael D. Coffey
Distributor: BayView Entertainment
Release Date: October 16, 2026

There’s a sort of YA sensibility to ONE EYE OPEN, with supernatural entities normally to be feared being made lovable. For example, TWILIGHT has romantic rather than menacing vampires. In ONE EYE OPEN, we get familial love from ghosts.

ONE EYE OPEN was shot and is set in Lawrence, Kansas, which gives it some distinction. So does its main setting – an enormous mansion (kudos to the location manager), haunted by multiple spirits.

Samantha Rollins (Kushi Beauchamp), who just obtained her Master’s degree in Psych, lives here by herself. She’s the caretaker for her grandfather Hank (Guy Messenger), who is in a care facility and suffering from dementia, although he still recognizes Sam.

We see Sam in flashbacks as a little girl (Maren Wilson), playing hide and seek with Hank. He finds her in a closet, where she’s terrified because something seems to be in there with her.

In the present, when Sam gets tipsy at a graduation party, her best friend Jaime (Addison Landes) arranges for a ride service. Unfortunately, the driver, Chris (Chris Bylsma), seems entirely too interested in Sam’s home and Sam herself.

Sam manages to untangle herself from the situation, but shortly after she gets inside, there’s an unordered pizza delivery at the door. This is brought by Amanda (Tori Kilkenny). Sam unwisely goes to bed without first making sure Amanda has left the building.

Two things happen almost simultaneously, without Sam’s knowledge. One is that Hank finds his way back to the house and sees the ghost of his wife Jane (Laura Kirk) playing the piano. The other is that Amanda lets her masked brother Brad (the late RJ Mitte) in to help her rob the place.

Writer/director Michael D. Coffey stages some good jump scares, but his storytelling is uneven. Starting with a flashforward of Sam calling the police after she’s been attacked in the house seems intended to prompt suspense, but instead, we wonder why, since she’s in the car, she doesn’t drive away from the danger. Throughout the film’s earlier sections, knowing this is coming winds up just papering over a lull in the action that could have been dealt with in a more dynamic way.

More, Sam does or doesn’t do other things that feel more like matters of plot convenience than logic. When Sam finds Brad tied up in the basement with his mouth duct-taped shut, she understandably wonders who he is and why he’s there – but not, crucially, who bound him to a chair. Since the unknown individual responsible is still roaming the dwelling, this seems like it would be the biggest immediate issue. At another juncture, Sam fails to call the police for a reason that doesn’t pass common sense muster.

Finally, there are the ghosts. Since it doesn’t take long to establish that they are the good guys where Sam is concerned, they only alarm us when they appear suddenly. On the other hand, we don’t understand the extent of their powers, and why they act in certain circumstances and not in others.

Beauchamp and Landes have good, friendly chemistry, Messenger is properly warm, Bylsma is suitably odious, and Mitte is very good at conveying Brad’s increasing terror.

Viewers who generally like the pro-ghost/anti-burglar premise of ONE EYE OPEN will likely enjoy it. Others without this specific preference may want something a little scarier, more sensible, or both.

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