Silent House

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) is helping her father (Adam Trese) and uncle (Eric Sheffer Stevens) to renovate the family's old lakeside house before selling it. It's a place they have rarely visited in years. Local kids have smashed all the windows and blown the electrics meaning that the boarded up windows let in no light. The only light available is that which comes from a torch or hand-held lamp. While in the semi darkness and after her uncle has left for the day, Sarah hears a noise which her father goes to check out. He never returns. Sarah is left alone in the house with someone or something out to get her and her family and no way out.

The whole film was shot in such a way as that it looks like one continuous shot. I noticed the odd cut here and there but overall the idea is very successful. It genuinely feels as though Elizabeth Olsen is in the house for 85 minutes, running, hiding from and fighting whatever is after her. Using just one camera, Olsen is on screen for about 84 of the 85 minutes and has to carry the entire film. She does so with great aplomb. The one shot idea isn't original and indeed the film itself is a remake of a 2010 Uruguayan film but it's a nice gimmick that is well used.

The house is brilliantly dressed to maximise the creepy feeling. It creaks and whistles and is filled with all manner of sinister fittings from old furniture and toys to large objects under sheets and unknown items half hidden in the shadows. It also feels a little maze like though you get to know your way around as the film progresses. Elizabeth Olsen is dressed in typical horror attire with a tight white vest which shows off her 'ample talents' as well as the blood and dirt she accumulates throughout the film. Her performance is also mind blowingly excellent. She was superb in Mary, Marcey, Marlene and if anything even better here. She starts off a bit slowly but after twenty minutes goes all the way up to eleven where she stays until the final few moments during which she is pushing twelve. She is even better at the end than she was during the rest of the film.

So far, so good then. Unfortunately there are two major problems. The first is that it is nowhere near scary enough. I get scared by everything and I didn't jump once. Don't get me wrong, it's scarier than Dark Shadows but so is my girlfriend in the morning. For a proper 'scary' horror, it didn't produce the scares it needed to. There was plenty of tension but it didn't go anywhere. My second problem is that I worked out part of the twist after about eight minutes and had unravelled everything by the mid point. The film still ended in a satisfying way but I felt where we were heading was fairly obvious. On the other hand, my girlfriend said she thought about it at the beginning but it didn't totally click with her until the end so maybe I'm in a minority.

Overall the film will be best remembered for its clever cinematography rather than for its scares. It's a nice idea but the plot has been done a thousand times. It creates plenty of tension and intrigue but doesn't deliver the final blow. Elizabeth Olsen continues to impress and I look forward to seeing her again soon.

www.attheback.blogspot.com

This is a good film. People have complained heavily about the lack of character explanation, which I do realise is conventionally the basis to any decent story, BUT I feel this film is due credit for its unconventional approach in editing, filming and character placement.

I watch a lot of horrors, searching for anything that doesn't hit upon cliché after cliché and I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It wasn't a typical 'in your face' horror, but was tense, creepy and unpredictable until the twist. Despite not being completely original in overall plot, I can easily imagine its approach to film making leaving a legacy for future filmmakers.

The camera work was clever, the acting good and overall experience was enjoyable. It was a complete mind f*ck of a film until the twist. That's how I like my films. So thumbs up all round.

Definitely would recommend this to anyone that can appreciate the fact that a film can be scary without ridiculous amount of blood, gore and stereotypical characters.

Anyway, Enjoy fellow film lovers!

The Hollywood adaptation of the 2010 Uruguayan horror film La casa muda, Silent House is a shot-for-shot remake that even applies the same technical gimmick of the original in order to advertise itself as a film shot in one continuous take and while there are a couple of new elements added in the story, it fails to rectify the biggest plot hole of its source material.

The story of Silent House follows Sarah, a young woman who's at her family vacation house with her father & uncle and is helping them clean the property and make it ready for sale. While her uncle is out for an errand, she hears strange noises, followed by an attack on her father after which she attempts to get out of the house but finds herself trapped inside and terrorised by a possible intruder.

Written, co-produced & co-directed by Laura Lau, with added directional effort coming from Chris Kentis, Silent House is quite a tedious film to sit through considering that I've already seen the original and while that film suffered from numerous shortcomings of its own, what sucks about Silent House is that it ends up making the very same mistakes all over again as if no one cared to question the whole absurdity of its major plot twist.

The images captured by its ever-moving camera is edited to give the illusion of an unbroken take from start to finish but the gimmick fails to add or elevate the tension. At 87 minutes, the film still feels a tad too long as only one thing keeps happening in the whole movie. The only effort comes from Elizabeth Olsen who carries the whole film on her own & tries to do whatever she can but unfortunately Olsen doesn't have enough material to work with here.

On an overall scale, Silent House is an unnecessary remake of an already mediocre original that fails to take the advantage of the opportunity it had to improve on the shortcomings of that Uruguayan chiller. The scares are quite predictable, that major plot twist in the final act is as illogical as before, its one shot technique is quite useless, it is longer than it needs to be, and is barely held together by Olsen's committed performance. Another addition in the long list of pathetic remakes churned out by Hollywood, Silent House is worth skipping.

The beginning of the movie is about a home invasion. It's been done before, some good and some bad. I thought this part of the movie was good. For the first three quarters of the movie I was stressed out...but in a good way. I didn't understand what was happening, who was in the house and why, but I knew my main character was in trouble and I wanted her to escape. The images were dark, cluttered. Where is she? Is someone behind her? Can they see her? Is she hiding well enough? How can she get out? Is she going to make it? Are those friends or foes? Can we trust them?

Then just when I couldn't take anymore stress...the movie instantly got stupid. The entire ending fell apart and my good simple but scary movie went limp. My coping mechanisms kicked in, not because the stress had resolved, but rather because they would be useless where the movie brought me. And it's not like we haven't seen this sort of ending before so I'm not sure why the writers even went there.

OK, obviously i had just finnished watching this movie. I came to IMDb to look up who the lead actress was. Upon finding the poor reviews on this movie i had to make an account. I have had enough of these movie "critics". Every time i come on here i see ratings that do not justify the movies. Time and time again all you read is some snob critic complaining about something and the sheep of mindless dummies nod and agree. Im not going to go into full details about this movie but rather give my two cents from a person who's life basically is stories on screens. My criteria for "good" movies/shows. 1.)is the lead actor good. 2.)Is it different. 3.)Was it entertaining 4.)Was it predictable 5.)How was the story telling. Do not listen to the mindless hordes of know it all, the lead actor was good, the story was not predictable and it was entertaining overall. watch this movie and judge for yourself. I mean seriously IMDb rating is crap.