Silent House (2012)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Tired of P

  
  Creative Commons Question: Did anyone read my review of Fright Night? Well, I FINALLY go see another horror film in the theatre, my first since the vampire remake, and you remember what happened to me at that showing, right? Anyway, I am currently pushing myself out of my comfort… More
  Creative Commons Question: Did anyone read my review of Fright Night? Well, I FINALLY go see another horror film in the theatre, my first since the vampire remake, and you remember what happened to me at that showing, right? Anyway, I am currently pushing myself out of my comfort zone as a reviewer so I decide to see Silent House. And IT happened again. I was the ONLY one in the entire movie theatre. Seriously, what are the odds!? To be honest there was one main reason why I chose to see a horror film after all this time: Elizabeth Olsen. I saw her performance over the summer in Martha Macy May Marlene, and when I saw the trailer for this film I thought it would be worth a viewing. Another reason I broke down and saw a horror in the theatre, I read this was a remake of a film from Uruguay but there was one very interesting point about both films. They were one long continuous shot. I mean the entire film, 85 minutes, is shown in one camera shot with no interruptions. I am pretty sure I have never seen this type of filmmaking before for an entire movie. Perhaps for a video or long scene but never for a film. I did not see the Uruguan Spanish-language version (The Silent House/ La Casa Muda 2010). Another interesting point: this story is allegedly based on real happenings from the 1940's. There is no proof for its validation apparently. Basically there isn't much to tell when it comes to summarizing what happens in Silent House, and I really want to keep the story a mystery, of course. However, I will say I was pretty scared while watching most of the film, and being alone in the theatre while a huge and loud thunderstorm took place outside made it all the more intense. In fact, I thought the thunderstorm was happening in the movie at first. Why did I think that? There is a part in the film when she goes into the old, boarded-up and dilapidated house, locks the door and is in there for a long time without any electricity. That is exactly when the storm began. Only when there was a scene outside the house did I realize the thunderstorm was real. Again, what are the odds!? Visually Silent House was very realistic. By the way the camera was held, and not still might I add, made you feel like you right there. Nearly the entire film the camera followed Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen's character) and her experience of what happens, with a lot of close-ups. At times it was disconcerting but it helped heighten the intense emotions she was experiencing (and raised my blood pressure). However if you have motion-sickness issues you might feel a little queasy at points especially during the times when she is running and the camera's viewpoint is extremely wobbly. After watching the entire film and figuring out what really happens brought me through an array of emotions. First scared, then terrified, then a little nauseated, then full-on angered, and finally relieved with a "hell yeah!" sigh at the very end. No, I will not explain why but you will understand once you view the film. Elizabeth Olsen was great in Silent House. Her acting ability looks effortless. She is just authentic. To stay in character, and one who had to portray a myriad of intense and unnerving emotions that never made the audience think she was acting, is a testament to how talented this young woman is. However, the others in the film weren't as convincing, in my opinion, and threw the film off a little bit. My favorite part: Elizabeth Olsen. My least favorite part: A revelation towards the end. Directed by Chris Kentis & Laura Lau, Elle Driver, 2011. Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens and Julia Taylor Ross. Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller. Length: 85 minutes Rating: R Review: 6 out of 10

• Liam G

  
  What a crappy ending.

• Spencer S

  
  This horror movie is predictable, stupid, not scary, and formulaic at best. This film tries to accomplish nothing new, in a way that is tired and heavy handed. If you know beforehand that this film isn't doing anything new than you can guess the ending pretty fast. Plus, the… More
  This horror movie is predictable, stupid, not scary, and formulaic at best. This film tries to accomplish nothing new, in a way that is tired and heavy handed. If you know beforehand that this film isn't doing anything new than you can guess the ending pretty fast. Plus, the ending, which is the big reveal to the juvenile logic behind the rest of the plot, is pointless and bloated. It could of have been innovative like The Others, or even as entertaining as the weird and dark Orphan. Really, unless you're easily scared by flashing jump scares (which I was at first) you will only end your viewing experience with disgust. It's not scary, there's nothing strange or dementedly dark about this. It's not anything other than a broken fragment of the horror genre, which is being exploited by studio hacks to produce this endless stream of crap. The only good thing about this is it got me excited to see Elizabeth Olsen prove herself in her other film that came out in 2011, Martha Marcy May Marlene. She really directs the attention away from the suckage of the film with her overy dramatic turn as the hapless victim. Oh, and if you think I'm over-exaggerating just for the sake of it, know that the trailer is misguiding. There is no preamble, no pretending this was based on true events, no shock or awe or anything other than a waste of time. Watch it so you can gripe, that is the only reason, I swear.

• Nate Z

  
  Ostensibly executed in one long, unblinking take (though you can tell the edit points; the directors admit they filmed it in 10-minute chunks), Silent House is a visceral experience in spookiness, tethered to the brilliant actress Elizabeth Olsen that unfolds in real time. It's… More
  Ostensibly executed in one long, unblinking take (though you can tell the edit points; the directors admit they filmed it in 10-minute chunks), Silent House is a visceral experience in spookiness, tethered to the brilliant actress Elizabeth Olsen that unfolds in real time. It's your standard scary house movie, lots of dark rooms and pitiful hiding under furniture; it begins as an intruder(s) stalking Olsen from room to room and then, in the final 20 minutes, transforms into a psychological thriller, with the realm between reality and hallucination blending. The barebones plot (girl chased through house) cranks out some decent scares due to directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water)'s tightly executed sense of reality, leaving us feeling as trapped and helpless as our heroine. The movie's minor successes are also squarely due to Olsen, she of glassy eyes and hoarse scream. It's almost a one-woman show and Olsen is so convincing in her terror, completely unnerving even when the movie is not. The climax is a bit of a letdown, to say the least, and leaves a lot of off-putting questions that cannot be answered by the movie's absence of backstory. I won't say the ending ruins the entire suspenseful experience of Silent House, but it's certainly going to spur plenty of grumbling. Still, Olsen is a star and gives a terrific freaked-out performance worth getting spooked over. Oh, and it's also based off a 2010 Uruguay movie with the same high-concept gimmick. Now you know Uruguay has a film culture. Don't you feel better? Nate's Grade: B-

• danny d

  
  merits of the film aside, elizabeth olsen proves just two films into her career that she is absolutely talented. with her prowess and unique and beautiful look she will be around for a long time. her performance in this far too typical horror film was anything but. its unfortunate… More
  merits of the film aside, elizabeth olsen proves just two films into her career that she is absolutely talented. with her prowess and unique and beautiful look she will be around for a long time. her performance in this far too typical horror film was anything but. its unfortunate that a great performance from the star is the only thing the film seems to have going for it. there were a few real scares, but for the most part the film was far more conventional than it needed to be. even then i was willing to like it a bit more than i might have simply for olsen, but the end was tragically bad. skip it.

• Aaron N

  
  Sarah: Dad, I just thought I heard something upstairs... There were two films that hit at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which featured rising star Elizabeth Olsen. One was the tense, but quiet thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and the other is a remake of the Uruguayan,… More
  Sarah: Dad, I just thought I heard something upstairs... There were two films that hit at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which featured rising star Elizabeth Olsen. One was the tense, but quiet thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and the other is a remake of the Uruguayan, Spanish-language horror film, La Casa Muda, known as Silent House. What makes the original and this remake unique is that both films were designed to portray one continuous shot throughout its entire running time. Quite the feat to achieve, for sure, and whether or not the films have actually been done in one entire take or not, whatever edits there could be are certainly very few and far between, which is a stunning technical achievement in itself. Additionally, the film gets points for being a suspenseful experience and once showing once again that Elizabeth Olsen is a young force to be reckoned with. It is a neat take two for an experimental type of film, regardless of similar narrative problems. read the whole review at thecodeiszeek.com

• Eric H

  
  The great thing about the advent of digital film-making is that now pretty much anyone with a camera can make a film. The awful thing about the advent of digital film-making is that now pretty much anyone with a camera can make a film. The main selling point of this movie is that it… More
  The great thing about the advent of digital film-making is that now pretty much anyone with a camera can make a film. The awful thing about the advent of digital film-making is that now pretty much anyone with a camera can make a film. The main selling point of this movie is that it was shot in one continuous take. Of course it's not. To do so would be impossible on the camera used, the Canon EOS 5D, which can only shoot takes of no more than ten minutes length. The film-makers thus have to employ clever techniques to create the continuous take illusion. This they do quite well, but that's really all they get right. I found it quite dubious that this technique would be pushed in the movie's marketing as I doubt the average film-goer could give two hoots how a movie is shot. The Spanish language original employed the same technique and it would seem it was this gimmick that attracted directors Kentis and Lau to adapting it. I say gimmick because this is a ridiculous way to shoot a film and shows little respect to the material. Every moment of every scene in a script requires a different directorial approach and to use one technique for an entire movie shows laziness, lack of ideas, or in this case arrogance. Hitchcock admitted this after employing the technique to shoot "Rope". That movie is still a classic despite the fact he used it primarily as an experiment. It's also an outstanding achievement considering how difficult it was to move around 35mm camera rigs at the time. The choreography between camera, actors and indeed the set itself is spellbinding. "Silent House" is really no achievement as it's shot on a handheld video camera and has such a loose choreography that it feels improvised, as if the directors simply instructed the cameraman to just follow Olsen around. The end result resembles that staple of eighties British TV "Treasure Hunt With Anneka Rice". The cameraman struggles to keep everything in focus which is very noticeable and very annoying on a cinema screen. This technique is ultimately the film's downfall as by constantly following Olsen's character we lose all suspense. In a good horror movie the editing would create the suspense as we would know just what it is our character should be fearful of. We can't scream "Don't go in the basement" if there's no reason for us to be afraid of the basement. It seems every other modern horror movie ends with one of two predictable "twists" (I'm sure you know the ones I mean) and this follows suit. Can we please put these to bed once and for all? The big revelation also ventures into territory that is unnecessarily dark for what should be a simple Friday night frightfest. Olsen is far too good for this sort of rubbish but she really puts herself into the role and gives it a dignity the movie doesn't deserve. Her buxom figure is exploited so much that there are shots where her breasts are in sharper focus than her face. Just to make sure her supremely impressive cleavage is always visible she carries a lantern at chest height. Couple this with the bad video camerawork and you'd be forgiven for mistaking this for one of those porn ripoffs of a horror movie. If the digital revolution means more films of this poor quality we are set for trying times indeed.

• Jacob P

  
  This actually wasn't half bad. The acting was really good - along with the story. But this movie will mess with your mind...so beware for twists and turns! It's not the best horror film out there (although it did have it's moments) but it's still very good.

• Jeff B

  
  A frightfully good use of talent and atmosphere, Silent House is golden for horror fans right up until the horrifically bad ending. Of course, moviegoers might approach this movie with ample concern that they've been houseguests here one too many times. The terrifyingly simple… More
  A frightfully good use of talent and atmosphere, Silent House is golden for horror fans right up until the horrifically bad ending. Of course, moviegoers might approach this movie with ample concern that they've been houseguests here one too many times. The terrifyingly simple premise involves a beautiful girl in a haunted house. Period. It's the execution, however, that truly wrings suspense out of a creaky foundation. Hand-held, shot in long takes, and played out in real time, the movie is ridiculously scary because every beat feelsas real as hell. Unfortunately, one of these beats involves an eleventh hour detour into Psycho-babble. Save for an authentically chilling lead performance, this crap curtain closer just about burns the whole House down. In this R-rated real time thriller supposedly inspired by true events in 1940s Paraguay, a young woman (Olsen) secluded at her family's lake house and cut off from the outside world gets terrified by ominous events around the property. In remaking a Brazilian thriller, directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau bring a fresh coat of blood to an already old formula. Their greatest accomplishment, however, comes down to casting. All of the buzz surrounding Olsen, an actress who wowed Sundance Film Festival audiences with her breakout performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene, is truly well deserved. Her every nuance of fear and dread is absolutely palpable. In fact, if it wasn't for her hair-raising can't-take-your-eyes-off-of-her performance, the flick would go Silent after the laughable third act big reveal. A home invasion will always be scarier than armchair psychology. Bottom line: House of whacks.

• DA Z

  
  This film does not deserve half of the negative reception it's gotten. Although not a perfect horror film, it's stylistic directing and mind-bending sequences put it a step above the rest. While the ending lacks depth, Elizabeth Olsen does a brilliant job adding tension to… More
  This film does not deserve half of the negative reception it's gotten. Although not a perfect horror film, it's stylistic directing and mind-bending sequences put it a step above the rest. While the ending lacks depth, Elizabeth Olsen does a brilliant job adding tension to her character all the way through.

• Philip P

  
  The reason this film stands out above other horror films is also the main idea the marketing team for this has been pushing, and righfully so. As seen in the ad's for "Silent House" this is supposed to be one long continuous shot that documents in real time the… More
  The reason this film stands out above other horror films is also the main idea the marketing team for this has been pushing, and righfully so. As seen in the ad's for "Silent House" this is supposed to be one long continuous shot that documents in real time the experiences of our protagonist Sarah. It is extremely difficult to capture one long shot in any film without making any cuts and in that we are talking about six or seven minutes. To try and create a whole film with this technique would not just take an immense amount of planning and skill on both the actors and directors part, but it almost doesn't seem worth the trouble. There are certainly some edits within "Silent House" but they are few and far between and the purpose of this technique is made effective and that is what really matters. The point of following Sarah through a seemingly harmless fall evening as her, her father, and uncle continue renovating a house they are getting ready to seel is that our eyes are that of the characters. We are constricted as Sarah is, unable to see what is behind her or above her. It is the perfect trick to play on an audience who is looking for not just scares, but real suspense. This is only the second horror film I've seen so far this year and it is nice to see things going in a positive direction for the horror genre. While February's "The Woman In Black" was a nice throwback to gothic campfire stories, "Silent House" (though a remake of the Uruguayan film, " La Casa Muda") moves the genre forward with a new take on a narrative that might have been lifeless otherwise. Like most horror films, there is only so much of the story you can divulge without giving too much away; this is of course true with "Silent House" as well. What can be said I think without giving too much away is that this turned out to be more of a psychological horror film rather than one that was simply out to get scares with monsters. There are monsters here, just not the ones you might expect. For most of the film we as an audience are shrouded in mystery as well, unaware of what is really going on while only occasionally being dropped hints that could indicate a number of different conclusions. The plot unfortunately is not the most important thing here though and that is where the film lags at times. When the makers seem to forget they are conveying a story rather than just experimenting with a filmmaking technique or so entranced with Elizabeth Olsen's face that the point of the story starts to wander. The first twenty minutes or so almost test your patients with the combination of the limited scope the eye of the camera gives you and the set-up of Olsen's Sarah helping her father (Adam Trese) and uncle Peter (Eric Stevens) fix up an old vacation house they came to when she was younger. There is no more backstory given than the fact they are prepping the house to sell and then we begin to notice little things about their interactions. Something is off, the vibes are strange, and when Sarah begins to hear things the tone shifts and the technique works giving us moments fully realized by fear. The fact that Olsen carries the whole film on her able shoulders only re-enforces what her breakout role in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" hinted at. The girl is a powerhouse actress and can bring life and more importantly, soul to a film that might have drowned under its owns aspirations were it in lesser hands. In "Silent House" Olsen again uses her preference for the atypical to lift the film from its standard intentions. She is the face of the film, is in nearly every frame of it and makes her characters plight feel more genuine than insane. To her credit, she also takes every person in the audience and places them in her poistion. Locked in a place where there is literally something creepy lurking around every corner. The way in which she chokes back her screams and tightens her face as if telling it with all her might not to move a muscle is incredibly detailed emotions, we know the fear and we can only imagine what is running through her mind and be thankful we are not in the same situation. For me, that is a true strength in the horror genre that has not been seen in a long while. To actually make an audience fear what it is when they hear a strange creak in their house when they get home, to instill in them a paranoia about what might be threatening them just out of their sight is what "Silent House" can do to you and while this could be credited to the directors and their chosen approach to the story most of the credit has to go to Olsen for so naturally and effectively getting under our skin. "Silent House" may not break new ground as far as scary stories go, but really, what is left and where else is there to go? This is the same thing the "Paranormal Activity" films are doing and even upcoming flicks like "Cabin in the Woods" that play on the cliches of the genre yet look to be smart while delivering their own chills. You may have seen this film before and by all means have the right to count it out on that fact alone, but it is raised up a notch simply by the performance Olsen gives and the tactics the filmmakers employ to raise some genuine scares. While this will certainly not push Olsen's career further into the spotlight than the far superior "Martha Marcy May Marlene" it won't hold her back either or raise cause for concern. This was the other film that had its premiere last year at the Sundance Film Festival that starred the younger sister of the "Full House" twins and even there it didn't make as much noise. I expect it to do about the same in its theatrical run and disappear again after a few weeks of being on the rental shelves. When "Silent House" will really come into play is when we look back on Olsen's career and see that no matter what genre of movie she's playing in, her performance is what strikes you about that film and will seriously have you questioning every noise in your house the next day.

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