Director: Chris Kentis & Laura Lau
Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens
Certificate:15
Running time: 88minutes
Synopsis: Whilst helping fix up her family’s lakeside vacation house, Sarah (Olsen) is terrorised by mysterious assailants. Locked in and cut off from the outside world, a tense game of cat and mouse ensues as she is stalked from room to room in search of escape…
Let’s face it, we in the West are either too lazy or dumb to watch a movie with subtitles. We live in an age where any foreign film of note receives an English language remake to ensure we don’t blow our minds combing the complex tasks of eating popcorn AND reading. SILENT HOUSE is a re-do of the 2010 Uruguayan made, Spanish-language movie LA CASA MUDA by Gustavo Hernández – a low budget horror with the unfounded claim of being based on true events. True or not, LA CASA MUDA garnered enough critical praise with its nerve jangling narrative and one continuous shot format, hence the tagline, Real Fear in Real Time.
SILENT HOUSE has stuck to this single-take USP, and though the cynical reader might see this as merely a gimmick, it really does add a unique and engaging element, working in conjunction with a simple but chilling premise: someone’s in your house and they’re coming to get you! The film is directed by the OPEN WATER (2003) duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau and clearly the two like to keep their scares grounded in reality. From the get-go the camera assumes a creepy voyeuristic vérité style with meandering handheld naturalism, claustrophobic field of vision, and shallow focus that keeps the audience wondering what’s lurking just out of shot.
Up-and-comer Olsen does a spectacular job as the tormented Sarah. She drives this movie and for a solid 88minutes, generating the fear factor with her reactions. It’s really quite impressive and a credit to her talent that she carries off such a feat. Olsen is supported by a small cast of three characters – four if you include the creepy, crusty member of the Blue Man group – each introduced with an air of mystery that forces us to ponder their potential malevolent motivations once the spookiness begins.
Whilst horror can be a hallmarked affair, SILENT HOUSE’s single shot adds real-world suspense, and scares are accentuated because your full focus is in one place as opposed to flitting back and forth between several. At times the camera seems like a stalker, at others it is the gaze of our protagonist Sarah: we look through her eyes, we take her place, and you’ll definitely find yourself holding your breath for fear of being discovered. Scares are expertly paced through-out and a brilliant soundtrack keeps the fear resonating with your pounding heart long after the initial shock – whether it’s the sound of thuds or footfall, a glimpse of the attacker or spooky hands grappling at Olsen’s heel the frights will have you aghast in spine-tingling petrification.
BUT……
Whilst SILENT HOUSE has a great premise and is actually an expertly-crafted piece of horror cinema it has one major downfall: its ‘whodunnit’ factor. Throughout, Sarah’s attacker is enticingly enigmatic, the audience is dying to know, Who is doing this? What’s the motivation? When are we going to get a good look at them? Hints to the truth are made throughout the film (quite obvious in hindsight) until finally we get smacked in the face with the reveal. Immediately all the good work is undone. Though there is an almost cathartic sense of relief as we find out what is really going on, the scares and tension that have been so successfully built throughout melt away into indifference.
Regardless of a disappointing ending SILENT HOUSE kept us glued to our seat, with eyes peeled open in startled anticipation for (almost) it’s duration. Whether you make your way to your local multiplex or wait for the DVD this is definitely one we’d recommend if only for it’s nifty style and Olsen’s great performance.
SILENT HOUSE is released in UK cinemas 4th May
