Sundance Film Festival 2011 review of Silent House - Elizabeth Olsen makes a good scream queen but cannot save disappointing horror ‘Silent House’
(2 out of 5 stars)
All the cleverness of a heavily promoted continuous camera shot fails to compensate the misplaced laughs and failed scares throughout Silent House, a remake of the Uruguayan horror film La Casa Muda from Elle Driver and Tazora Films and Open Water directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau. The thriller opens in chilling fashion with a young woman named Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) running frantically through the woods outside her family’s vacation home. Sarah is helping her father John (Adam Trese) and Uncle Pete (Eric Sheffer Stevens) repair the house prior to putting it up for sale. While inside the boarded-up house and attempting to repair the mold and plumbing issues, Sarah hears some noises from the second floor. After her father goes to investigate, everything spirals out of control.
Audiences continue to debate whether co-directors Kentis and Lau used two cuts at key moments in Silent House since its premiere in the Park City at Midnight section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Still, whether the follow-up film from the Open Water filmmakers is truly a real-time horror movie is the least of the film’s many stumbles.
Dreamlike images of blood flowing from a toilet fail and a little girl sitting in a bathtub filled with liquor bottles and blood fail to shock. Despite the heavy breathing and bursts of light from a flashing camera, Silent House turns out to be hysterical more than frightening.
The best scare occurs late in the movie when Sarah waits outside the house in her uncle’s car and wonders why the car’s hatchback keeps opening.
Elisabeth Olsen, who also stars in the Sundance drama Martha Marcy May Marlene, gives her all as the young woman unsure what’s going on inside her family’s house. Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens supply solid supporting work as the men in her life trying to get to the bottom of the unseen attacks.
Production designer Roshelle Berliner creates a spooky environment via a boarded-up building that requires battery-powered lamps even to see inside during the daytime and cameraman Igor Martinovich make great use of the endless shadows and dingy spaces.
Films that unfold in one fluid shot remain an exceptional achievement with Aleksandr Sokurov’s Russian Ark being the best example and the ten-minute shots of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope a close second.
By the film’s surprise ending, a violent revelation that erases many of the possible villains behind the attacks on Sarah and her family, the questions regarding Kentis and Lau attempting a continues camera shot throughout the movie no longer matter.
What’s more important is how far Silent House falls away from its target horror films whether of the found footage variety like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity or their previous chiller Open Water, about divers left behind in shark-infested waters. As the film’s screenwriter, Lau attempts a final shock meant to compensate for all the silliness Sarah experiences throughout the film.
Unfortunately, the climactic twist dissolves into another letdown in a film filled with missed opportunities.
Silent House, with Liddell Entertainment picking up distribution rights for a reported $3M at the festival, never generates the necessary scares essential for becoming a cult horror hit and poor word-of-mouth will fail to inspire non-horror fans to seek out the movie.
Still, Open Water remains one of the best scary movies in the Sundance cannon. With that in mind, Kentis and Lau deserve something of pass and call Silent House a poor decision for a remake and momentary slip. Let’s even give them credit for attempting a continuous take on Silent House whether they succeeded or not but not enough to go and watch the movie.
Distributor: Liddell Entertainment
Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor
Ross, Haley Murphy, Adam Barnett
Director: Chris Kentis, Laura Lau
Screenwriter: Laura Lau
Producers: Elle Driver, Tazora Films
Rating: Rated TBD
Running time: 86 minutes
Release Date: TBD