Cinema Saturday

Silent House
Universal Studios
July 24, 2012
86 mins; R for disturbing violent content and terror
starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer, Stevens
info on IMDb/Blu-Ray and DVD/Amazon Instant Video

Cinema Saturday post for this week is about the movie Silent House with Elizabeth Olsen, here's the summary (via IMDb):

Trapped inside her family's lakeside retreat, a young woman finds she is unable to contact the outside world as events become increasingly ominous in and around the house.

Okay, we should probably start by saying that I really like horror movies. Both the cheesy ones that yes, do just make me jump by startling me, but also the ones that freak me the heck out because they're actually scary. I also have a-hide-under-the-covers affinity for ones that make you think. It's my new(ish) love of dystopian fiction in movie form.

I'm not quite sure where, in all those types of horror films, Silent House, fits, but it is definitely not like others I have seen before.

Sarah (played by Olsen - who was quite great in Martha Marcy May Marlene) is helping her dad and uncle fix up the family lake house to sell. It's been unused the past summer and vandals have taken taken their toll.

With her uncle gone after a fight with her father, Sarah and her father work to clean and pack up the darkened house - the electricity is out, as is the phone line. Sarah's less than perfect relationship with her father is apparent, but he agrees to investigate when she thinks she hears something - someone, really - upstairs and that's when things really begin.

Silent House is filmed in, what appears to be, one continuous frame. The lack of cutaways, the fact that we have followed Sarah from the very beginning - sometimes following another character for a moment but then panning back to her - absolutely adds to the tension once her terror ratchets up. And Elizabeth Olsen really does seem more and more terrified as things progress.

Silent House is the remake of the 2010 Uruguayan film La Casa Muda, having not seen the original, I can't testify to how it compares, but it doesn't seem as if they've done anything to make it 'typically American' as with some other remakes.

I will say I'm still not sure about the ending (which from a review seems to be true to the original). It seemed almost as if it was a mash-up of one ending I had guessed at with one that could have been an ending on its own - but together,

While Silent House is not one of my favorite movies, it was a highly anticipated one for me that I'm happy to have now seen. Also one that I'll likely see again - perhaps especially now that I know the ending.

I'm also looking forward to more films with Elizabeth Olsen.


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