2012 Review #9: Silent House

Silent House

Rated R

1 Hour 25 Minutes

Starring

Elizabeth Olson
Eric Sheffer Stevens
Adam Trese

Story

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.

Rotten Tomatoes

47%

"Silent House is more technically proficient and ambitious than most fright-fests, but it also suffers from a disappointing payoff."

My Grade

B-

*This review may contain potential spoilers*

There are a lot of normal movie goers who are giving this movie quite the stink eye. A lot people claiming they demanded their money back because it was just SO awful of a movie to watch. People saying it was disappointing and the trailer was misleading. I guess I'm in the very small minority here, because I rather enjoyed the movie. I find it hard to be 'disappointed' by a movie, the idea just seems silly to me. It's a movie for God sakes, we make the choice to go see it and pay for it. The movie studios don't claim it's a good movie, they just peddle the crap out to us so that we pay for it and they make tons of money. Having high expectations for a freaking movie, no matter how excited you are to see it, just seems kind of pointless to me. I saw the preview and I thought it looked like it could be a good movie, so I went to see it. I just so happened to like it. If I passionately hate a movie, I would still never demand my money back. It's not the movie theaters fault you disliked the movie. You made the choice to see it, don't take business away from them because you were unhappy by something they have no control over. But, this is just MY opinion, which I'm entitled to. You are also entitled to your opinions as well, so I respect your anger towards the film even if I don't agree...but that's why we are people.

Anyway, onto the movie in question. I will give people who are complaining about the movie one thing: it was recently revealed the movie was in fact NOT done in one continuous shot. It was advertised as a movie that was done in one take with no cuts. I believed it was possible to do this, but apparently they filmed it in 10 minute segments with hidden edits. However, watching the movie, those edits were very cleverly hidden. Unless you a nerd with to much time on your hands and paying WAY to close attention to the screen, those edits are not easy to spot. Except for maybe the one or two shots in complete darkness. So you know what, it did look like one straight shot, so I'll give it that, and that was really well done. It was convincing enough for me. The effect added a really cool level to the movie for me, it made it claustrophobic. For me, it gave the effect of having no room to take a break or calm down. It made the movie kind of relentless, in a good way...yes, even if it was a cop out. I honestly don't care if they lied about the continuous shot. It's not the end of the world.

Was 'Silent House' a scary movie? I can't sit here and say it terrified me, but I will say the movie put me on edge a lot. There were moments of uncertainty which made me feel a little unease. There were numerous moments of utter silence which is usually what gets me in movies like this. Silence freaks me out in movies like this, because I don't know what it means. It could be a sign that something crazy is about to happen or something subtle will happen in the background, or nothing at all will happen...which is the film maker messing with your mind! There aren't really a lot of jump out moments, which I was surprised by. This was more psychological than anything. Kind of a constant build up to the potential of something insane. Not to say that there weren't any scares, because there were. But I saw them as more subtle freak outs, which I like.

I will knock the film maker for this though, he put in to much music at times. There are movies that can greatly benefit for a musical score, in fact, most movies do. Scores are like an extra character in a movie. But I don't think they are always a right fit for horror/suspense/thrillers...whatever you want to label this movie as. Music in these movies are usually there to let us know we need to start feeling scared because something intense is about to happen. It acts as more of a warning, which to me, let's down the potential of being scared. Keeping a movie like this silent, musically speaking, would be way more beneficial. But what do I know.

The best part of the movie was the incredible performance from Elizabeth Olson. Yes, to those who don't know, she is the sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olson. It's rare where you get to watch a horror movie with a stand out, bravado performance such as this. But it's important when we really only have one lead character carrying the movie, that it's someone we at least slightly care about. She does an outstanding job conveying her characters fear and emotional instability. She's proven in such a short time that she is one of Hollywood's rising stars who's going to do pretty well in this business. Oh and yes, the rumors are true...there are a lot of close up cleavage shots of Olson, which apparently distracted of lot of movie goers. Eh, I didn't notice.

I was not honestly expecting the ending. Not to say it was much of a twist, although it was pretty twisted. I guess there were signs throughout the film that would lead to a big ending, but I just wasn't really figuring it would be that kind of end. I can see how the finale would shock a lot of movie goers, but this trick has been done before in a movie called High Tension (a film I hated). Whereas the twist in High Tension did not make sense for the rest of the film, it kind of applied well to the story of this one. I can see how the events occurred throughout the film, given the new information handed to us at the end. Story wise, it's pretty disturbing and not exactly for the faint of heart.

I don't know, was Silent House a Tour De Force in movie making? No of course not. What were people expecting though? A horror movie for the ages? One that blew us away to kingdom come and changed the shape of horror movies forever? Ha, no. It is what it is. This wasn't a perfect movie, of course it has it's flaws. But Jesus, it's just a little hour and half horror movie, it's not going to break down barriers.  To say it's AWFUL feels like an over reaction. But again, I'm not here to judge other people's opinions. I liked 'Silent House' for what it was. It didn't bore me at all, I found it to be pretty entertaining and somewhat creepy.

To those who don't know by the way, 'Silent House' is a remake of a foreign film from Argentina that came out in 2010 called 'The Silent House' or 'La Casa Muda' to which I have yet to see.