Silent House (2011)

Simply Perfect

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

best movie i've ever seen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Arriving to clean up a remote house, a woman and her father find themselves stalked by ghostly figures and voices throughout the house as they attempt to escape and try to find the cause of the incidents before they continue to get worse.This was a pretty disappointing and barely decent entry here. What really gets this one going for the most part is the fact that there's an admittedly decent and enjoyable mystery here in the first half about what is actually happening in the house with the group, as this one really banks on mysterious noises, creepy shots of people walking in the background just out of viewpoint and the fun of disappearing bodies that seem to move about on their own that really makes for quite a fun time here as the disorienting reality this sets up is wholly appealing and thrilling. Many of these early scenes come off the best as there's just no shortage of fun, thrilling moments as her attempts to elude the stalking figure in the background and the rather strong manner in which the film builds this up through the single-take gimmick where it really feels like an escalation of the stalking as the figure gets closer and closer and her efforts are all in vain as there's the attacks on her father and uncle that cause this one to really get stronger with some even better scenes in here. Still, there's some pretty big flaws here as there's way too many flaws here that are detrimental and one even cripples it outright. The most crippling part here is indeed the finale twist, which is plainly obvious, twists around the action already featured for no reason and comes off as wholly unappealing here as the drop-off from the ghostly haunting into the type of more human-like twist employed here doesn't do the film any favors and just appears as a way to fool the audience. As well, the fact that this all appears as one continuous take doesn't make for anything all that interesting as being forced to employ the same type of scares all throughout here as this one can only employ those specific type of set-ups with the central gimmick in play makes for quite a bland time here as all the shots are the same blurred and out-of-focus scenes that are brought up here. As well, the other flaw here is the fact that this one never really manages to put into light why there was a haunting in the first place as this one easily could've been ignored had there been something about what's going on instead of continually throwing her family back into danger. These big flaws here bring this one down significantly.Rated R: Violence, Language and strong themes of incest and child abuse.

Girl gets locked in a house and finds herself alone amongst family.Interesting, slightly twisted story. The outstanding thing is the lighting - lots of lamps and mirrors, and a truly weird contrast between inside and outside. Even the car-interior lights do something different.The lead actress is good, with excellent decolletage, and the pace is well developed for such a claustrophobic story.The problem I had is that it's a bit earnest in the end - you guess the twist early on, and that's about as twisted as it gets.Overall, not as good as it looks - but it looks great.

Silent House is apparently a remake of an Uruguayan movie of the same title, which is allegedly based on a true story. It centres on Sarah, a young woman, who alongwith her uncle and father are terrorised by unknown assailants in their vacation home.The film is decent might I say and somewhat unique because it uses a "real time" footage technique, which basically means the events in the movie occurred within the span time of the movie, which is not a common thing. The directing approach is good, with flashlights as the only source of lights in most scenes closing up on Olsen's countenance, it makes for a good psychological stimulant. The performances are great as well. Olsen's performance is strong, no question about it, the girl can act very well. Playing a girl with a dark past, the role is clichéd but she certainly pumps in energy to the role.Unfortunately, the movie is predictable. The resolution being very typical, and something we've all been used to since the beginning of the genre. And even a good cast couldn't save this movie from spiraling into a cliché-dom.Overall, it's still worth a watch the definitely doesn't deserve the infamy it's being given by nonsensical reviews such as by the derogatory AV club review calling it one of the "worst" movie of 2012 when there were gazillion other horrid movies in that year and baseless CivlianScore survey rating of "F". 6.5 out of 10.

If you haven't seen the movie this is based on, tack another point to my vote. If you have, you don't really have to watch this (as I really shouldn't have). Not that it's bad and it does twist a couple of things. Though it keeps the whole "shot in one take" appeal, even if it actually wasn't shot in one take, but rather a lot of longer shots. Which is still quite a task (so technically speaking this was quite an "exercise", if you wanna call it that).Olson seems to be quite fond of genre pictures or at least starring in them. She updated recently of course to the Blockbuster kind (also see Old Boy remake and Godzilla remake ... remakes seem to be her thing too come to think of it). She does a nice enough job here, especially considering some of the flaws this has, but also the emotional ride her character takes ...