Elizabeth Olsen earned a lot of buzz from her star turn in last year’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, and in the new horror/thriller Silent House, based on the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda, she certainly runs with it. She also leaps, cowers and peeks out at shadowy figures bent on killing her in any number of horrible ways.
Olsen plays Sarah, a girl visiting her dilapidated, boarded-up summer house on the water with her dad and uncle (Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens). They’re there to check the place out and start repairs in order to finally sell it, but after the uncle heads to town, she starts hearing movement in the recesses. Then her dad goes missing. Suddenly, she’s frantically navigating the dark, creaky hallways and staircases in order to keep out of sight of the aforementioned shadowy figures.
Filmmakers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, previously of the cautionary sharkfest Open Water, turn to Hitchcock’s Rope for inspiration, by shooting the film in real time, ostensibly in one 85-minute-long shot. (Nervous empathizers of the cast and crew can breathe easy, though. Also like Rope, the film actually splices together a series of long takes via cinematic wizardry.) Yes, it’s kind of a gimmick, but it’s a technique uniquely suited to the thriller genre, and it works very well here. The effect is such that after a while one forgets the camera hasn’t cut—we’re just biting our nails and holding our breath, dreading every corner. Kudos to both the cast and director of photography Igor Martinovic for the intricate choreography that must have gone into putting it all together.