The Silent House that won't shut up

Supposedly made in one shot movie that I spontaneously saw today can impress those who have been ignoring horror films. But for those of you who like me are the fans of the genre it will remain just a mixture of The Others, Paranormal Activity and a bit of Japanese cult classic. The mixture you get is not bland, but it lacks specific flavour.

It is definitely form over content, so if you just want to see a cinematic experiment, then don’t hesitate a bit. Seemingly a single shot narration produces an awesome effect that keeps the viewer on his toes throughout the whole film. However, if you want to see a good horror film, this one can just be missed. I must say though that I got scared once and the first half an hour is creepy. It goes down the moment the scriptwriter realised that in order to make a film, he needs to create some kind of story which should explain what we see on the screen. So basically he goes through all the horror films that he found on sale and puts them together believing it will work. Well, it doesn’t really. There is a tendency to make a film confusing just so it looks weird and spooky. It’s neither, dear filmmakers. It’s just confusing.

The Silent House is a story of Laura, who comes to an old house with her father in order to help his friend clean up before he sells the property. Shortly after they enter, they are told not to go upstairs. The upstairs though starts producing creepy cracking sounds five minutes later, so Laura’s father goes there to check on the ghosts. He doesn’t come back and Laura is left on her own surrounded by what it seems to be paranormal. She is a one brave damsel in distress because instead of just leaving the house, she runs up and down like one crazy bitch looking for her already dead papa, who sometimes appears just to disappear shortly afterwards. Of course she goes upstairs at some point and that’s when the film stops being good and becomes average. I won’t ruin it for you, but I will just say that what happens next is just the mixture of all the techniques, plot twists and cliches you have ever seen in horror films. It even has the polaroid effect from Shutter and paintings from The Others. Simply everything.

I appreciate the technique in which it was made even though thinking about it now, I really see no point behind it. It is a nice experiment, but brings nothing to the plot. I guess though that if it was a typically shot horror film, it simply wouldn’t be distributed anywhere outside Uruguay. Fair enough.

Overall it’s an average film. If you don’t know what to see, see this. Meh.