Review of The Silent House (2010) by Tarso B — 20 Jun 2011

The Uruguay film The Silent House is horror filmmaking at its best. The entire movie is shot in one 78 minute shot. This is incredibly risky and brave however The Silent House nails it perfectly. Even more amazing is that after the first twenty minutes we are left with only one character and barely any dialogue for the rest of the film besides an important conversation later on in the film. This is astoundingly brilliant and delivers everything it promised. The technique also adds to the scare factor because throughout the movie we are kept guessing what is terrifying this young girl, and for the most of the movie we never really see it, except for some terrifying quick glances. Just like Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch, we are reminded that our imagination is scarier than anything that can be put on screen.

Some scene work perfectly with this one shot and are mindblowingly scary, especially when a polaroid camera is involved (One of the scariest movie scenes ever).

Throughout the film I found that my mouth was wide open, just frozen in suspense, wondering what will happen next. What this film does nicely is that it uses severe tension, and horrific music to raise the suspense rather than the usual cliche of the excess of gore.

When you do watch this film make sure you do not watch this film alone or you will have nightmares. Although you cannot avoid watching this during the day because it is completely dark the entire movie, you can get away with watching it with a friend to comfort you during that Polaroid scene.

However, one flaw that kept me from giving it a perfect ten was the twist ending. It was very clever however it made it impossible due to the fact that the film is one continuous shot. One character is considered to kill others, however we never see this person do it. In a regular horror film with cuts we could believe it, but not in this one.

Besides the twist sending this film is incredibly scary, beautifully shot, in a way that we feel like we're trapped in 78 minutes of hell just like our leading lady. This is the best independent movie I've seen since Triangle. Like always other countries are showing us Americans how to make a truly terrifying horror movie.