This decent thriller and remake of the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda is more fun than scary — the jumps, false alarms, little girls, bumps in the night, close-ups of the heroine’s boobies, etc. — border on abuse they’re used so often; first it’s spooky, then it’s overused, then it comes back around to being funny, like a joke that goes on and keeps going.
I counted at least three times the heroine hid under something. First a dining table, then a bed, then a pool table while someone ominously walked around and/or spotted and made snatch for her. Three times something crashed off camera and someone else dismissed it.
Twice a character appears to be dead; four times a little girl, ostensibly meant to inspire terror, appears from nowhere; twice does someone mysteriously stuff something down their pants; and a whopping eight-and-a-half times is the heroine surprised by something benign.
And yet it’s not unenjoyable. The gimmick with the entire film being (supposedly) shot in one take is done well, to the point that you don’t notice until a while in, and even when you do, it’s not all distracting.
The odd character beats, such as the creepy friend next door who’s just dying to unveil her secret (and the heroine’s boobies) or the quick aside early on between the heroine and her uncle, they add more to an uncomfortable mood than all the gimmicks combined.
Again, not to say I didn’t like it. Never mind that a short call to the police could have cleared everything up; never mind that were supposed to believe hat the father, his daughter, and her uncle have been clearing out this old house for weeks, and yet everything’s happening now; never mind that we never get to see the heroine’s boobies (but there’s plenty of shots of them hanging heavy) — in all its predictable and unimaginative glory, Silent House, has a very good cast, a great look, and may actually be a brilliant parody of horror tropes.
