Silent House

Remake....just the word answers why Hollywood is remaking everything these days. There are not many original stories left to make a motion picture. Thankfully some directors can manage to remake a movie, without destroying the original motion picture value. When the Uruguayan motion picture The Silent House came out in 2010, alot of movie critics praised the way they choosed to make this movie. With a remake on our hands, is this actually a suprise, or is this another example of desperate film makers?

Sarah ( Elizabeth Olsen ) is staying at an Victorian house in the countryside, with her father and uncle. They are trying to fix the house, there is alot of work to be done. While her uncle takes a break, and her father continue to work upstairs, the doorbell rings. Outside is a woman who calls herself Sophia ( Julia Taylor Ross ). She claims that she and Sarah grew up together as kids, and spent a lot of time together, this is something Sarah does not remember. They agree to meet again soon, just as Sarah close the door. But what seemed to be a peacfull day with family members, is beginning to change in the worst possible way.


I have seen the original motion picture, what made the original movie special was that it was shot in just one take, no cuts, just a whole movie without cutting at all. This is not done very often at all, so what´s the difference between the original and this american remake? Not much, but i will say Elizabeth Olsen delivers a very powerful performance. She is basically almost alone in the whole movie, and with no cuts along the way, she proves that she is not afraid to try a different approach. The story itself is very thin, what makes Silent House work is the production around the final product. It´s effective, without having a big budget. I have brought this up before, but simple ideas works better most of the time than complicated ideas with big budget. Silent House will not be a future classic, but for a horror movie it knows what the audience wants, and deliver a stable presentation.

Rating: DDD