‘[Elizabeth] Olsen rivets our attention, and the camera’s, so fiercely it verges on unbearable,’ Kat Murphy of MSN.com writes. By Kara Warner Elizabeth Olsen in “Silent House” Photo: Open Road Films Although based on a 2010 Uruguayan Spanish-language horror film, “Silent House” is supposedly inspired by actual events, which only adds to its creep factor. It’s not a movie for the faint of heart. Elizabeth Olsen stars as a young women who finds herself trapped in a remote cottage where she is haunted and hunted by unknown horrors. While critics seem divided over whether it is mostly good or bad — the film is currently hovering around the 50 percent Fresh mark over at Rotten Tomatoes — almost all of them had high praise for the technical construction of the film, which was uniquely done by filming the entire movie in one long, continuous shot . Read on through the “Silent House” reviews … if you dare. The Plot ” ‘Silent House’ introduces us to our soon to be harried heroine, a 20-something who’s returned with her father to their old family vacation home (in the woods and by a lake, natch) to pack it up, board it up, and say farewell to it before it goes on the market. But it’s going to take a lot of work — squatters have defaced it; rust has wrecked the plumbing; and mildew’s worked its way into the electrical system. The house is much like Sarah … she’s barely hiding lots of peeling paint, weak foundations, and broken windows to the soul. But why? We will find out, but first it is time to get scared! Dad and Sarah are soon joined by Uncle Peter who’s come to help with the tidying, a neighbor Sarah really doesn’t remember from childhood summers pops by, and a creepy little girl lurks just out of sight in convenient shadows. The players are in place, and the suspense begins. It’s just little things at first; a noise here, a falling piece of plastic sheeting there. And then Sarah’s dad is attacked, his eye bloodily gouged from his skull. Sarah tries to run — and she does escape the dwelling of doom, but she’s lured back inside by clever, insidious means. To reveal much more would be spoilery, but I will say that Silent House is the kind of movie you must suspend all disbelief for (OK, maybe some of the embarrassingly foreshadowing dialogue is diss-worthy) in order to enjoy. Just watch the girl, follow her, and get caught up in her terror. It works on a visceral level, similar to the French film of a few years back, ‘Ils.’ ” — Staci Layne, Horror.com The Technical Achievement “Like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ or the original movie, the conceit of the film is that it’s entirely shot in one take with only a couple obvious times where they could have easily cheated. If you weren’t informed in advance that the movie was done in one take, you may not even realize it as the camera person/DP follows the characters up and downstairs, in and out of the house in an incredibly fluid way, barely missing a beat as we go from mundane packing activities to intense horrors. [Directors] Kentis and Lau have done a terrific job creating an atmosphere of tension, keeping the viewer on the edge never knowing what to expect or in fact, what exactly is going on. This helps to make some of the more obvious jump scares work better than they might normally, something that can also be attributed to Nathan Larson’s subtle but effective score. Even so, the filmmakers sadly go for many often-used clich
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