The Silent House

Silent House is more technically proficient and ambitious than most fright-fests, but it also suffers from a disappointing payoff.

Vulnerable young girl creeps round scary house at night with scarce lighting. News at 11. The dark, bump-in-the-night sequences do stir up some tension, but are honestly as welcome as a painful double eye-poke of unoriginality and formulaicness. Sure, there are twists or whatever, but I can't excuse the sheer lack of imagination gone into conceiving this pointless rehash of a cinematic gimmick we've all seen countless times over the years. Why why why why why why? Is horror officially dead now?

Ok, my feelings are complicated on this, and theres so much space.... 1. first 3 4ths of the film is FUCKING FANTASTIC. 2. the ending is so retarded, M night shama-lama-fuggin' ding-dong would facepalm. Overall, i think it makes up for the shit-the-bed finale with a MASSIVELY awesome build up. definitely worth a watch. just be ready to be mad at the end.

Seemed like it built up some good suspense at the beginning only for that promise to unravel through its mess of an ending. The camerawork is good and the lead actress does a decent job. The ending truly did overshadow most of the good things about the film.

boring

The real-time thing is cool, and the film itself is more dense than tense, but I just don't know about those boring, what-the-hell-just-happened last 20 minutes.

Disappointing.

I "saw" the remake a long time ago and after fifteen minutes or so of anything happening, I had to stop watching. Yesterday, searching for Horror movies I stumble upon this recommendation here on Criticker [50] and I must say that this is pretty awesome Horror/Psychological one that I do not understand why it has so low ratings.

I have a soft spot for films that take place in real time, and I was excited for a horror film in this style. It works wonders during the first half, the buildup is pretty exciting. One moment scared the absolute shit out of me, nicely done. Too bad the ending loses a lot of the goodwill it had built up when it suddenly has to go all 'stupid plot twist-y' on us. Shame, since I was digging it for most of the time.

BOO!

It was quite a good horror thriller but it went boring. The end was more or less laughable. The idea (filming) was excellent though!

Started really promising! Really dark and scary the first half. But then it got really boring and nothing happened! The end was horrible. Very dissapointed after a great start!

An innovative, and interesting movie. The single-shot nature of the main body of the film contributes dramatically to the tension. The acting is somewhat by-the-by, but the build up is exquisite. Some of the set-ups, shocks and surprises are simply superb, and done with a realism and pace which hangs together beautifully. Well worth seeing if only for the invention of the cinematography if you don't like horror movies, but if you're in for the shocks as well, you're in for a treat.

OK, not entirely unpredictable - the twist ending is pretty obvious right from the get-go - but shooting it in one (seemingly) continuous take actually gives it an air of creeping dread that's well worth spending 85 minutes in, and I think the ending more or less works. Especially since it doesn't break narrative to explain it all to us.

The first half is pretty tense. Liked the real minute to minute filming. I had to check IMDB user comments to understand the ending though.