Demonstrating the limits of being too clever in a genre movie, the art-house chiller “Silent House” lets the tenseness of its first act trickle away.
Elizabeth Olsen gives a superb performance as Sarah, a young woman staying with her uncle and dad in a rural house where the power goes out and a creepy neighbor (Julia Taylor Ross) claiming to be a childhood friend drops by for an awkward visit. Windows have been broken by vandals upstairs and there are unexplained noises. Worse: It’s about to get dark.
Cue an hour of Sarah creeping around the house with a lantern, peering into closets, peeking behind shower curtains and avoiding violent intruders known only by their gruesome handiwork and fleeting glimpses (à la the Liv Tyler movie “The Strangers”).
“Silent House,” like Hitchcock’s “Rope,” appears to be shot in a single take, which adds to the tension, but this film-geek gimmick (almost all single-take movies, including Hitch’s, are more interesting to discuss than to watch) can’t disguise the fact that most of the script (based on Uruguay’s “La Casa Muda”) is filler. Except for delivering a hint that Polaroids are involved in the motive and back story, the narrative gets stuck in place while we wait and wait and wait for the payoff, which in no way justifies the buildup.