Silent House

***SPOILERS***

There's no denying the technical accomplishment of this movie and how it masterfully appears to all be one long take without a single cut. Hell, it had me fooled. I didn't know the truth until I looked it up afterwards. And though it isn't one take, it's still mighty impressive the way they cut it to hold that appearance.

And sadly, the film's biggest, and practically only accomplishment also works as one of its biggest flaws, in that it makes the movie incredibly boring. If anything, this movie just goes to show how important cuts are. When presenting a story, you make cuts from scene to scene to skip ahead past the things that the audience either doesn't need to see, or what they will figure out later on.

But with this movie, we have to sit through everything that happens, and it makes it feel like it takes forever for the story to be told. “OMG what was that noise?” So we spend 20 minutes watching her creep around investigating. “OMG where’s my dad?” Spend another 30 minutes looking for pop. Barely anything happens, and it takes too long to barely happen.

And the final “twist” at the end couldn’t have been any lamer. How many “it was the main character the whole time” rip-offs do we really need? Talk about a jip. The only good thing to come from it, and pretty much the only other thing that was actually good from this movie was the performance by Elizabeth Olsen.

I thought she did a pretty good job with what she was working with, and proves that she is indeed the true talent of the Olsen clan. And this lame-ass twist offered a chance to show how well she could pull off these two different personalities, and the change she presented was impressive and quite chilling.

BOTTOM LINE: Meh. Didn't hate, but I didn't necessarily like it either. The real-time illusion is interesting and impressively executed, but the story is shit and made for a rather dull experience. Olsen does great, but overall I thought it was pretty boring, and nothing I would ever sit through again.