Good
evening fiends, it’s Teen Scream Tuesday!
We have some great flicks on the docket today, beginning with Silent House (2011), directed by Chris
Kentis and Laura Lau. The movie begins
with protagonist Sarah (portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen) and her family, who are
renovating their lake house before it is sold.
The movie doesn’t actually give you more than this before suddenly the
girl’s family is no where to be found and she is being followed around the
house by a mysterious male figure. All
the doors and windows are locked/boarded tight, and she’s unable to find her
way out of the house. She clearly feels
trapped and this person, whom neither she nor the audience knows, is after her.
Truth be
told, this movie doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for the first 30/40 minutes
when this strange man is after her and we don’t know who he is or what his
motive is, and the uncle leaving and the father getting hurt all at the same
time before this maniac appears is pretty convenient. But things become clearer as Sarah begins to
realize that her father and uncle molested her when she was little, and the man
that is ‘after her’ is part of her repressed memories of the event. Sarah exacts her revenge on her father while
her uncle watches, then pleads for his life.
The only death in the entire film is a bludgeoning by sledgehammer,
which is pretty cool but wasn’t particularly gruesome. The cringe-worthy elements of this film were
the molestation (which isn’t shown, only alluded to) and the feeling of being
trapped in the house during the initial guy-is-after-me-for-no-reason
sequence.
The music
in this one was mediocre, as was the cinematography. It had all the elements I don’t care for
(shaky camera, fuzzy camera, etc), though it is rare in that it attempts to
portray itself as one continuous shot a la Hitchcock’s Rope. This is no where near
the quality of Hitch’s work, though I will give the directors and cameramen
kudos for trying, and it is known that the movie was not shot all in one take
(so that sort of removes the credibility, in my humble opinion). I can’t say I was particularly taken with
Elizabeth Olsen’s performance as Sarah either.
She wasn’t horrible but she just didn’t quite do it for me as a scream
queen. I also had issues with the plot
in some parts…for example why on earth would her uncle, after seeing her show
up bloody and crying and saying her dad was hurt, take her back to the house to
‘help’ without calling some sort of emergency response? That just simply doesn’t make sense.
As I mentioned
before, this movie has a wickedly low Body Count of just one. That’s not quite enough blood for me! Number of Killers? One.
Boob Count? None, but since this
movie dealt with molestation and pedophiliac behavior, I’m quite glad for the
lack. Cheap Thrills? Two.
Actual Chills? Two. Raven’s Scream Meter Says: 2.5 out of 5 Screams. Decent for a teen-scream, but definitely
won’t go down in the books as a horror ‘classic.’ I hope you fiends enjoyed the review, feel
free to leave comments below! And
thanks, as always, for reading. Xx ~
Raven
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