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Horror films have always been a way to interrogate the anxieties of a time, society, or culture and reflect them to the viewer -- like a twisted funhouse mirror. Fear is a universal emotion and history is known to repeat itself, so horror is a genre filled with remakes, some of which are very good. Sometimes, like in the case of Leigh Whannell's "The Invisible Man," a remake evolves into something entirely different than the original story to better resonate with modern audiences. And sometimes a remake is, unfortunately, nothing more than a blatant cash grab from a studio looking to squeeze some blood out of the all-holy stone of "Recognizable IP."

And then there are the most controversial of all remakes: the Americanized remake.

Despite the knee-jerk reaction claiming otherwise, American remakes are neither inherently inadequate nor synonymous with "unnecessary." TV shows like "Shameless" and "The Office" are American remakes,...

I don't know about you, but I have a weird fascination and sheer fear of the ocean. The sight of open water, particularly at night when the horizon isn't visible you can't see where the ocean ends and the sky begins, it's utterly terrifying, yet there is an alluring sight of mystery and wonder. It is easy to see why so many horror movies feature underwater scenes, because as a setting it is dark and full of terrors.

One of the ocean-based films that made the biggest impact on me was not "Jaws," but rather the 2003 survival horror thriller "Open Water." Written and directed by Chris Kentis, the film follows an American couple scuba diving while on vacation, in a trip meant to improve their relationship. While diving, they briefly separate from the rest of their tour group, miss the head count, and are accidentally left stranded at sea.

The...

Thomas Hardiman's Medusa Deluxe is now showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries—including the United Kingdom, India, Turkey, Brazil, and Mexico—from August 4, 2023, in the series Debuts.Medusa Deluxe.In the midst of navigating the drama that ensnares all of Medusa Deluxe’s characters, Claire Perkins’s Cleve looks at a fellow hairdresser and explains, “There is some serious history in this hairstyle, do you know that? A story.” The hairstyle in question is initially shown as an unfinished work of art (or travesty if you’re a competitor hoping for a fellow stylist’s downfall): a mess of strands that’s easy to see through and hard to make sense of. But as the film progresses, Cleve creates a truly beautiful and engrossing design out of what was once incoherent webbing: a glowing ship upon a wave of hair, meant to be a recreation of the Orient,...

It’s time for a new episode of the Wtf Really Happened to This Horror Movie? video series, and in this one we’re looking at the tragic true events that inspired the 2003 shark thriller Open Water (watch it Here). To find out all about it, check out the video embedded above.

Wtf Really Happened to This Horror Movie? is sort of a spin-off from our show Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie. Wtf Really Happened to This Horror Movie? dives into movies that were based on or “inspired by” true stories, real people, and actual historical events so we can try to separate fact from fiction.

Written and directed by Chris Kentis, Open Water has the following synopsis: Daniel and Susan embark on a tropical vacation with their scuba-diving certifications in tow. During a group dive, the two separate themselves from the others to dive a little deeper. An...

Survival horror Fall (which is now on Netflix UK) sees two extreme sports enthusiasts climb up a 2000 foot tower in the middle of the desert and get stuck at the top. It’s high-concept in every sense as the two women teeter on a tiny ledge impossibly high up while the audience feel (pleasantly?) sick and anxious the whole time.

Fall is effective and efficient. The girls are likeable, capable and make good choices (other than climbing up a 2000 foot tower in the first place…). There’s real peril, enough back story to round the characters out, but ultimately it’s girls vs tower, with some pesky buzzards thrown in for good measure. This kind of survival horror – and by that in this instance we mean a film where characters are pitted against nature or a circumstance, rather than a person, or a supernatural entity – works viscerally when it’s done well.

When "WandaVision" dropped on Disney+ last year, it turned one of Marvel's lesser-known Avengers into a sitcom-hopping star. It also made its own star, Elizabeth Olsen, a household name thanks to her poignant performance as the grieving hero. Olsen joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2014, but her breakout role came two years earlier, in the form of a polarizing horror movie with an impressive visual gimmick.

"Silent House" is a twisted home invasion movie directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau. The movie premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival alongside another Olsen-led film, the cult-set thriller "Martha Marcy May Marlene." Together, the two films...

The post This Underrated Horror Movie Was Elizabeth Olsen's Big Break appeared first on /Film.

“Jaws,” the movie that did for sharks what “Psycho” did for showers, was rooted in the primal fear that drove its famous opening scene: the terror of having your body shredded by razory teeth and engulfed in a great white gullet. In its limb-shearing way, it caught the fear of getting sucked into a tiny (sharp) abyss. Yet part of the power of “Jaws” is that it was also an adventure drama of thrillingly wide-open space. The anxiety was dark and concentrated, the seascape enticing and vast.

But the movies made in the shadow of “Jaws” have tended to be waterlogged chamber thrillers. “Open Water,” released in 2003, was easily the most ingenious of them. It was like the opening scene of “Jaws” extended to 90 minutes ­— and amazingly, the director, Chris Kentis, sustained the tension. (I’m not sure why he didn’t sustain his career.) No other “Jaws” knockoff has been half as good.

I’m a huge fan of Chris Kentis’ 2003 micro-indie Hitchcockian thriller Open Water, which is based on the true story of two scuba divers who are accidentally stranded in shark infested waters after their tour boat has left. In 2006, Hans Horn’s deep sea horror was rebranded as Open Water 2: Adrift. Now, distributors are rebranding Cage Dive as […]...

More than 40 years after “Jaws” turned the fear of shark-infested waters into a classic horror trope, the concept keeps giving rise to new iterations, most recently with Liongate’s release of “Open Water 3: Cage Dive.” The low-budget project opens in limited theatrical release and VOD August 11, and it’s a curious outcome for what was a sensation at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and became a $54 million worldwide hit.

At this point, the franchise carries no earmarks of its indie roots — OW3 is a gimmicky story about Australian tourists whose cage-diving excursion with Great Whites goes horribly wrong — but the team behind the original installment never expected the concept to last this long. They didn’t even consider it a horror film.

In 2002, filmmaker Chris Kentis and his wife, Laura Lau, wrapped a passion project that had consumed two years of effort. Based on a true story about scuba divers...

I’m a huge fan of Chris Kentis’ 2003 micro-indie Hitchcockian thriller Open Water, which is based on the true story of two scuba divers who are accidentally stranded in shark infested waters after their tour boat has left. In 2006, Hans Horn’s deep sea horror was rebranded as Open Water 2: Adrift. Now, distributors are […]...

I’m a huge fan of Chris Kentis’ 2003 micro-indie Hitchcockian thriller Open Water, which is based on the true story of two scuba divers who are accidentally stranded in shark infested waters after their tour boat has left. In 2006, Hans Horn’s deep sea horror was rebranded as Open Water 2: Adrift. Now, distributors are […]...

I’m a huge fan of Chris Kentis’ 2003 micro-indie Hitchcockian thriller Open Water, which is based on the true story of two scuba divers who are accidentally stranded in shark infested waters after their tour boat has left. In 2006 Hans Horn’s deep sea horror was rebranded as Open Water 2: Adrift. Now, distributors are […]...

It's been more than 40 years since the release of Jaws, and people are still afraid to go in the water. That's the undeniable quality of the film, that its effect on generations of film fans is still, firstly, fear of what lurks in the water. Since its release, numerous films have tried to emulate the qualities that so richly personify the film, but very few have come close.

Andrew Traucki's The Reef effectively captured the tension, Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea crafted the creature feature quality, and Chris Kentis' Open Water had the character dynamics; but where each achieve their own identifying quality, they are all completely influenced by Jaws in one way or another.

Director Johannes Roberts' film 47 Meters Down, which was almost released last year on DVD before being pulled for a wide theatrical release, takes the shark attack film and places it deep...

The best way to watch Adam MacDonald’s Backcountry is to go in not knowing anything about it. Not because it’s full of surprises and twists, but because it’s a slow-burn backwoods thriller that carefully creates a gathering sense of unease. Wait — have I already said too much?? No, really: Feel free to stop reading anytime, and consider everything from here on to be a spoiler. Go into Backcountry expecting too much and you might be disappointed. But know that it’s beautifully tense and well-acted — the kind of modest genre picture we don’t see enough of these days. It bears some resemblance to previous entries in the people-stuck-in-a-desperate-battle-against-the-elements genre. Think of Adam Green’s Frozen (not the Disney movie), which gave us three people stranded on a ski lift, and Chris Kentis’s Open Water, which had a couple cast out in the open ocean with a bunch of sharks.

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 19 Dec 2013 - 06:30

Our journey through the lesser-known films of the 2000s continues. This week, it's 2003...

It was the year that Arnold Schwarzenegger went from Terminator actor to Governor of California, and when The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King dominated the global box office with a gross of more than $1bn. 2003 was also the year the Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy thundered to a close, the year Freddy Krueger clashed with Jason Voorhees in, er, Freddy Vs Jason, and the year Pixar scored another hit with Finding Nemo.

But as you've probably gathered by now, 2003 was also a year of quite brilliant, less lucrative films. The movies we've included in this week's list were chosen for a variety of reasons - some were ignored in cinemas, while others were harshly treated by critics. Some were modestly popular or given awards on release,...

It’s that wonderful, frightful, cool and creepy time of year again, when everything including the leaves on the trees are dying and our taste buds are craving sugary sweets and pies made from the guts of our jack-o-lanterns. It’s October, which means Halloween is nearly upon us! Get you costumes completed, your home haunts constructed and your candy collected for trick’r treaters, because you have to make time to watch some of the scariest movies this time of year.

In an effort to assist you in your cinematic scare-fest, we’ve come up with a list of the scariest movies to watch on Halloween… with one caveat. We have excluded virtually all “slasher” flicks. Why? Well, let’s just say we all know them, we all love them on some level, but really… don’t we all want something more in our scary movies? In honor of...

Writer Lee Gambin calls them Natural Horror films, other writers call them Revenge of Nature or Nature Run Amok films and writer Charles Derry considers them a type of Apocalyptic Cinema.

Of course we’re speaking of one of the great horror subgenres for which we’ll employ writer Kim Newman’s tag: The Revolt of Nature.

Since the end of the 1990s, lovers of animal attack films have been subjected to copious amounts of uninspired Nu Image, Syfy Channel and Syfy Channel-like dreck like Silent Predators (1999), Maneater (2007) Croc (2007), Grizzly Rage (2007) and a stunning amount of terrible shark attack films to name a few that barely scratch the surface of a massive list.

These movies fail miserably to capture the intensity of the unforgettable films they are imitating and the recent wave seems to carry with it the intent of giving the Revolt of Nature horror film a bad name.

Special Mention: The Fake Trailers from Grindhouse (2007, USA): The four fake trailers featured in the otherwise disappointing Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-feature: Machete by Robert Rodriguez, Werewolf Women of the SS by Rob Zombie, Thanksgiving by Eli Roth and Don’t by Edgar Wright-are all very entertaining trips down horror/exploitation film memory lane and are easily the best part of the film.

****

2) Other Notable Horror Films Of The 2000’s:

This list focuses on films that are partially successful and even touch on brilliance at times but ultimately don’t pull everything together to fully deliver on their promise.

Intacto (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2001, Spain):

This film about a group of people blessed with supernatural good luck has a great premise, several great scenes-the revelation of the plane crash early in the film, the blindfolded race through the trees and the Russian roulette climax-plus the welcome presence of...

The horror genre is always the first to jump on the bandwagon of any sort of gimmick that gets butts in the seats. Life insurance policies, 3-D, found footage, "See Paris Hilton Die" ... but let's be honest: Nothing is a better sales tool than real life.

Slap the label "Based on a True Story" in ominous red letters on that poster, and you've got yourself a surefire scare flick. People say to themselves, "Well, if it could happen to those people ..." Hang on, though, because while a storyline may have at least one toe in the waters of fact, there are varying degrees of "true" in the horror game.

We're taking a gander at the best this gambit has to offer. You can be sure that whether they happened for truthsies or not, these nine shockers have what it takes to frighten you out of your jammies.

9. 'The Strangers...

★★☆☆☆ From Chris Kentis and Laura Lau - the husband and wife creative force behind 2003's taught aquatic horror Open Water - comes Silent House (2011), a Us remake of Uruguayan director Gustavo Hernandez's La Casa Muda (The Silent House, 2010). Starring rising star Elizabeth Olsen as the film's tormented 'damsel in distress', this seemingly archetypal haunted house horror is unique for ostensibly being shot in a singular, continuous take - or so it would seem.

Read more »...

It’s Monday, so we all know what that means! Yes, it’s time for another rundown of DVDs and Blu-ray’s hitting stores online and offline this week. It’s a jam-packed week, with plenty of movies waiting to take you money, so let us breakdown the new releases and highlight what you should – and shouldn’t – be buying from today, September 17th 2012.

Pick Of The Week

Marvel’s Avengers Assemble (DVD/Blu-ray)

When Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of an international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., encounters an unexpected enemy that threatens global safety and security, he finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins for Earth’s mightiest heroes. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and two...

Marvel Avengers Assemble; Silent House; Breathing; El Bulli

It says something about the parlous state of modern blockbusters that any comic-book franchise flick made with a modicum of heart, soul and (most importantly) wit is immediately hailed as a game-changing event. Aficionados have long known that writer-director Joss Whedon is one of the good guys – a genre film-maker who understands both his source material and the fan culture that surrounds it – but the money-spinning success of the awkwardly titled (in the UK anyway) Marvel Avengers Assemble (2012, Disney, 12) has now cemented him as a Hollywood big hitter.

This in itself is a reason to be cheerful, for while Michael Bay makes cynical millions treating his viewers with contempt, it's great to celebrate the success of a franchise film-maker who actually appears to like and respect his audience. Thus what could have been a join-the-dots mash-up of Marvel's biggest-hitting superheroes becomes a...

Silent House

Review by LondonFilmFan

Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross | Written by Gustavo Hernández, Laura Lau | Directed by Chris Kentis, Laura Lau

Hot on the heels of wrapping on her first film Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen dove straight into her second role, an intense week-long shoot for Chris Kentis and Laura Lau’s “one continuous shot” feature Silent House. Not only is Silent House a remake of the 2010 Uruguayan film La casa muda (supposedly based on a true story from a Uruguayan village in the 1940s) but it also lifts the same gimmicks the original utilised and, for all intents and purposes, contains a bare minimum of originality.

The premise is simple and the idea is a novel one (or at least in the original film it was). A single hand-held camera follows the central character, Sarah, as she revisits the old...

Chicago – “Silent House” inspires the same strange mixture of feelings that I felt while watching fascinating yet severely flawed pictures like “The Life Aquatic” or “I Heart Huckabees.” My rational mind recognizes that the film doesn’t quite work, and yet my inner cinephile urges me to recommend it anyway. Here’s a movie that’s nearly worth seeing in spite of itself.

The directing team of Chris Kentis and Laura Lau made an enormous impression on horror fans with their 2003 indie hit, “Open Water,” which remains one of the scariest films of the last decade. For the majority of its running time, the film centered on the bobbing heads of a couple hopelessly stranded in the middle of shark-infested waters. By following the premise to its logical conclusion, the film refused to loosen its grip on viewers’ imaginations, while masterfully playing on their most primal fears.

Blu-ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

In their latest feature effort,...

Directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water) return to the horror genre for another unique spin on a rather basic story. Silent House is a one take horror film, which uses lengthy shots and low lighting to capture the fear and suspense of a creepy house. Elizabeth Olsen takes the solo lead role and attempts to grab your attention for a little under an hour and a half, but eventually her screams and panting wears off and Silent House‘s true colors are revealed. It’s just another disappointing horror film with an interesting premise, great actress, but no story and a twist ending that ruins everything before it.

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), her father (Adam Trese) and her uncle (Eric Sheffer Stevens) are gathering up a few things and working on their lakeside home out in the middle of nowhere. Certain eerie events lead to Sarah getting trapped inside the house,...

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season One [Blu-ray] As far as "Star Trek" is concerned, I'm a big fan of the original series and the films spawned from those characters. I was never a fan of "The Next Generation". However, Paramount did send me a Blu-ray copy of this first season of "The Next Generation" and I am hoping to give a few episodes a watch this weekend and perhaps have a change of heart. Just as they did with the original series, this series has been remastered and contains updated effects. I loved what they did with the original series and I hope I can get just as excited about this one.

 

The Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan

Criterion Collection Blu-rays Criterion is delivering a double dose of Whit Stillman this week with what I believe to be his two best films. Metropolitan is probably the least accessible...

*here be major spoilers. Director: Chris Kentis and Laura Lau. Writers: Gustavo Hernández, and Laura Lau. Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross, and Adam Barnett. Married couple, Chris Kenis and Laura Lau, return from their thriller Open Water (2004) with another terrifying movie, Silent House. Silent House is a North American remake of Gustavo Hernandez's Uruguayan film La Casa Muda (2010). Both films incorporate long takes into their narrative. Some scenes last for longer than ten minutes. During each take, actress Elizabeth Olsen delivers an astounding peformance as Sarah, a young woman who must confront a tortured past. That tortured past is going to revealed here along with some of the pseudo-psychological aspects of the film. Sarah experiences memory loss: "I think I have holes up here (pointing to her head)." Her memory loss has been caused by years of repression. Also, her conversation partner is a figment of her imagination,...

Although it slightly runs off the rails by the end, Silent House manages to provide a few scares thanks to the intense performance of Elizabeth Olsen, tight camera angles and a brilliant use of bare bones lighting. A remake of the 2010 film La casa muda, Silent House was directed by Chris Kentis, Laura Lau with a screenplay from Gustavo Hernández (who wrote the original) and Lau. The movie stars Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross, Adam Barnett, and Haley Murphy. Keeping the review as spoiler free as possible, the movie opens on Olsen.s Sarah who is at her family.s vacation home with her father John (Trese) and her uncle Peter (Stevens). The three are...

This week: Elizabeth Olsen plays a young woman who helps her father and uncle prepare their boarded-up summer home only to become trapped inside with a killer in "Silent House," a low-budget horror movie originally said to be shot in one long, continuous take.

Also new this week is the romantic drama "The Deep Blue Sea" with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston, the supernatural thriller "Monitor" with Noomi Rapace and the Blu-ray debut of  1996's "The Island of Dr. Moreau" starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.

'Silent House'

Box Office: $13 million

Rotten Tomatoes: 41% Rotten

Storyline: Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of the Olsen twins, plays a young woman, Sarah, who is helping her father and uncle clean out their secluded, boarded-up summer home in preparation for a renovation. After her uncle takes off to the nearest town, Sarah discovers her father badly injured upstairs and realizes to her...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 24, 2012

Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $34.98

Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Silent House should perhaps be called Really Noisy House, judging by the amount of screaming going on.

The horror movie stars Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) as Sarah, who gets trapped inside her family’s lakeside retreat. Unable to get out or contact anyone outside, Sarah experiences increasingly ominous events in and around the house.

Based on the 2010 foreign film The Silent House, the R-rated 2011 movie got mixed reviews from critics, and less appreciation from moviegoers. Silent House grossed $12 million in wide release in theaters, and while some critics say the film is incredibly scary, others say the only scary part is the movie’s flaws.

Both the DVD and the Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack include a feature commentary by co-director Chris Kentis (Open Water) and screenwriter/co-director Laura Lau (Grind).

That’s the...

The all women French sales agent company based out of Paris oddly has 2/3rds of the New Wave Indian films featured on the Croisette this year in Vasan Bala’s Peddlers and the epic film Gangs of Wasseypur from helmer Anurag Kashyap (see pic above). We count four Sundance Film Festival films on their slate and the most noteworthy upcoming project comes from Cherin Dabis (Amreeka) – a Sundancer herself and her latest project, May in the Summer – the winner of the 2011 Sundance / Nhk International Filmmaker Award.

Mademoiselle C. by Fabien Constant

May In The Summer by Cherien Dabis

Painless by Juan Carlos Medina

28 Hotel Rooms by Matt Ross

A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards) by Stefano Sollima

Bachelorette by Leslye Headland

Black Rock by Katie Aselton

Bunker by Andres Baiz

Farewell My Queen (Les Adieux A La Reine) by Benoît Jacquot

Gangs Of Wasseypur by Anurag Kashyap

La...

Silent House, Universal's English language remake of the one-take foreign horror flick La Casa Muda, is coming home so that you may judge for yourselves whether or not it was successful or if you should have just stuck to the source material!

From the Press Release

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) stars in this harrowing, edge-of-your-seat thriller presented in real time as one single, uninterrupted shot. Hailed as “pulse pounding scary” (Cindy Pearlman, Chicago Sun-Times), Silent House is available on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack with Ultra Violet™, as well as DVD, Digital Download and On Demand on July 24, 2012, from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

When Sarah (Olsen) finds herself sealed inside her family's secluded lake house with no contact to the outside world, panic soon turns to terror as events become increasingly ominous. Directed by filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water), Silent House uses meticulous camera choreography to...

Universal has announced a July release for Silent House on Blu-ray, DVD, digital download, and on-demand. Continue reading for the official press release, which includes the full list of bonus features:

“Universal City, Calif., May, 15, 2012 — Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) stars in this harrowing, edge-of-your-seat thriller presented in real time as one single, uninterrupted shot. Hailed as “pulse pounding scary” (Cindy Pearlman, Chicago Sun-Times), Silent House is available on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack with Ultra Violet™, as well as DVD, Digital Download and On Demand on July 24, 2012, from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

When Sarah (Olsen) finds herself sealed inside her family’s secluded lake house with no contact to the outside world, panic soon turns to terror as events become increasingly ominous. Directed by filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water), Silent House uses meticulous camera choreography to take the audience on a tension-filled, real time journey. Also...

The Elizabeth Olsen-starring thriller Silent House is going to be available on a Blu-ray Combo Pack with Ultra Violet, as well as on DVD, Digital Download and On Demand on July 24, 2012, from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. 

When Sarah (Olsen) finds herself sealed inside her family's secluded lake house with no contact to the outside world, panic soon turns to terror as events become increasingly ominous.  Directed by filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water), Silent House uses meticulous camera choreography to take the audience on a tension-filled, real time journey.  

The film also stars Adam Trese (40 Days and 40 Nights, Zodiac) and Eric Sheffer Stevens (Julie & Julia).  Head inside for the bonus features.

Read more...

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Remaking a revered foreign film is a thankless, usually insurmountable task. But what if the original film is not all that good to begin with? The Silent House, a Uruguayan horror from 2010, was distinguished largely for its admittedly impressive single-take gimmick, filmed on a Canon 5D as one apparently continuous 78-minute sequence (a spurious claim under scrutiny, though). Much like the source material, this low-fi Hollywood remake, Silent House, is a technically impressive feat – and better-acted for sure – but let down by a dearth of scares and uneven pace.

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) is staying at a lakeside vacation home with her father, John (Adam Trese) and uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens), and they are fixing it up for sale. It has no electricity, and has been set upon by vandals constantly; thus it isn’t much of a surprise when the house is invaded by a gang of intruders,...

American Pie: Reunion (15)

(Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, 2012, Us) Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy, Alyson Hannigan. 113 mins

It's rare to see teen-movie characters all grown up, and this illustrates the reason why: they just make us feel old. The gang's all here, reverting to their old non-pc habits even as they mourn their lost youth. It's patchy and often dodgy comedy, but there's still something heartening about Stifler's defiant idiocy and Jim's dad's middle-age second chance.

Safe (15)

(Boaz Yakin, 2012, Us) Jason Statham, Catherine Chan. 94 mins

Triads, Russian mobsters, cops and everyone else in New York falls foul of Statham in another ludicrous but fast-moving actioner.

Two Years At Sea (U)

(Ben Rivers, 2012, UK) Jake Williams. 90 mins

Extraordinary, otherworldly observation of a modern-day Scottish hermit.

Goodbye First Love (15)

(Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011, Fra/Ger) Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky. 111 mins

Heartfelt study of a young teen's formative romantic fortunes.

The Lucky One (12A)

(Scott Hicks,...

It came, it saw, it conquered. Taking a massive, £38 at the cinemas, Strippers Vs Werewolves was every bit the success we all hoped and dreamed it would be. The Avengers did alright too apparently. Joss Whedon’s superhero epic more than lived up to the hype and laid financial waste to all before it.

Out this week are a sizable number of releases with the main one being the belated American Pie Sequel, American Pie : Reunion. The whole gang is back together, all grown up and with successful careers, which is ironic given the vast majority of returning actors. Zing.

Also out is the Zac Efron drama The Lucky One, in which the posters assure me he is ‘hotter than ever’. Plus, tense horror thanks to Silent House, 3D vintage animation in the form of Beauty and the Beast and Jason Statham once again flexing his proverbial acting muscles in Safe.

It’s Friday, so you know what that means – lots more films released in cinemas across the country and this is week there’s a whole heap of cinematic goodness awaiting you at your local multiplex, including American Pie: Reunion, Safe, Silent House, The Lucky One, Beauty and the Beast 3D, Juan of the Dead and Piggy.

Nationwide Releases American Pie: Reunion

In the comedy American Reunion, all the American Pie characters we met a little more than a decade ago are returning to East Great Falls for their high-school reunion. In one long-overdue weekend, they will discover what has changed, who hasn’t and that time and distance can’t break the bonds of friendship. It was summer 1999 when four small-town Michigan boys began a quest to lose their virginity. In the years that have passed, Jim and Michelle married while Kevin and Vicky said goodbye. Oz and Heather grew apart,...

Inventive horror remake Silent House opens this weekend. The tale of a young woman being chased around an old family home by shadowy figures (which may, or may not be, part of her imagination), was made by husband and wife directing duo, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (of Open Water fame) using the ‘single take’ format.

We were fortunate to grab some time to chat with Kentis about this unique cinematic venture, and some of the challenges and difficulties which came with trying to bring the story to the screen.

HeyUGuys: The original film was only made a couple of years back. Did you jump on the project almost immediately?

Chris Kentis: Pretty much. [Production company] Wildbunch had the rights and contacted us to see if we were interested. Laura had seen the original but I hadn’t. The change to tell a story in a single shot format was an exciting and interesting challenge,...

This might be a competent remake of a terrifying Uruguayan film – but it still feels like a copy

When Uruguayan film-maker Gustavo Hernández brought out his single-take chiller La Casa Muda in 2010 I found it thoroughly creepy: in over an hour and a half of real time, a young woman finds horrible things in the derelict house she is clearing out. (More hardened pundits yawned and also derided the "real time" conceit, noting that cuts could have been cheated into moments of pitch darkness and whip-pans.) Well, it has now been competently remade by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau; Kentis's real-life drama Open Water had a comparable atmosphere. The film is streamlined a little, and takes place in daytime to dusk, instead of night – but there are no great developments, and Elizabeth Olsen isn't as interesting as she was in Martha Marcy May Marlene. It's still atmospheric enough, and like the original,...

If I had known, before I saw Silent House, that it was the work of the filmmaking team of Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, who made the slyly disturbing Open Water, I’d have been even more disappointed when I stepped out of the screening room. Because Open Water is absolutely brilliant, and it took them eight years to follow up with... this? As an exercise in style and performance, there’s certainly a unique significance here: like a piece of cinematic theater, it features the truly wonderful Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) as a young woman locked into her family’s remote vacation house -- now crumbling into disrepair -- while someone stalks her through the manse, all presented in what looks like (but actually isn’t) one uncut stretch of 80-something movie minutes. Olsen is, without question, one of the most intriguing, most thrilling young talents to...

★★☆☆☆ All too often it seems, promising films are derailed by a hopelessly lacklustre finale, which is unfortunately the case with Chris Kentis and Laura Lau's initially atmospheric chiller Silent House (2011) (an English language remake of Uruguayan film La Casa Muda). Showcasing the talents of Elisabeth Olsen (this film wrapped before Olsen began shooting on the critically-lauded Martha Marcy May Marlene) and thankfully bucking the found footage formula trend, Silent House is unfortunately scuppered by some ludicrous, highly illogical leaps of faith in its final third.

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Like February’s superhero flick Chronicle, Silent House is another genre piece which uses a potentially gimmicky filming format (this time it’s the single, continuous take) to surprisingly good effect. It was the same method deployed in the original Uruguay version a couple of years back, and deemed efficient enough to use again, but despite the best efforts of lead Elizabeth Olsen, the film is unfortunately struck by that all too familiar case of the bad ending disease which has scuppered similar past projects and undoes much of the initial sterling work here.

Using a simple haunted house premise as the hook, the threadbare plot sees Sarah (Olsen) helping her dad and uncle shift belonging from an old family house. Things seem slightly off-centre and then she receives a knock on the door from a girl around her age who claims to be a cousin, although she has no memory of her.

Silent House

Review by LondonFilmFan

Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross | Written by Gustavo Hernández, Laura Lau | Directed by Chris Kentis, Laura Lau

Hot on the heels of wrapping on her first film Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen dove straight into her second role, an intense week-long shoot for Chris Kentis and Laura Lau’s “one continuous shot” feature Silent House. Not only is Silent House a remake of the 2010 Uruguayan film La casa muda (supposedly based on a true story from a Uruguayan village in the 1940s) but it also lifts the same gimmicks the original utilised and, for all intents and purposes, contains a bare minimum of originality.

The premise is simple and the idea is a novel one (or at least in the original film it was). A single hand-held camera follows the central character, Sarah, as she revisits the old...

Okay, it’s not a brand new poster, but it is a little wider and a bit shorter than the other printed promotional offerings we’ve seen. That’s at least something, right? That justifies an entire article that’s almost strictly devoted to the fact that this shouldn’t be an article. Right? At any rate, the latest UK poster for directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau’s “Silent House” remake resides below. Plus, it’s a quad poster, which makes it a little cooler than most. I’m kidding. Have a look at this synopsis: In Silent House, Sarah, along with her uncle and father, prepare their long-time family summer home, recently violated by squatters, for sale. But broken windows and cracks in the plaster are the least of their problems when they discover they are not alone and there’s more than just mold concealed behind the walls.

Even though it opened last month over in the States us poor little old Brits are still yet to receive Chris Kentis and Laura Lau's horror redo 'Silent House'. But to help tide us over is the reveal of the new UK quad poster from the real-time movie based on the Uruguayan horror flick 'The Silent House' (Aka 'La Casa Muda'). It opens here in the UK from 4 May and stars Elizabeth Olsen ('Red Lights'). Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens and Julia Taylor Ross all co-star. Check out the new quad below, which apart from a collection of various quotations doesn't particularly open us to anything we haven't seen previously....

She’s only 23 years old, but Elizabeth Olsen’s big screen one-two punch is a no-foolin’ trumpet blast heralding the arrival of a major new movie talent. If, bafflingly and sadly, her debut “Martha Marcy May Marlene” failed to crack $3 million at the domestic box office, won over plenty of critics; she was co-honored, along with her collaborators, with the New Generation Award by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, among several other prizes. Her new film, “Silent House,” not just confirms Olsen’s talents, but immediately showcases her ability to anchor a movie — quite literally. She’s in every frame of co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau’s psychological thriller, which [ Read More ]...

Along with the hit film "The Hunger Games," here's a sneak peek at what's opening in theaters this weekend, including the epic mythological sequel "Wrath of the Titans," and the family Snow White comedy "Mirror Mirror," starring Julia Roberts.

The blockbuster "The Hunger Games" led Friday's box office with $18.9 million, which should lead to a three-day gross above $60 million and an easy weekend win.

In Theaters Now (March 2012)'The Hunger Games' (March 23)

Who: Jennifer Lawrence,...

Silent House is one of those films that came and went from theaters in the blink of an eye - so fast, in fact, we practically forgot about it already until Trembles sent in this week's Motion Picture Purgatory review for it!

Synopsis:

Sarah returns with her father and uncle to fix up the family’s longtime summer house after it was violated by squatters in the off-season. As they work in the dark, Sarah begins to hear sounds from within the walls of the boarded-up building. Although she barely remembers the place, Sarah senses the past may still haunt the home.

Filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau once again confront the face of fear in this enthralling psychological thriller. Impressively captured with a continuous camera shot, Silent House tracks the growing panic of its enigmatic lead, Elizabeth Olsen, who’s trapped in an unnerving nightmare. Never ones to...