Silent House is scary but it feels grubby
FILM
SILENT HOUSE
Cert 15 | by Tom Latter
***
IF THE mark of a good horror film is plunging the audience into an unrelentingly tense and nightmarish world, then Silent House is a triumph. It’s certainly very familiar, centring entirely on an isolated and inexplicably terrifying old house, and the plight of a girl (Elizabeth Olsen), as she attempts to escape its many leering and lurching horrors.
Presented in claustrophobic real time, it is basically an escape movie, with very little else on offer. No brainy twists, no knotty turns – it is, in essence, a series of well-orchestrated bangs and jumps. This is horror – and cinema – stripped down to the bare bones and it’s no bad thing.
But there is something else at the heart of Silent House that’s distinctly troubling. We’re presented with what is basically 90 minutes of a pretty blonde teenage girl being chased around a gloomy house, sobbing, vulnerable, with blood smeared on her plunging cleavage, as we nervously anticipate all manner of eye-watering brutalities to be inflicted by mystery men. This may be a trope as old as the hills, but it’s still very, very grubby. When it’s all over you’ll feel like taking a shower.