Elizabeth Olsen had nightmares while filming the 2011 independent horror film Silent House. "We incorporate one [of my dreams] into the film," she told IndieWire. "It was really, really disturbing." For multiple reasons, it's easy to see why. Silent House, based on the 2010 Uruguayan film La Casa Muda by director Gustavo Hernández, executes its stylistic premise too well to be dubbed "just a gimmick movie." Filmmakers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, the married couple behind 2003's terrifying survival horror Open Water, filmed their low-budget sophomore movie in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope: a narrative stylized as one continuous shot. Spoiler: the experiment works. Kentis and Lau understand the language of film, the horror genre, and how both elements intersect, and use that acumen to their maximum — if wisely restrained when necessary — advantage. Silent House's real-time style compliments and enhances its story, especially in an era that was already reaching peak found footage oversaturation. Sarah, Olsen's character and the film's protagonist, experiences ceaseless psychological trauma in ways that won’t be fully revealed until the finale. Silent House encapsulates those harrowing sensations and echoes them back to the viewer through bedrock film techniques — and Olsen is the movie's secret weapon.
