A few times in the past, I've spoken of my occasional adventures into the realm of international horror movies. I've gotten lucky with a lot of these ventures, since most the foreign horror that's come my way has been more good than bad. I bring this up because I was actually surprised to learn that the movie Silent House, which sees its wide theatrical release today after premiering fourteen months ago at the Sundance Film Festival, is actually a remake of a movie from South America. So I figured I'd head back into international waters and review the movie that inspired Silent House.
Released in its native country of Uruguay as La Casa Muda (which, as you've probably guessed, translates to The Silent House), the movie was shot over four days with a high-end digital photo camera on a budget of roughly 6,000 bucks. And with the intriguing approach of being edited to appear as if it were filmed in one long take (similar to Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 thriller Rope), let's dive in and see if La Casa Muda can live up to its tagline's promise of "real fear in real time."
The movie follows a young woman named Laura (Florencia Colucci), who has traveled to a rundown house out in the middle of nowhere to help her father (Gustavo Alonso) fix the place up so it can be put up for sale. Despite the house's lack of electricity, she and her father decide to camp out there for the night. But as they begin to settle in, Laura begins hearing strange noises coming from upstairs. Her father goes up to investigate, but the next time we see him, he's a beaten, bloody mess. As we soon learn, the house holds a dark secret that is just waiting to be revealed.
Say what you will about it, but La Casa Muda is one of the most unique horror movies I've seen in a long time. The whole concept of it being an uninterrupted single take is a novel approach, making the movie a genuine rollercoaster ride for much of its running time. The movie is not a perfect movie; it has its fair share of flaws that hold it back from being absolutely fantastic. But the flaws do not outweigh La Casa Muda's effectiveness. It's intense at times, downright frightening at other times, and really atmospheric throughout the whole thing.
A lot of this is due to the efforts of director Gustavo Hernández. With the assistance of cinematographer Pedro Luque, Hernández constructs a movie that is claustrophobic and unrelentingly suspenseful for much of its running time. Even the instances where he allows us to slow down and take a breather are tense. Though you can see moments when Hernández and his editor could have possibly snuck in a quick edit or two, the fact that they succeeded in making it look like one continuous take is impressive.
The "one continuous take" gimmick and the fact that it was shot with a handheld camera, allow us to feel like we're actually in the movie ourselves. We the viewers essentially are the main character. With the exception of one or two "now you see it, now you don't" scares, we don't see or know anything that she doesn't. It actually adds to the creepy atmosphere that Hernández builds over the course of the movie and it reeled me in hook, line, and sinker.
It helps that La Casa Muda is focused around an actress who puts forth a fantastic performance. Florencia Colucci is by herself for the bulk of the movie's running time, but she absolutely knocks it out of the park. Though the role feels similar to a stereotypical slasher movie "final girl," she's believable to the point that she can actually make you forget to wonder why she's still roaming around the house instead of getting the hell out of there. There's not much to the role in terms of depth, but Colucci still manages to be aces.
Unfortunately, where La Casa Muda begins to fall apart is its screenplay. Written by Oscar Estévez from a story by Hernández and Gustavo Rojo, the script is not very strong at all. The plot is practically nonexistent, and there is absolutely zero character development; Colucci's character is so one-dimensional that if she were a swimming pool, you'd crack your skull open if you dove in headfirst. And by the time there is something resembling development, it not only comes completely out of nowhere but the movie's almost over to boot.
That ties into my next complaint about the script: the twist ending. The twist is just dumped into our laps with no clues or expository dialogue or anything else that would set it up. There are a series of Polaroid pictures that appear over the closing credits and try filling in some of the gaps, but it's still way too vague to make any sort of sense. I'm okay with vague endings as long as I've got enough clues to connect the dots in my head. But La Casa Muda has practically no dots at all. The lack of exposition also hurts the characters, because none of the three people who appear in the movie ever come across as being very deep. (Then again, Gustavo Alonso and Abel Tripaldi probably only have a combined ten minutes of screen time.) I know High Tension gets a lot of crap for its twist, but at least you can kinda make sense of it if you approach it the right way. It's too bad you can't really do the same with La Casa Muda.
But those faults aside, I thought La Casa Muda was a damn fine horror film. It's suspenseful, scary, and exciting all at the same time. The "one long take" thing could just be a gimmick to garner some attention for the movie, but it works. It really helps to ratchet up the dread and make the movie that much better. And because of that, La Casa Muda is going to get three and a half stars on my scale. And with the remake seeing its release this weekend, I can't wait to see how the United States translates the movie.
Final Rating: ***½
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