'SILENT HOUSE'

'SILENT HOUSE' (R) (2 STARS)

Written by Laura Lau
Directed by Laura Lau and Chris Kentis
Actors: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens

Wow, what a shame that the writers of "Silent House" took such a promising start and destroyed it all with a lame and unoriginal ending. The first hour and 15 minutes has a well set atmosphere, suspense and a creeping terror. Then the movie tries to explain it all in the end and the movie falls on it's face. The movie should have quit and not explained the plot and just ended on a more effective and creepy note. I groaned when I found out the big twist at the center of the movie. It has been done before and that would be okay if a half dozen other movies hadn't executed it better. If you want to see a good movie with the same feel as this I have some suggestions at the end of this review.

"Silent House" has Elizabeth Olsen coming off her bravura debut performance in "Martha Marcy May Marlene". She is also very good here even though she has that same deer caught in the headlights look that other horror movie heroines have had. She just has to scream a lot and look terrified and she gets to stretch a little during the lame ending. She plays a young woman whose father is rehabbing an old house in the woods. The father is then knocked out and our heroine is stalked by something. When in the end the movie explains what it is that was after her you will roll your eyes and recognize the ending from other horror movies. I don't want to give away the ending but trust me it is a groaner and it is cheap.

It is a shame because the movie had me going through two thirds of it. The movie was made by the bright duo that gave us the cool chiller "Open Water" back in 2003. That was a neat thriller about a man and woman stuck in the middle of an Ocean as sharks are circling around them. "Silent House" gets half of that movie's spirit and chills right and "Open Water" had a much better ending. It didn't have a final resolution that spelled it out for you as "Silent House" does. I loved the start of this movie and I was a little scared at times. The first half of this movie is not cheap or ugly but it is effective. It is the ending that spells everything out and it is cheap and ugly.

All good horror movies should have a great ending that knocks you over and makes you walk out of the theatre stunned. "Silent House" has one of the worst endings to a horror movie I have seen. That is a shame because I like Elizabeth Olsen a lot and the creators of this movie are talented based on "Open Water. If you want to see a much better movie than this that has the same plot line check out the under rated and very scary and creepy 2008 movie "The Strangers" which is note for note in the same style as "Silent House" and ten times better. Also there is my favorite horror movie in decades "The House of the Devil", a perfect recreation of a 70's "slasher" movie. I also thought about a movie with the same ending as House that is terrible but that was better and it has a bad reputation. That would be 1981's "Happy Birthday To Me" with Melissa Gilbert that is sick and ugly but a guilty pleasure and a horror movie that even blows away "Silent House" which turns out to be a pretender.

P.S. So skip "Silent House" and check out great horror movies like "Open Water", "The House of the Devil", "The Innkeepers" (from the same director of "House of the Devil"), "The Strangers" and even the horrible but effective "Happy Birthday To Me".