Trapped inside her family's lakeside retreat, a young woman finds she is unable to contact the outside world as events become increasingly ominous in and around the house.
With a few hidden edits, the illusion just about works, but the on-screen action is far too ponderously slow to maintain the tension, despite Olsen’s undoubted effectiveness as a scream-queen.
[The film's] chief distinction is that it is shot in a single continuous take.
Technically impressive, genre-smart and nerve-shredding while it lasts, Silent House is really just a fun campfire horror tale.
It’s well acted but repetitive and not scary enough.
Silent House does foreshadow its big reveal a little too clearly and proceeds to over-explain it once it happens, ensuring that the twist is not only easy to guess but annoyingly executed.
Olsen’s brilliantly nervy and detailed performance deserved a flick that knew how to house it.
Atmospheric enough, and like the original, has a quasi-theatrical event status. But it feels like a copy.
For all its technical sleight of hand, this is yet another remake that underwhelms due to a lazy storytelling approach.
Alas, the subtleties of the original have been mostly blunted in the retelling.
Loses whatever claims to individuality it once had as well as wasting the talent of Elizabeth Olsen.
It works as a suspense-building scare machine, given heart and depth by Olsen’s performance — though it’s still an effective exercise in misdirection rather than a strikingly original vision, and now it’s a remake of an effective exercise in misdirection.
A neat gimmick and great actress wasted through poor writing and direction.
General release. Check local listings for show times.