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The Next Great Horror Innovation?

By TK | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (22)

The-Silent-house-4.jpg

Whether it’s good or bad, Uruguayan director Gustavo Hernández’s The Silent House should be commended for the idea and effort alone. The film is about a father and daughter working on a boarded up house, only to hear strange noises from the basement. Scary stuff ensues.

Not the most original concept, sure. But then again, as has been demonstrated on a couple of different occasions, there’s something great about taking a standard concept like that and injecting new life into it. Oddly, the best recent examples have all been low-budget affairs that have been incredibly well done, innovative, and scary as hell. I’m speaking of films like The Descent, Paranormal Activity, and [Rec].

Well, Hernández is taking the simple haunted house story and trying something pretty radical. The film was shot using a handheld camera and uses only the actual light on the sets (from flashlights, lanterns, candles, etc.).

Oh, and it’s done in a single take. Seriously. A single, 79 minute take. God only knows how many times they had to scrap the whole thing and start over. It must have been a hell of a process to nail it — I mean hell… what if lead actress Florencia Colucci flubbed her lines 75 minutes in? The mind, it boggles. It must have required a great deal of random improvisation and working around any stumbles — both literal and figurative. For film nerds, that in and of itself is reason to see it.

Anyway, here’s the trailer for The Silent House:

Whaddaya think?

(Source: Slashfilm)









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Comments

Lets see... We got:

1.) Shaky, annoying camerawork
2.) Audible breathing from the main character
3.) An unknown cast
4.) A relatively low budget

Sounds to me like people are making this movies for the sole purpose of turning a profit. If you can make some crappy "single take" horror movie for a couple of thousand bucks and convince a couple of thousand people to go see it for 10 bucks a ticket, then the profit margin is going to be HUGE.


By the way, I LOATHED Paranormal Activity. Did people actually find that movie anything but annoying?

Posted by: Dangerous Dave at May 20, 2010 11:40 AM

Ah, this one. Yes, I remember getting a bit miffed at the claim it was the first horror ever shot in a single take. Incorrect. There is at least one other: The Circle from director Yuri Zeltser. Tagline: "One Shot is All It Takes." It's trippy. It might be better classified as a noir/thriller, but it's definitely on the fringe of horror by the final act. Plus, it's 101 minutes long and a lot more complicated than a single-house set. It had flashbacks, car sequences, and multiple shooting locations. It's dives into Alice in Wonderland inspired territory in the final reel, only it happens in a brothel and the white rabbit is a previously unseen mob boss. Just because you didn't see the film doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've also seen single-take horror shorts, which are also technically films. So, the first feature length non-genre-bending horror film shot in a single take? I'll accept that claim tentatively, barring any further research showing another person did that before.

But I digress. I'm intrigued by The Silent House for many reasons. 1) It's a South American horror; those rarely get any attention in the US. 2) It's a modern haunted house film (presumably). If not, at least it borrows from that wheelhouse. I like haunted house films with plots (unlike, say, Paranormal Activity). 3) The shaky cam, from the trailer, doesn't seem obsessive. Used well, it can be powerful. Used poorly, it might lead to another Parnormal Activity. 4) I like "based on a true story" horrors for how little of the truth actually makes it to the screening. The online bitching afterwards is a hoot. "OMG, what an idiot! The girl's house was white, not blue, and her sister's name was Carli with an "i", not Carly with a "y." Fail!!!"

Posted by: Robert at May 20, 2010 12:06 PM

The Next Great Horror Innovation?

Plot?

Posted by: D-Day at May 20, 2010 12:07 PM

The Next Great Horror Innovation is...

Innovation!

So what was the last GHI?

Posted by: laredo at May 20, 2010 12:18 PM

So, I suppose at some point, some hack is going to try to make House of Leaves into a movie?

Posted by: Vi at May 20, 2010 12:26 PM

Two words: Russian Ark.

Posted by: Ranylt at May 20, 2010 12:28 PM

The thought of a single-take haunted house flick is deliciously terrifying. I'd be willing to give it a shot.

Posted by: Jelinas at May 20, 2010 12:44 PM

Five words: Ark of the Lost Covenant.

Posted by: Johnny Von Awesome at May 20, 2010 12:48 PM

This looks wildly entertaining. I love continuous and complicated single camera shots (there is a fight scene from The Protector where the protagonist is fighting dozens of enemies while going up a five story flight of stairs -- it's one shot that just follows him up and up and up, with amazing combat -- it's epic). The prospect of an entire movie following this method is widly appealing (so is The Circle for that matter -- my thanks to Robert).

And in regards to Paranormal Activity. I was forced to watch that movie in broad daylight with my terrified fiance'. She refused to watch it in any other forum. It terrified her, but the mood was entirely ruined for me. I see it's merits, but it's flaws are so obvious in the warm light of the sun.

Posted by: superasente at May 20, 2010 1:05 PM

It looks promising. Sadly I've thought the same thing about several films, including The Descent and The Blair Witch Project, oh, did I mention Cloverfield? In other words the only gimmick here is the one continuous take bullshit. Otherwise its just another horror movie with terrible lighting, shot with a hand held camera.

Besides, this is the greatest one take scene ever...by the way, it ends at the 3:50 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXIGP6_fNZk

Posted by: DeistBrawler at May 20, 2010 1:16 PM

RE Protector scene: fucking awesome. Is he looking for his lost dog? I haven't seen the movie.

Also, single take is interesting, but an entire movie of it would annoy.

Posted by: Slash at May 20, 2010 1:29 PM

I believe he's looking for his lost elephant?

Posted by: superasente at May 20, 2010 2:02 PM

i'll wait for the remake that will come out two months later...reading is hard.

Posted by: menotyou at May 20, 2010 2:05 PM

It sounds entertaining and there are few movie experiences I love more than seeing a good horror movie in a dark, crowded theater. BUT, if it sucks then I'll get it on Netflix and watch it in my own hosue. Either way, I'll see it. The prospect of a single-take movie is too good to miss.

Posted by: stardust at May 20, 2010 2:33 PM

*house

Proofreading is hard, yo.

Posted by: stardust at May 20, 2010 2:33 PM

Dangerous Dave, Paranormal Activity pissed me the FUCK off too, in a major way.

This looks interesting but I do kind of feel like the only gimmick is the single shot thing...which is incredible, by they by...so it probably will draw me in if only to try and spot how they pull stuff off.

ALSO, I am never ever buying a white sports vest and blue jeans because they are apparently the uniform of the Damned

Posted by: Nadine at May 20, 2010 3:29 PM

DeistBrawler you marvellous SOB, I could watch that single take all fucking day.
Best thing about being a film student was getting to watch Jaa films over and over again.

Third Watch did a truly incredible 1 take episode in their final season, all taking place around one very small street and a few houses.

Posted by: Nadine at May 20, 2010 3:32 PM

Wow, a movie shot in a single take. That's groundbreaking technique. For Alfred Hitchcock in 1948 when he shot Rope as a single take disguising the cuts with dark surface segues/cuts. It was unimpressive then and there isn't any reason to think it's any better now and I'll bet the segues are CGI between the takes.

Posted by: OscarTamerz at May 20, 2010 7:13 PM

Regarding Rope, Wikipedia sez:

"it is the first of Hitchcock's Technicolor films, and is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as a single continuous shot through the use of long takes."

And IMDB sez:

"The film was shot in ten takes, ranging from four-and-a-half to just over ten minutes (the maximum amount of film that a camera magazine or projector reel could hold) duration. At the end of the takes, the film alternates between having the camera zoom into a dark object, totally blacking out the lens/screen, and making a conventional cut. However, the second edit, ostensibly one of the conventional ones, was clearly staged and shot to block the camera, but the all-black frames were left out of the final print. Most of the props, and even some of the apartment set's walls, were on casters and the crew had to wheel them out of the way and back into position as the camera moved around the set. "

Alfred Hitchcock was a badass, but he couldn't work with technology that wasn't invented.

Posted by: stardust at May 20, 2010 9:57 PM

Yeah, Oscar, what exactly is your point? "Ooh, this was groundbreaking, except that Hitchcock did it... except for the thing about how Hitchcock didn't do it, but this still sucks."

Great. Thanks for the input.

Posted by: The Other Agent Johnson at May 21, 2010 6:17 AM

It's worth noting that the only reason Hitchcock wasn't able to do a full film in a single take was because there wasn't a way of loading a camera with that much film. If he'd had the opportunity to do it with Rope don't doubt that he would've.

Posted by: Brian at May 21, 2010 1:12 PM

Shot in the dark, shot in a "handycam" style, and possibly another "found footage" movie? All of these bother me when they feel like they're done to cash in on the craze, but this one really does look promising. It looks just enough like [REC] to get me excited. Even if it's nothing earthshattering, I'll take a low-budget foreign horror film over an uninspired, over-budgeted remake any day.

I wasn't really moved by Paranormal Activity, but I was impressed with what the guy could do on a micro-budget. That was really his audition tape to Hollywood, and let's face it, it paid off. I'll reserve final judgement on the guy until he's put out a few films.

Posted by: Markus at December 9, 2010 2:06 PM