Movies
Now That You’ve Seen ‘Silent House’, What Did You Think?
Open Road’s Silent House, the remake of the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda, opened on Friday and pulled in around $7 Million at the North American Box Office.
That’s not an amazing number, but then again the production cost of the film was under $1 Million so it’s possible it will still make its money back after P&A expenses (depending on what those are). I personally thought Elizabeth Olsen gave a remarkable performance. It’s entirely up to her to carry this “real-time” supernatural thriller and she more than pulls it off with an intense, layered performance. While the film isn’t perfect, I thought it had a fair share of impressive elements and was able to pull off some nice moments of terror.
Also, Nikki Finke thinks that La Casa Muda, was actually shot in one take (“the original was an impressive one-shot movie [i.e. one continuous take])“. It wasn’t. She also believes that the reason Silent House didn’t do better was that, “their remake stitches together several sequences and is only made to look as if it’s a one-shot pic. A backlash ensued since genre movie fans take their horror seriously.”
While I respect the opinion of anyone who didn’t like the film, directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau were very upfront that the film is actually comprised of 8-9 takes. No one was really hiding anything. I suspect if you didn’t go see the film it was for entirely different reasons than the ones that Finke outlined. It’s kind of strange having a non-genre fan put words into your mouth isn’t it?
What did you think of the film? Click here to write your own review. Also, if you didn’t go, let us know why in the comments.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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