This was one of those rare movies that is so bad I don’t even know where to begin.  It’s the acting, it’s the writing and it’s directing that makes this movie the blemish on mankind that it is. The story, at times, makes no sense, nor do the actions of the main character, Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen of the Olsen twin’s fame).  The fact that someone approved the making of this movie, and that people actually got money to make it, is an outrage surpassing the 2008 financial bailout.

Taking its elements from a 2010 Uruguayan film, The Silent House story is pretty basic – which makes sense for a movie with only a few characters and an especially limited scale.  We are forced to follow leading-lady Sarah (Olsen) through “a tense,” and at times “horrifying,” ordeal: Sarah, along with her father, John (Adam Trese), and Uncle, Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens), is in the process of fixing up the family’s dilapidated vacation home, in an effort to make the property more attractive when they attempt to sell it.  Sarah begins to hear mysterious noises in the upstairs portion of the house, and when she and her dad attempt to investigate the sounds, it quickly becomes clear that they are not alone – nor are they safe.  Whether or not the alleged “true event” inspiration of the film ever actually occurred remains unsubstantiated (and was a point of contention among fans of the 2010 Uruguayan film); however, “based on true events” or not, the fundamental storyline is inadequate within the confines of the 88 minute timeframe.

The only interesting part of this is movie is that film was shot in “real time.”  Due to this unique nature of the film’s presentation they had to use as a single take methodology, the production crew ran into several technical issues while filming, mainly surrounding lighting issues and mobility around the house.  Since the movie was filmed in 12-15 minute takes, there were several occurrences where entire sequences had to be thrown out and re-done repeatedly due to lighting problems or missed cues.  It also created a Blair Witch Project type of effect where the camera was bouncing up and down and twisting in all directions—it was like being on a bad roller coaster.

To be frank, I cannot write any more about this movie because it was so bad I had to turn it off.  As I have mentioned before, my threshold for bad movie pain the legendary, this film, however, was the Chinese water board torture of movie watching.  Its plot is thin, its acting is wretched and the writing seems like it was created by 100 monkeys chained to typewriters.  Remain silent if you are asked to watch this movie and exit as quickly as possible.