5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.4 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Husband-and-wife directorial team Chris Kentis and Laura Lau direct this suspense horror remake starring Elizabeth Olsen. Sarah (Olsen) has returned to the remote country house where she spent her childhood summers to help pack it up and prepare it for sale. While she is alone in the unoccupied, dimly-lit house, mysterious creaking noises start to emanate from upstairs and Sarah soon finds herself caught in the grip of terror.
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Chan, Adam BarnettHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 56% |
Mystery | 20% |
Psychological thriller | 9% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
BD-Live
D-Box
Mobile features
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The long take has long been the calling card of daring and dauntless filmmakers. Orson Welles' opening shot in Touch of
Evil (one of the first and still one of the most effective). Martin Scorsese's walk through the Copacabana in
Goodfellas. Michelangelo Antonioni's climactic hotel-room assassination in The Passenger. Robert Altman's
largely improvisational introduction to his Hollywood wheelers-and-dealers in The Player. Quentin Tarantino's stroll
through the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill: Volume One. Park Chan-wook's blistering hallway fight in
Oldboy. Kathryn Bigelow's jacked-in robbery in Strange Days. Paul Thomas Anderson's strut into a '70s disco
in Boogie Nights. John Woo's final shootout in Hard Boiled. Gaspar Noé's surreal flight through life after death
in Enter the Void... the list goes on and on.
Silent House, though, like its 2010 Uruguayan counterpart La casa muda, is one of only a handful of films
shot -- or rather carefully edited to appear as if they were shot -- in real-time with one long, continuous take. Hitchcock's
1948 thriller Rope, cleverly constructed from takes lasting up to ten minutes, was the first (and arguably the most
remarkable). And, some fifty years later, Alexander Sokurov actually pulled off the feat in the critically acclaimed Russian
Ark, a period piece composed of a single, legitimate 96-minute take. Sadly, Silent House's seemingly single take
and Elizabeth Olsen's razor's edge performance are the only things that make sitting through the surprisingly listless and
increasingly implausible remake somewhat bearable.
Before getting to Silent House and its 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer, it's important to define the differences
between artistic intention, encoding anomalies, and unintended inheritance. Filmmaker's intention includes any element the
director, cinematographer or editor deliberately includes or features in a finalized presentation, regardless of how
subjectively pleasing or displeasing that element may be. Encoding anomalies are just that: imperfections that are exclusive to
a particular encode. These imperfections do not appear in the theatrical presentation and are caused by the relative limitations
of 1080p resolution and current high definition technology. Finally, there's unintended inheritance (or, perhaps more clearly,
source defects). These are issues, discrepancies and inconsistencies that trace back to the cameras and equipment used during
filming or post-production. Banding or noise may be caused by a less-than-perfect encode, or they may be inherent to the
original photography or image. Something like shallow depth of field, on the other hand, typically falls under the intention
umbrella.
Which brings us to Silent House and its problematic presentation. Shot using inexpensive Canon EOS 5D Mk II high
definition handheld cameras, the film is haunted by a number of inherited issues. Banding, ranging from mild to severe,
appears throughout and huddles around almost every bright light source. Various types of noise surge and relent as the already
troubled lighting rises and falls. Rolling shutter artifacts -- dubbed the "jello effect" for good reason, as quick pans produce
warped, curved and wobbly edges -- become obvious when Sarah briefly escapes the house and runs outside. Black levels are
sometimes muted or chalky, and rarely bottom out. And a grid of tough-to-spot, evenly spaced vertical lines stretch across and
hover over the entire image (to see them, focus on the screen itself, not the movie, when the camera pans during a drably lit
sequence). Yes, it takes an eagle-eyed videophile to spot some of it, especially the vertical lines, but they're all there, lurking in
the murky shadows itching to pounce on anyone who notices them. (In other words, don't go looking for them unless you're
prepared to be distracted for remainder of the film. What has been seen cannot be unseen.) These issues should
not be attributed to intention, though, or given a free pass when evaluating the presentation. Co-directors Chris Kentis
and Laura Lau have made it clear they would have rather shot the film using more advanced cameras.
Get to the point! Alright, alright. For all intents and purposes, Universal's AVC-encoded transfer is a faithful
presentation; one that even has some merit. Fine detail is well-resolved (whenever the camera isn't hurrying down a hall or
violently thrashing), closeups reveal a good amount of detail, skintones are nicely saturated, and colors, when given enough
light to breathe, are lovely and vibrant. Black levels are still quite stubborn, with washed-out, overly bright shadows that tend
to neuter any true sense of claustrophobia or fear, and contrast is inconsistent (another side effect produced by the finicky
Canon EOS 5D Mk II). Be that as it may, there are far too many distractions and unintended issues (inherited or no) to give the
Silent House video presentation high marks. Those who are only concerned with source faithfulness will be more kind,
I'm sure. I draw my line at intention, though. If Kentis and Lau made an artistic decision to feature rampant banding, vertical
lines and other oddities in their film, I'd be the first to cheer the results. As is? It's a decent but flawed presentation that does
more harm than good.
Second verse, same as the first. Kentis and Lau faced countless challenges while attempting to capture all the natural sounds
featured in Silent House. First and foremost, Olsen had to be followed through the house by an entire crew of people
(among them the cinematographer, camera operator, and supporting performers), all of whom made an unruly ruckus as they
ran after the agile actress through the supposedly "silent" house. Try as they did to muffle the noise of their feet and
equipment using all manner of footwear and padding, nothing worked. Worse, the co-directors abandoned every attempt to fix
these scenes using ADR, as they felt Olsen's performance in the recording booth wasn't nearly as convincing as the breathing,
panicking and screaming she unleashed during the three-week shoot. Instead, they had to subject the audio to rigorous editing
and mixing. They also didn't rely on a lot of foleying work in the studio since, again, the sounds captured in the actual house
were so much more authentic. Then there was the house itself, which lay beneath the flight path of one of the busiest landing
strips at LaGuardia Airport. Sound proofing the house was easy enough but, as a direct result, dampened the acoustics of the
rooms.
So where did all that leave Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track? Dangling in limbo somewhere between faithful
and underwhelming. Dialogue and voices are intelligible but aren't all that clear or consistent; forgivable, considering most of it
enhances the atmosphere and on-the-run frenzy of Kentis and Lau's real-time frightfest. The rest of the sound design, though,
doesn't enhance the film all that much. The LFE channel provides plenty of power with little direction. A scare or jolt results in
an imprecise thoom and little more, while a near-constant, pulsing hum accounts for the majority of the low-end
output. Falling boxes, slamming doors and other tricks of the genre trade follow suit but are still either a bit too dull or tinny.
The rear speakers do their best to unsettle the listener too, but creep through much of the film without many responsibilities.
Even when the third act ratchets up both the tension and the fullness of the soundfield, immersion is lacking and the
experience remains largely front-heavy and subdued. It's just unclear how much of the track's shortcomings derive from
intention and how much of it derives from any loss or damage done while gutting the raw audio in post-production. Ultimately,
the film's DTS-HD Master Audio track is more than adequate and seems to make the most of whatever it's handed.
Silent House only includes a single special feature: a candid, matter-of-fact audio commentary with co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau. The duo outline the process of adapting a foreign film, working with a barebones 60-page screenplay, shooting twelve-minute takes in the confines of a house that wasn't specially built to the specifications of a script, creating the illusion of one long take, hosting extensive rehearsals with the actors and crew, and more. Kentis and Lau manage to balance the technical with the informative, providing a take by take breakdown of everything that appears on screen while outlining the difficulties their chosen cameras presented, the solutions they devised for many of their problems, and the particulars of the story, characters and overlying twist. Had their commentary been paired with an equally thorough, perhaps even feature- length production documentary (with rehearsal footage and more), I might have recommend renting Silent House for its extras alone. Instead, the Silent Hill supplemental package is just another disappointment.
Silent House doesn't serve up compelling characters or an engrossing scary story, deliver a competent twist or a satisfying ending, or elicit the unease, instability or sheer terror Olsen brings to her performance. If it weren't for the gimmicky genre pic's young star or single long take trickery, it wouldn't even be worth renting. Unfortunately, Universal's Blu-ray release has its own share of problems, from its precarious video presentation to its less than enveloping DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track to its slim supplemental package. My advice? Approach Silent House with caution.
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