Silent House

A 2012 Horror film by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau.

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) is staying at a lakeside Victorian house in the country which her father and her Uncle Peter are renovating. After an unsettling encounter with an old childhood friend, she hears a noise upstairs. Her father goes up to investigate it but never comes back. Sarah finds that she's been locked into the house and something else is there, stalking her.

This movies is a remake of the 2010 Uruguayan horror film, The Silent House.


 * Action Survivor: For the most part, Sarah just runs from one room to the next, acting like any one of us would when being stalked by a killer in a locked house.
 * Chekhov's Armory: Almost all of the implements of violence show up in the film prior to their use.
 * Chekhov's Gun: The tutu and the red locked box are.
 * Closed Circle: The house is isolated in the country. The landlines haven't been hooked up. There's no cell coverage. The electricity hasn't been hooked up. The windows are boarded up with plywood. Most of the doors are locked with either padlocks or are older ones that require a key to unlock it from inside.
 * Drop the Hammer: The sledgehammer introduced early in the movie.
 * Fan Disservice: While Sarah's cleavage is shown frequently, it's generally marred by the blood and the situation.
 * Haunted House: By all appearances, the eponymous house, including mysterious apparitions and bleeding walls.
 * Hollywood Darkness: Largely averted. When all of the lights are out, the audience can barely see anything.
 * Jittercam: Used almost universally throughout the movie.
 * The Oner: Unlike the film it is a remake of, it is not a single continuous shot. However, it is composed of only a handful of continuous takes.
 * Scare Chord: Repeatedly used to set up both actual scares and CatScares
 * Survival Horror: The film plays out as a live-action version of such, including Sarah's inability to do much other than run away.
 * Twist Ending:
 * Survival Horror: The film plays out as a live-action version of such, including Sarah's inability to do much other than run away.
 * Twist Ending: