| The Silent House | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Gustavo Hernández |
| Produced by | Gustavo Rojo |
| Written by | Oscar Estévez |
| Starring | Florencia Colucci Abel Tripaldi Gustavo Alonso María Salazar |
| Music by | Hernán González |
| Cinematography | Pedro Luque |
| Release date(s) | 16 May 2010 (Cannes) |
| Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | Uruguay |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | 6,000 USD |
The Silent House (Spanish: La Casa Muda) is a Uruguayan Spanish-language horror film released in 2010 and directed by Gustavo Hernández. The film is inspired by real events that took place in the 1940s. A small-budget film originally intended for local audiences, it has achieved success in several important international film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival (where it was shown at Director's Fortnight). At the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau presented an English-language remake entitled Silent House, starring Elizabeth Olsen.
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Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father Wilson (Gustavo Alonso) arrive at a cottage off the beaten path in order to repair it since its owner (Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house on sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go on smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder in the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what is going on while she remains downstairs on her own waiting for her father to come down. The plot is based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. La casa muda focuses on the last seventy eight minutes, second by second, as Laura tries to leave the house unharmed and discovers the dark secret it hides.[1]
La casa muda was shot in real time in one continuous 78 minute take, with no cuts. It is one of only a handful of theatrically released movies to be shot in one continuous long take, and it has been billed as the first ever single-take horror film, though this claim is the subject of some dispute.[2] With a budget of just six thousand dollars, it was filmed using a handheld high-definition digital single-lens reflex camera (the Canon EOS 5D Mark II) over a period of just four days. It is the first Latin-American feature film and the second film in the world to be shot entirely with a professional photo camera.[3]
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 16 May 2010, a Director's Fortnight selection. That summer and fall it was screened on the festival circuit at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, and the Stockholm International Film Festival. Its first theatrical release began on 27 January 2011 in Argentina, followed by a 4 March release in Uruguay, where it was produced. It received mixed reviews after its 8 April 2011 release in the UK, with critics generally praising the director's technical achievements, but finding the overall story-line unimpressive. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised the film, writing: "This is a smart, scary film and a technical tour de force with its own skin-crawling atmosphere of fear."[4]
The film has been selected as the Uruguayan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.[5][6]