Silent House

A horror movie that works shrugs off opinions and snobbery and eschews complexity. You know it works when the hairs on the back of your neck rise. It’s a visceral reaction you can’t control. “Silent House” was finished as Elizabeth Olsen was revealing herself as the Olsen sibling with big-screen charisma. She’s the “girl in jeopardy” in this thriller, set in a family’s old house they’re about to sell. A girl, suddenly alone in a dark house in the middle of nowhere. Dad (Adam Trese) was there. But he went upstairs and disappeared. Uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) took off with the only car. There’s no power, no phone. And someone, or something, is plainly in the house with her. Lanterns and flashlights illuminate the spooky rooms. The field of vision is limited to what Sarah can see right in front of her, never more than when she must use a Polaroid flash to illuminate a pitch-black room. Music and sound effects are used sparingly, Sarah’s screams are kept to a minimum. The filmmakers give away where they’re going with this too easily – what are the men not telling her? – and test the patience of the “Don’t go in there!” crowd by making Sarah passive and her actions seemingly illogical. But those aren’t fatal failings for a movie whose terror can be read in every silent scream on Olsen’s face. Sarah hides under beds. The “intruder” – whose face we never see – seems to lose interest. Sarah doesn’t scream. She doesn’t pick up anything to defend herself. Olsen is not playing a Jamie Leigh Curtis (“Halloween”) variation, here. She plays Sarah as paralyzed, with paroxysms of fear that have her stifling screams, gulping because she keeps forgetting to breathe.