The Silent House (2011) Premieres at Sundance
Originally published at LoveLure's Luke and Reid Blog. Please leave any comments there.
ETA 11 May 1.13pm GMT:
In the interest of full disclosure: I am removing one of the tweets from this post - something I generally don’t like to do because it strikes me as censorship. The tweet is one of the most negative (if not THE most negative) from the original midnight screening of Silent House (2011) at Sundance earlier this year.
I am removing it because it shows up as the description for this post in Google and it a) on Google, it looks like it could be my review (!), and I haven’t even seen it; and b) that it might be representative (which it’s not - the reviews for this film are very much mixed).
Yes, this is a fan site, and I want nothing more than to see Eric and Van succeed, and to promote their work. But if reviews are clearly mixed (as they were for Silent House) I don’t want to whitewash it either, because I think that’s also misleading.
There have been a lot of people finding this page recently (the original Uruguayan version was just released in the UK). In general, the internet has been a TERRIBLE source of information on either of these movies because people are either too sloppy or two lazy to distinguish between the two films! I’ve seen promo shots and clips of one film attached to reviews of the other; the Guardian actually has credits for BOTH films mixed up together as if they were one film, so I do not want to exacerbate any unfair bias people want to develop against EITHER film.
So, when and if Google re-indexes this page (I’ve just installed a new Windows Live Writer plug in to generate proper Meta tags - will see if they pick up properly) I will put back the missing tweet and hope that it is not once again the one sentence that Google picks up to represent this page.
ETA 25 Jan 12.35pm GMT:
Okay, now it’s official. Sources including Variety are widely reporting that Silent House was sold to Liddell Entertainment. This has also been confirmed by Eric via ESS.com. According to Mike Fleming at Deadline.com, who claims an exclusive:
Mickey Liddell’s Liddell Entertainment has acquired domestic and most world rights to the horror film Silent House in a deal just brokered by CAA. I’m told the deal is a $3 million minimum guarantee, and a P&A commitment upwards of $3 million. Liddell gets all territories but UK, Scandanavia and the Middle East. Liddell, who made a splash last year backing the acquisition of the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu-directed Biutiful, is working with CAA to set a distributor. Several are circling, including Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.
Of course, as someone based in the UK, I’m wondering about why UK, Scandinavia and the Middle East were singled out….
Hollywood Reporter adds:
Last year’s sudden savior Mickey Liddell has swooped into Sundance 2011 to pick up domestic and most worldwide rights to the horror film Silent House. The Liddell Entertainment topper plans to flip domestic rights to a U.S. distributor. Thus far, Lionsgate is the main interested partner.
Plus some new Sundance photos of Eric Sheffer Stevens, Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Kentis, Laura Lau, and a fifth person I’d assume is the actor who plays Sarah’s dad, including:
ETA 22 Jan 2011, 5.00pm GMT: There is simply no way to describe the reviews coming in for this film other than “mixed.” Well, perhaps “bimodal”. The reviewers seem to disagree about just about all aspects of the film, but they agree on a few points:
- Even the reviewers who liked it generally concede that a major suspension of belief is required (who in their right mind would stay in that house as long as Elizabeth Olsen does? makes me wonder how Van Hansis’s Occupant will handle that question!)
- The majority seem to feel it’s scary and interesting from a technical perspective
- The film is likely to be picked up by a US distributor for a full-scale theatrical release. Several reviewers mentioned Harvey Weinstein sightings and that the midnight showing on Thursday was “packed with potential buyers” - good news for the film’s producers.
But on most other points there is disagreement, including:
- The one-shot filming: reviews range from “impressive” and “to be appreciated” to “cheated” and “a gimmick”
- Elizabeth Olsen either “can’t carry the weight” or “excellent”
- The jump-scares in the first hour prompted “covering my eyes” and built tension, or were “cliche” and ho hum
- The plot twist at the end ranges from “saw it three times in other films in the last year alone” to so surprising/confusing that people gasped or had to ask what happened
Eric Sheffer Stevens (who plays Uncle Peter) hasn’t been mentioned much, presumably because his part isn’t that big. In the MovieFone review, they say:
And then there’s her uncle Peter, who has the whole "you’ve grown up so much thing" happening, even though he looks like he’s only a few years older than she (Elizabeth Olsen’s character, Sarah) is. After Daddy dearest and Peter get into a tiff, Peter drives off in a huff, leaving the father and daughter alone in the old house.
Links to premiere photos, the MTV teaser clip, reviews, tweets from the initial midnight press screening, a transcript of Cinematical’s 5Minutes with Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, plus a YouTube clip of an unsuccessful audition tape all follow below the transcript and the jump…
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