Silent House
Open Road Films (II) | Release Date: March 9, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
18
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
85
NPRAndrew LapinMar 9, 2012
Silent House is smart about its scares as well as its delivery method. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumMar 7, 2012
A denouement more textbook than thrilling stalls some of the movie's power. But the early chills are potent, intense. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 8, 2012
Silent House feels relentless, suffocatingly tense and almost unbearable. And that's a very good thing. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnMar 7, 2012
The long take pulls you into the realism of the moment, heightening any sense of unease already established by the story. In Silent House, directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau ("Open Water") exploit the hell out of that uneasiness and keep pushing its limits. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 8, 2012
Silent House is a bundle of horror-flick tropes yoked together like a package deal. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 8, 2012
It will make you jump, to be sure, and your heart to beat a little bit faster. But what's truly scariest about it takes place not in the body, but in the mind. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 8, 2012
"Paranormal Activity" has been here before, of course, but Silent House springs tangy new tricks, and Olsen is a primo scream queen. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 7, 2012
The bad news is that Silent House is 88 minutes long, and the final half hour represents a descent into an anticlimax that ends with a scene as dumb as it is disappointing. Read full review
60
Total FilmJonathan CrockerMay 7, 2012
Technically impressive, genre-smart and nerve-shredding while it lasts, Silent House is really just a fun campfire horror tale. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 7, 2012
It's still atmospheric enough, and like the original, has a quasi-theatrical event status. But it feels like a copy. Read full review
60
EmpireKim NewmanApr 30, 2012
It works as a suspense-building scare machine, given heart and depth by Olsen's performance - though it's still an effective exercise in misdirection rather than a strikingly original vision, and now it's a remake of an effective exercise in misdirection. Read full review
60
SalonJason BaileyMar 8, 2012
As it stands, the picture's primary subject is its style; the promotional materials give as much space to the trickery ("a tension-filled, real time journey, experienced in a single uninterrupted shot") as they do to rising leading lady Olsen. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaMar 7, 2012
Once the twist becomes apparent, the film stops being scary and you stop caring about Sarah, despite Olsen's graceful performance. It's a shame. If the film stayed on track, it might have been come close to being a classic. As it is now, it's a huge missed opportunity. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichMar 6, 2012
Even this terrifically talented performer can't sell a Shyama-lana-ding-dong of a third-act twist that will make more eyes than heads roll. Read full review
55
MovielineStephanie ZacharekMar 8, 2012
This is good-for-you, arthouse-style horror. Which doesn't mean it's necessarily any good. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerMar 8, 2012
The film's most interesting aspects are its gimmicks rather than its frights. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMar 8, 2012
This is acting that seems more freaked out, more traumatized than it ought to for a movie about an unwanted houseguest. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsMar 8, 2012
Even in a predictable horror film like Silent House, Olsen draws empathy like a magnet. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMar 8, 2012
Its most remarkable featis sustaining the level of forebodeingly atmospheric suspense. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMar 7, 2012
My attention was held for the first act or so. Then any attempt at realism was abandoned, and it became clear that the house, and the movie containing it, were devices to manufacture methodical thrills. The explanation, if that's what it was, seemed contrived and unconvincing. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsMar 7, 2012
There's probably a graduate thesis to be drawn from this, about what audiences want from horror films, and ways to make viewers uncomfortable with their own voyeuristic desires, but that doesn't make the thrills any less sour, or the end any less exploitative. (Or worse, dull.) Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenMar 8, 2012
The film is at its best as a fast-paced enigma. When Kentis and Lau start explaining what's actually going on, Silent House takes a turn not just for the worse but the ludicrous. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 8, 2012
The tricky camera moves that fill up Silent House make for one-half of a nerveracking horror film – before the movie's obviousness just gets on your nerves. Read full review
40
Village VoiceNick PinkertonMar 6, 2012
Silent House does superficially spiff up the haunted-house movie, but it's not built to last. Read full review
40
VarietyRob NelsonMar 3, 2012
Pulling off the thespian equivalent of running a marathon, the hyperventilating Olsen works awfully hard in the service of a film that, in the end, does little or nothing to preserve her character's integrity. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineKate ErblandMar 2, 2012
Silent House is undeniably built on its "one-shot, real-time" gimmick. And while it works reasonably well - especially in the first half of the film - it's still just a gimmick trying to gussy up a common horror flick. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithMar 9, 2012
Demonstrating the limits of being too clever in a genre movie, the art-house chiller Silent House lets the tenseness of its first act trickle away. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 2, 2012
A creaky haunted house that, once the big twist is revealed, makes very little sense at all. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMar 10, 2012
"The silence will kill you!" warn the posters for Silent House. That's only if the boredom doesn't get you first, though. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezMar 4, 2012
Silent House dies a sudden and egregious death when the amateur players in Olsen's company, Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens, as her character Sarah's father and uncle, respectively, open their traps. Read full review
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