4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at 2011 and 2012!
6 Shots From 6 Horror Films: 2011 — 2012
Insidious (2011, directed by James Wan, DP: John R. Leonetti)
The Whisperer in Darkness (2011, directed by Sean Branney)
Dracula 3D (2012, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luciano Tovoli)
Sinister (2012, directed by Scott Derrickson, DP: Christopher Norr)
Silent House (2012, dir by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, DP: Igor Matrinovic)
The Cabin In The Woods (2012, dir by Drew Goddard, DP: Peter Deming)
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!
4 Shots From 4 2012 Horror Films
Dracula 3D (2012, dir by Dario Argento)
Maniac (2012, dir by Franck Kahlfoun)
Silent House (2012, dir by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau)
So, who wants to spend 80 minutes watching two people slowly die?
That’s the question that’s posed by the 2003 film, Open Water. Apparently, quite a few people had a positive response to that question because Open Water, which was made for about $120,000, went on to gross over 55 million dollars. It also inspired two sequels and it continues to be something of a mainstay on the SyFy channel, where it usually airs during Shark Week.
I have to admit that, largely because I have a huge phobia about drowning, I didn’t see Open Water until three years after it was initially released. I watched it with my cousin Paulie. At the end of the film, he exclaimed, “Oh, nice fucking movie, Lisa Marie!,” and I understand where he was coming from. There’s not much hope or positivity to be found in Open Water. It’s not a happy film. Instead, it’s a movie about a couple who end up getting stranded in the middle of the ocean. Eventually, one of them gets eaten by sharks while the other one drowns.
That may sound like a spoiler but really, it’s not. From the minute we first see Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan), we know there’s no way they’re getting out of the movie alive. They’re both so happy about taking a vacation and finally getting to spend some quality time together that it’s obvious that there’s no way things aren’t going to end in tragedy. Their vacation takes them to the Caribbean, where they hope to go scuba diving. Unfortunately, their scuba diving group leaves without realizing that Daniel and Susan are still underwater. When the two of them resurface, they discover that they’re stranded out in the middle of the ocean.
At first, they assume that someone will notice them missing and come back to rescue them. They make jokes about how this is a story that they’ll be able to tell for the rest of their lives. They laugh. They joke. They briefly argue. Daniel gets frustrated and spends a while screaming with splashing water. Eventually, the jelly fish arrive and they both get stung. Then. the sharks show up….
It’s all very dark and depressing and the film certainly did not help me with my fear of swimming. Imagine Jaws if the whole film was just an hour and a half of Chrissie Watkins getting eaten by the Great White and you kind of have an idea of what Open Water was like. As a result of the film’s low-budget, Open Water has an effectively rough, documentary-like feel to it. Daniel Travis and Blanchard Ryan seem like any ordinary couple that you might run into while on vacation. They’re easy enough to relate to that you certainly don’t want to see them die.
Unfortunately, after Daniel and Susan get stranded out in the ocean, the film gets stranded along with them. At that point, all you can do is watch as they two of them get eaten by undersea life. It gets a bit tedious. One imagines that Werner Herzog could probably make this material compelling and, whenever I watch Open Water, I like to imagine the sound of Herzog saying, “I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder.” However, as it is, Open Water is one of those well-made films that leave you with no desire to ever watch it again.
In the new horror film Silent House, Elizabeth Olsen plays Sarah, an emotionally unstable young woman who goes to her family’s old lakefront vacation home with her father. After years of neglect, the cottage is on the verge of collapse and Sarah has been recruited to help her dad and her uncle prepare the house for collapse. It’s obvious from the first minute that Sarah appears on-screen that she’s emotionally unstable. Whether she’s staring out at the desolate lake or (in the first genuinely disturbing scene in a film that’s full of them) awkwardly dealing with her uncle’s blatant attempt to flirt with her, Sarah is a bundle of nerves. When, at one point, Sarah hears something wandering around the house, her father replies that he’ll check it out because “I know how you are.”
Unfortunately for Sarah, things are about to get a lot worst.
Shortly after Sarah is visited by a mysterious girl who claims to be a childhood friend (“I do remember you,” Sarah says at one point though she doesn’t sound too convinced herself), her father disappears and Sarah finds herself being chased through the house by a pursuer who only seems to exist in the shadows. As she struggles to escape the house, she continually sees a silent girl watching her, just to disappear whenever Sarah tries to approach her. Even when Sarah does manage to get out of the house, she quickly finds herself brought back against her will until finally, she discovers the dark secrets that are hidden within the house and she’s forced to confront an evil far more disturbing than she had originally suspected.
Silent House is a film with a gimmick — director Chris Kentis and Laura Lau have filmed and edited it to give the impression that the movie was shot in a single take and, therefore, all of the horror takes place in real time. Usually, I’m not a big fan of movies that rely on gimmicks but, in this case, it actually works pretty well at giving the impression of a truly relentless thrill ride. Fortunately, Kentis and Lau don’t just rely on the film’s gimmick to make the movie effective. From this film, it’s obvious that they understand that taking the time to create the right atmosphere is just an important to a succesful horror film as having proverbial monster suddenly jump out of the shadows.
It helps that Elizabeth Olsen (who really should have received an Oscar nomination for Martha Marcy May Marlene) is totally believable and sympathetic as Sarah. It takes a while to realize that Olsen is giving a great performance. For most of the film, I just thought she was doing a good job at playing scared. (For most actresses, being chased in a horror movie is a rite of passage.) It was only during the final 15 minutes that it become apparent that, more than just playing frightened, Olsen was instead laying down the foundation for the film’s finale. I’ve read some criticism claiming that the film’s final twist came out of nowhere but I actually found it to be effective and disturbingly plausible. That is almost totally due to commitment that Olsen shows in creating the character of Sarah.
I saw Silent House earlier today with Jeff and seriously, I was so happy he was there because I spent almost the entire movie with my face buried in his shoulder. Admittedly, I’m usually pretty jaded when it comes to gore and horror. (For example, I saw Dale get his guts ripped out on The Walking Dead last Sunday and I may have arched an eyebrow but otherwise, it was nothing I hadn’t seen before.) But seriously, Silent House is an intense film that, wisely, doesn’t allow logic to get in the way of being scary. The critics can nitpick all they want on this film. What matters is that Silent House works.
(As a sidenote, I really hope that after this movie and Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizaebeth Olsen takes break from running for her life and makes a nice, happy romantic comedy. She deserves a break!)
Through the Shattered Lens 