Chris Kentis
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Like its predecessor, this remake of the 2010 Uruguayan film La casa muda ("The Silent House") bears an unavoidable stylistic similarity to Alfred Hitchock's Rope .
Oh, and the whole business about shooting the film in one long take, à la Hitchcock’s Rope ?
Vigilant viewers will note the seam of at least one on-screen cut in Silent House, but the “single” take is regardless an impressive feat of choreography, the bravura stunt of Hitchcock’s Rope adapted to the greater mobility and footage capacity of digital cameras.
The most famous early experiment in long-take filmmaking was from no less a talent than Alfred Hitchcock, who employed the technique in his 1948 thriller Rope.
The big draw by the filmmakers for “Silent House” is the claim that it is done in one continuous take and, like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” provides a technically appealing pull for audiences.
Not only is the camerawork overly shaky, but the the fun (and scary) use of limited light is undoubtedly inspired by the Hitchcock classic Rear Window , just as the real-time hook was cribbed from the Hitchcock classic Rope .
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Directed by Daniel Myrick
influenced Open Water (2004)
Visuals Plot Themes
Once you get past the video-to-film transfer, which gives the film the shaky, dizzy feel of “The Blair Witch Project,” it’s easy to settle into the movie.
Like The Blair Witch Project (1999), it's a homemade horror film with more tense thrills than any recent Hollywood picture.
Hyped, quite correctly, as "The Blair Witch Project" meets "Jaws", "Open Water" exists on that fringe of believability required to sustain any horror premise - a vacationing couple on a scuba trip are left behind in shark-infested waters.
This shark-attack thriller is more like "The Blair Witch Project," which was an initially shocking, chilling film that has been greatly diminished because it was overhyped (and because of a much-inferior sequel).
It also felt a slight bit like The Blair Witch Project, with its independent look and shaky handheld cameras.
The obvious reference point here is The Blair Witch Project, which left some folks nauseous, many people pissed, and some genuinely, honestly freaked.
Who knew when the efficient little suspense film “Open Water’’ came out in 2003 that its concept - two scuba divers swept out to sea, with sharks circling - would become a template for every young filmmaker with a dollar and a dream?
In that sense, the intermittently suspenseful Frozen is closer in spirit to the terrifyingly haunting 2003 film Open Water (a couple marooned in the middle of the ocean) and the far less successful stuck-in-the-middle -of-nowhere movie from last year, The Canyon (a couple marooned at the bottom of the Grand Canyon).
Some spoiled young people try to have some healthy outdoor fun — say, scuba-diving (2003's Open Water), or hiking the Grand Canyon (last year's The Canyon), or, in the case of Adam Green's nasty chiller, snowboarding — and, invariably, Mother Nature or Fate or a sadistic screenwriter turns it all into hell.
“Frozen” has more in common with “Open Water,” the masterfully tense 2003 indie in which two scuba divers are stranded in the middle of the ocean with little hope and unimaginable fear lurking beneath.
The plot is a doozy, yes?it has been described in some circles as a snow-set variation on 2004's flawed but effective " Open Water "?but the depth of character and the masterful, unsparing grasp Green and cinematographer Will Barratt have over their mise-en-scéne are the film's all-important special ingredients.
Consider "Frozen" a wind- chilled "Open Water," a 2003 indie that also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Of course, if you put it up against Open Water (2003), Cabin Fever (2002), High Tension (2003) and Wolf Creek (2005) this becomes a work of pure genius.
The first half of this late-summer Lionsgate release follows the company�s 2004 psychological thriller Open Water.
Fans of Saw and The Cave will likely find it more gripping than those movies, but it doesn't match the subtle horrors of 2003's Open Water.
In 2003, "Open Water" cut deeper into our subconscious creep-zones, dropping two abandoned scuba divers in the middle of the ocean with nothing but I-don't-want-to-know-what brushing their feet.
Jaume Collet-Serra, usually found directing Liam Neeson through some dire predicaments (their joint resume consists of Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night), has managed to craft a thriller that's at least as memorable as 2003's Open Water, perhaps the last shark tale of note.
Unequivocally the best shark movie since “Jaws” (yes, even better than “Open Water” and “Deep Blue Sea”), this back-to-basics thriller either eliminates or reclaims all of the excess and gimmickry that have watered down the genre since Steven Spielberg first invented it — there’s only one killer fish, she’s shot in beautiful 2D, and it doesn’t appear as though the beast has developed the ability to swim backwards as the result of reckless genetic modifications.
It’s this arresting color shift and stylish 360-degree shots of Nancy trapped on a rocky protrusion just offshore that distinguish the movie from the isolated peril of “Open Water,” even before we get to the showcase attack effects.
It doesn’t have any of the beaming self importance of “Open Water” or “127 Hours,” which makes it a lot more fun than it has any right to be.
Many audiences have compared Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” to the indie horror film “ Open Water .”
The set-up resembles “Open Water” in space.
Like Alien or Open Water , it creates a queasy sense of there's nothing you can do dread.
The “survival” genre, with films like Gravity, 127 Hours, Buried, and Open Water, are an evolution of the Irwin Allen era disaster movies.
At first glance a minimalist survival nail-biter on the order of, say, Cast Away or Open Water, Gravity ratchets up the terror by observing the pitiless logic of physics.
The story itself is cobbled together from other sources–a touch of The Descent here, a whole scoop of The Shallows there, plenty of Open Water , lots of Frozen (no, not the “Let It Go” Frozen ).
Like other ‘stuck without hope’ films (Adam Green’s Frozen or Open Water come to mind) director Scott Mann pulls no punches here.
The best “trapped” films usually rely on realism, making viewers feel like they’re actually trapped in the rocky waves of a film like “Open Water,” and “Fall” crumbles under that analysis.
So, you have “1408”, “Buried”, “Locke”, “Trapped”, “The Shallows”, “Gerald’s Game”, “Frozen”, “Open Water”, “Phone Booth”, and “Oxygen“.
I applaud the cinematic artistry of a blockbuster achievement like Spielberg’s Jaws , the found footage minimalism of Open Water and the campy insanity of Deep Blue Sea .
“The Reef,” “The Shallows” and “Open Water” and a few others were good.
Far from the pared-down horror of something like Open Water, the latest selachian feature The Meg goes for broke with the notion that bigger is better, making the strong case of disproving that exact statement.
If shark attacks appeal, hit the video store or your favorite streaming services and check out the wonderfully bugnuts (and as legend has it, epically trashed) Richard Harris in 1977’s Orca or the more somber but genuinely harrowing Open Water.
Then there was Open Water , which was sharks + real life, taking the true story of two American tourists left behind by their tour boat off the coast of Australia.
After Open Water but before 47 Meters Down, there was the 2010 Australian import The Reef.
The skill and flair required on the part of Mendes and legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins to make this work is undeniable, even if the concept has lost some of its lustre in the wake of Birdman‘s Oscar win and other movies like Silent House, as well as that one episode of Mr Robot on TV.
A Quiet Place is one of those tiresome gimmick-fueled horror movies like 2010’s Buried (Ryan Reynolds in a coffin for 95 minutes) or 2012’s Silent House (the entire feature is a single take of Elizabeth Olsen being menaced).
What separates it from similar films like Open Water (2003), another genre thriller playing on primal fears, is technical confidence, total commitment and sheer audacity from director Rodrigo Cortés and star Reynolds.
There isn't a moment in the picture that hasn't been seen before, and done with more perceptive depth, from 2000's " Cast Away ," to 2004's " Open Water ," to 2013's " Gravity ."
One starts to think about movies like Fincher’s Panic Room , Silent House (even if it is narratively lacking), and Don’t Breathe .
Through his own instincts and likely some key “quiet…quiet…bang!” advice from producers Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, Alvarez knows how to build early tension visually and aurally: just witness a standout sequence that shuts the lights off, allowing “Silent House” DP Pedro Luque to shoot characters in inky night vision, their pupils an empty black dot, while composer Roque Baños’ intense score rumbles in the background.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
influenced by Silent House (2011)
Visuals
Working with the brilliant cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu devises the action to unfold in what appears a single, unbroken shot, a kind of Rope for the digital age—one-upping Hitch, even, by transcending the real-time structure of Rope and later practitioners (like Timecode and Silent House) and weaving in elements of dream logic, magic realism, and theatrical transition to cover several days, with minimal edits and interruptions.
Imaginative indie entries like “Oculus,” “The Babadook,” “Spring,” “Silent House” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” ditched the usual template of trauma.