La Casa Muda

Uruguay, 79 minutes, Spanish
Director: Gustavo Hernandez
Cast: Abel Tripaldi, Florencia Colucci, Gustavo Alonso and Marìa Salazar

“La Casa Muda” (The Silent House) is a suspense thriller that uses impressive camera stylization to enhance its stereotypical plot. Uruguay successfully created a minimalist horror film that was all shot in one take. A film that spans 78 minutes and uses only a digital camera for filming, “La Casa Muda” is a reminder to audiences that cinematic achievement can be reached using nothing more than the essentials.

I went into this movie knowing that its’ bold way of filming. I was expecting a long, drawn-out approach full of cliché haunted house illusions, very shaky camera motions that would only make me nauseas, and zooms simply sought out to impress me. Fortunately, none of the above was validated.

The film begins with a young woman, Laura, looking around a seemingly abandoned, boarded-up house with her father, Wilson. She appears very quiet, and the two enter with the house’s owner. He is allowing them to stay in the house that he is planning to sell. The house has an eerie presence which is first seen outside through the gray skies. This personification is shown inside the house as well through a lack of power. Once the owner leaves, Wilson decides to take a nap while Laura explores the rooms with a lantern.

She hears a loud, ominous noise coming from the upstairs. Laura wakes up her father to check out the noise. She finds a knife to protect herself. She discovers her father’s body, and manages to lurk around the house in search of her father’s killer and some answers. She is haunted by a radio that gets mysteriously turned on and a noise from a doll that continues to appear. Throughout the film, the audience learns more about this mysterious house and its former and present inhabitants.

Although it was filmed this risky way, each sequence made sense and did not feel forced or false. In fact, the camera movement was very fluid. Only once did the filmmakers use the camera in an amateur way, but even then they had their reasons.
Laura is running away from the house after the man has grabbed her, and the camera follows her, seemingly running behind her. This scene had that nauseating “Blair Witch Project” effect, but the director’s decision to film only this scene in this style was relevant. This scene, in particular, perhaps because of the camera’s shift from steady to shaky, connected the audience closer to Laura, allowing them to feel and sense her fear and desire to escape her fate.

Along with using only one take, the actors and scene set-up had to be spot-on to escape any continuity errors. I was watching with a skeptic eye, but not once did I notice a shadow-flaw or even a minor slip-up.

The filmmakers made another conscious decision with their lighting techniques. Throughout the film, since the house is seemingly abandoned, there is no usage of electricity, including the house’s lights. The filmmakers strategically use only the illumination from various candles, two lanterns, camera flashes, cracks of sunlight and occasionally a flashlight to light the scenes. Anyone with a digital camera, or even a camera for that matter, knows the important impact that lighting has on the outcome. This was an intense risk that the filmmakers went through to make such a drastic decision in congruence with the plot.

But they succeeded—like the one-shot technique, the lack of unnatural lighting only enhances the horror and suspense within the plot. Sometimes when the scene goes black entirely, the audience gets more wrapped up in what they are missing – creating a further connection to the characters when they are on screen.

While Laura’s character transforms throughout and the audience grows more and more curious about her, the house which reigns as a true character, remains the same. The house still holds valuable relics from the past including furniture, photographs and books. As we discover the house along with Laura, scoping out its personality, we connect that like the human characters, this boarded-up house is isolated as well. When Laura runs from it, the house has symbolized fear for her and we see how desolate it is from an outside perspective. The audience questions the house’s past from the beginning with question of how it seems so empty and yet so alive.

The film’s addition of sound is also fitting. At the start, the sound is often mute or very slow, much like Laura’s quiet self. The soundtrack begins to combine with her emotions, ranging from fear to shock to rage, increasing volumes and intensity with each sequence. The instrumentation was relevant as well, never too over-exposing or unnecessary.

From someone who would never intentionally see a horror movie, this film is more of a suspense thriller in its creation – it is pieced together more lyrically and appropriately because of its essentialist method of production. “La Casa Muda” is gripping as well as admirable for Uruguay because of the accomplishment that they were able to achieve.