MOVIE REVIEW - Silent House

Here comes Silent House new this week, and it brings with it a nice new star.

Don't look now, but here is Elizabeth Olsen starring in this new thriller. That's right, she's the other Olsen sister not Ashley or Mary Kate - the twins. While they are off selling clothes, toys, and building a huge marketing empire, Elizabeth is acting, here getting a role the twins never even dreamed of. She's pretty darn good in this average movie.

Silent House is the story of a young woman Sarah, (Olsen), and her father as they are at their family retreat house preparing to sell it. The house has been vacant for a long time, and holds many family secrets inside. As they are packing the house up, terror strikes, and her father winds up seemingly dead, as does her uncle. Sarah is alone, trapped in this gigantic house that won't let her escape. Someone is after them and her. She tries to elude them and save herself. But who are these demons, and why are they after her? That is Silent House.

Let's get right to the meat of the matter. This movie is slightly above average at best. It's not overly scary, or thrilling. But it doesn't sell out to cheap slasher gimmicks either and that's good. Olsen is really good in this role where they asked her do do one thing. Be sacred, look scared, and transfer that to us in the audience and make us feel what she was going through. And she does it very well. They asked her to look and sound 50 ways scared, and she does. She looked extremely comfortable in this role, that didn't involve a lot of heavy duty dialogue. But she did exactly what the asked her to do, and she delivered.

Interesting too. She is an Olsen, but you don't see Mary-Kate or Ashley on her, and that's a huge hurdle climbed. In fact, this role is so far away from the twins, it was a terrific career choice for her. She looks great on camera, she was unashamed how she looked, and this had the look of striking out and being her own woman. Being twin-less. And that's reason for applause. I know she used to be on the twins TV shows from time to time, but after seeing this movie that seems like a long time ago. Here she was well chosen. This was a good decision all the way around.

Silent House. This is not a washout. It has a story, and does keep you guessing. But make no mistake, this is Lizzie Olsen's movie, and she is way better in this movie, that the actual movie.