by Marc Patterson

For all the bitching and moaning we do about re-makes I love it when I can really get behind something not only independent, but highly original. These are the films we need to be making some noise about, and going out of our way to champion. Gustavo Rojo, producer of La Casa Muda, which we broke news about to the horror community back in December, (see article with first available stills) has just contacted us with more news regarding the progress on this film.

According to Rojo, the film is finalizing audio post-production, and is expected to be completely finished in March.  Currently the film is being shopped around for a distribution deal, and reportedly has the interest from some American studios. So does this mean we’ll get to see this get a proper release in the US?  One can only hope.

Here’s some additional information on the film from Rojo, to include an English Subtitled trailer:

La Casa Muda (The Silent House) is directed by Gustavo Hernandez, photographed by Pedro Luque (renown for his worldwide success in “Ataque de Pánico”) and produced by Gustavo Rojo, at an amazingly low budget which amounts to US$ 6000. “The Silent House” digs deeply into the unexplored subject of psychological terror, and the story runs through a terrifying story through a single continuous shot. This makes the film unique in the audiovisual market since it was filmed with a SLR digital, to be more precise, a Canon EOS 5D Mark. The film is therefore the first one in Latin America and the second one in the world to have been filmed by a photograph camera. This makes it the first film of horror in the world to have been filmed with this particular narrative language.

To be filmed in one single shot implies that the sequence is filmed in one go, without cuts, and the camera movements need a prior careful and meticulous planning which leads the viewer to share each one of the experiences of the character.

The Synopsis:
Laura ( Florencia Colucci) and her father ( Gustavo Alonso) settle down in a cottage which seems to be off the beaten track in order to update it since its owner ( Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house on sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go on smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder in the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what is going on while she remains downstairs on her own waiting for her father to come down. The plot is based on a true story that happened some time ago in a small village in Uruguay. “La Casa Muda” focuses on the last seventy eight minutes, second by second, when Laura intends to leave the house which hides an obscure secret and she hopes to leave unharmed.