Review by Reid Ramsey
Did you happen to miss out on visiting any haunted houses this past Halloween due to COVID? Fear not – a new Chilean horror film named La Casa is here to transport you back to that feeling of fear and claustrophobia. Unfortunately, beyond its concept, La Casa does not offer much else for viewers.
Horror auteur Jorge Olguín’s film is excellent when read as an elevator pitch or plot synopsis: the film follows Arriagada (Gabriel Cañas), a police officer, as he responds to an emergency call saying someone is crying for help from inside an old, abandoned house. Once inside, he realizes he can’t find his way out, and violent ghosts begin to haunt him. Olguín captures him wandering through the labyrinthine house in a real-time single take. Even more to the film’s benefit, title cards at the beginning inform us that this house has a true haunted history, giving La Casa more of a documentary feel akin to The Blair Witch Project.
Unfortunately for the film and for the audience, La Casa doesn’t bring much to the table past its interesting concept. Once inside the house, the scares become repetitive, especially the visual monotony of the one-take approach. The camera is always either at Arriagada’s back or facing him, and the expected scare always comes in the plentiful negative space left by the dark house lit only by his flashlight.
One of the few pleasures that comes from the style is that it shows off the impressive practical effects. When a specter appears in the form of a bloodied woman, a whip-pan back to the space she inhabited often reveals her disappeared or transformed. Clearly Olguín has a strong understanding of effects and timing. However, even these moments become repetitive and predictable throughout the runtime.
One major win for the movie is its lead performance by Cañas. His performance is as much of a dance or an athletic feat as it is a screen performance, but he brings emotion and a grounding humility to the role. His genuine fear pushes the film to be more than a concept or a gimmick. A key set-piece late in the movie has Cañas playing dual roles and serves as a high point both in shock value and effectiveness of the concept.
Olguín has been a major player on the Chilean horror scene for two decades now and has undoubtedly made notable movies. La Casa, though, still feels like an early filmmaker’s attempt to capture a concept worthy of a 15 minute short over the length of a feature film.
It is not until close to the end of the 75 minutes that La Casa appears to be about something. At this point, it’s too late to recapture viewers’ interest or attention, no matter how intriguing they find this moment. By it’s conclusion, the movie has repeatedly shown us the same images over and over in hopes that we may formulate out of thin air a larger meaning for ourselves.