Uruguay Enters The First Person Horror Game With LA CASA MUDA

The down side to this current boom in first-person perspective horror films is that it gives many people the idea that all you need to succeed is to be cheap, as though somehow removing the need for complicated camera setups and heavy duty post production also removes the need to have actual talent.  For every Oren Peli or Jaume Balaguero there are scores of others out there cranking out frankly unwatchable junk that they trumpet as the next Paranormal Activity or [REC].  The vast majority of these films will, justifiably, never be heard of and simply disappear.

The good side, however, is that true talent rises quickly.  When you can't hide what you're doing in expensive post production effects and all there is is you and your camera it becomes immediately obvious where the real talent is.  And Uruguayan director Gustavo Hernandez - to say nothing of his DP Pedro Luque - appears to be areal talent.

Not content to go simply single camera, Hernandez and the rest of the team behind La Casa Muda are pushing things even farther, shooting the entire film in a single take. It's not actually the first time this has been done in horror - Albert Pyun did it with Infection, for one - as they're claiming but it is pretty damn rare. Even more rare is to attack this format and have it look as good as things do here.  The film was reportedly shot on a digital still camera rather than a true video camera and clearly Luque has spent an awful lot of time getting to know his equipment and his lighting because this looks fantastic. More importantly, it looks truly scary.

Dread Central just found an English subtitled version of the teaser.  Check it out below.

Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father Wilson (Gustavo Alonso) settle down in a cottage that seems to be off the beaten track in order to update it since its owner (Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house up for sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder on 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, while Laura attempts to leave the house, which hides an obscure secret, unharmed.