Directed by:
Christophe GansScreenplay:
Roger AvaryCinematography:
Dan LaustsenCast:
Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Jodelle Ferland, Kim Coates, Deborah Kara Unger, Alice Krige, Nicky Guadagni, Laurie Holden, Roberto Campanella, Stephen R. Hart (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
The eerie and deserted ghost town of Silent Hill draws a young mother desperate to find a cure for her only child's illness. Unable to accept the doctor's diagnosis that her daughter should be permanently institutionalized for psychiatric care, Rose flees with her child, heading for the abandoned town in search of answers -- and ignoring the protests of her husband. It's soon clear this place is unlike anywhere she's ever been. It's smothered by fog, inhabited by a variety of strange beings and periodically overcome by a living "darkness" that literally transforms everything it touches. As Rose begins to learn the history of the strange town, she realizes that her daughter is just a pawn in a larger game. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (10)
The cruelly long runtime unnecessarily dilutes the atmosphere of the film to the limits of the current horror standard, which could have been, with the excision of about twenty minutes of scenes (and not only the ones with Sean Bean searching), the clear king of video game adaptations. Christophe Gans provides some damn fine visuals, and particularly the ones from Silent Hill itself are delicacies that can be savored endlessly. The motion and music tracks are also very enjoyable. In contrast, he utterly fails in the dramatic construction of the story, which is stacked together with overly verbose dialogue, causing the film to degrade into B-movie waters at times. Fortunately, the falling ash, the marching undead, the alarm siren, and Radha Mitchell's performance are so evocative and suggestive and haunting that it is actually possible to forget all the negatives and state with equanimity: "Messieur Gans, le Pacte des loups, est-il pardonner."
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Visually, it's absolutely amazing, and whether it's Pyramid Head, Alessa, or any other revelation, I just envy what Christophe Gans presents to the viewer with a stunning piano accompaniment. Unfortunately, as someone who didn't play the original video game, I got quite lost and ended up completely lost at the end. If I hadn't looked up a lot of things, I probably still wouldn't know whether or not I even liked Silent Hill. After understanding the main connections, it's a bit far-fetched, but I give it four stars considering the atmosphere. It should have continued immediately the following year in this atmosphere and not turned the suspicious town of fog into a cheap horror brand.
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I hadn't played the video game, but I had high expectations before the movie, followed by somewhat conflicting reactions, so I was appropriately excited. The result was pleasantly surprising. In horror movies, the atmosphere is extremely important and Silent Hill is an example of a film that stands or falls with a well-established atmosphere. The depressive environment of a destroyed city, where ash constantly falls to the ground and black smoke rolls, accompanied by the wailing sound of a siren, dark shadows appearing, and people's faces covered with gas masks all serve to evoke a feeling of claustrophobia, and dark premonition. As it is well known, people are most afraid of the unknown, and the film is logically strongest in its first third when evil still has an abstract form. If the director didn't try to explain anything, my final impression could be 100%. The twist itself didn't impress me, but fortunately, it was not decisive for the result. In its category, Silent Hill has had no competition in the past two years. Overall impression: 75%.
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I'm not a fan of computer games, I didn't like Resident Evil, and I couldn't even adapt in the two hours after passing the Welcome to Silent Hill sign. It’s obvious that the film has been handled by the most competent people in the field and its technical aspect in particular is great and scary, not to mention the oppressive atmosphere brought by the dead city covered with falling ashes. But nothing about this film as horror can make up for a bunch of holes in the story (which I still wouldn't have minded) or my purely personal problem, namely that I couldn't find my way to it and even dozed off slightly at one point (although it might have been because I was fresh out of a graduation party). Either way, this, which in many people's opinion is the best adaptation of a computer game, didn't impress me much and I don't see any reason to revisit it.
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Silent Hill is a visually captivating horror flick, particularly in the first half. It draws all of its power from its impressive sets, sound and solid acting. However, the more it reveals what’s hidden, the more predictable it becomes in terms of content, which is constructed only for effect. That said, it is the clear winner among game adaptations such as Resident Evil and Doom. It is, after all, a solid top-tier production.
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Gallery (62)
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
![Silent Hill - Lobby Cards](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/159/466/159466735_ccb717.jpg)
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