Review of Silent Hill (2006) by Phil H — 20 Dec 2012

This Japanese created horror came along after the hugely popular 'Resident Evil' both in terms of the game and the film. Where as the first Resi Evil was a more standard action fest that ran with a generic plot similar to 'Aliens', 'Silent Hill' is a completely different approach. That approach being the film makers actually based this film on the actual game.

That is the first thing you notice straight away, this film is an actual horror film and tries to recreate the tension from the eerie game. The visuals in this film are actually pretty good and the whole thing certainly does feel like a videogame in the sense of camera angles, lighting and general atmosphere.

I must admit to being very impressed with the whole look of the film. Its not watered down in any way, there's plenty of blood, the monsters are highly detailed and very creepy (Pyramid Head looking damn good I must say), the town is rendered really well, it chilling, very dark and brings the game to life in a truly surprising way. A cheap run of the mill straight to DVD film this is not...amazingly.

The plot is slightly disappointing in the sense that it kinda wanders. At first the film is a solid ghost story with demons, intrigue and imagery that you may see in many Japanese horrors ('The Ring' for one with all the little girl shots). Unfortunately later the story seems to gravitate towards more of a religious theme including cults and witch hunting which is a completely different horror genre really. That's not what you expect and it weakens the film as all the demons, monsters and mutilated bodies all turn out to be just incarnations from a young child's mind (I think).

The whole 'person getting revenge by using his/her anger manifested in monsters/creatures' isn't too original really but I do believe this feeds into the videogames story, or at least various ideas from all the games. The film isn't short on bad bits though, can't escape that I'm afraid. Casting Sean Bean as an American was not the best idea really, his attempt is brave but heavily flawed. The odd silly moment including when 'Rose' heads off down into the hospitals basement, the lift seems to drop about a hundred levels! how deep does this building go!?.

The other main issue I had was the rather weak ending, a big anti climax really with a tame CGI finale. Not scary and not particularly interesting because you don't feel the bad guys are getting a good drumming. I also didn't get the finale twist at the end where 'Rose' and 'Sharon' seem to have remained in this alternative realm or dimension? how and why?? are they maybe dead? what gives here?.

You must give kudos to Gans for what he has accomplished here. Who'd have thought an adaptation of a horror videogame, which isn't exactly too far from the 'Capcom' equivalent, would actually turn out to be a stable accurate conversion. The films survives on visuals and design of course, performances aren't that great and the story limps to a conclusion but it still manages to give you shivers whilst you watch.