Movie Review - Silent Hill
Written By: Joseph Gillespie
Welcome to Silent Hill. That's the beginning of the end for our heroine in this movie based on the popular game by the same name. Fans of the game will no doubt notice the many nods to the game that are found throughout the game almost instantly. Thankfully, those of us who haven't played the first game will also be able to keep up. Just to get it out of the way, I have played Silent Hill 2 & Silent Hill 4 - but no others (including Silent Hill, which the movie is based on).
So while I don't know much about the actual Silent Hill game, I do understand some of the Silent Hill "world" and references... but this is a movie review, so let's move on. The movie involves Rose, who's adopted daughter Sharon constantly dreams of Silent Hill. So, Rose decides to take Sharon to this town, and that's when the trouble begins. Evil, a strange cult like religion, and all sorts of bad things start to happen from there. Upon arrival at Silent Hill, Rose crashes her car, and is knocked unconscious. Upon awakening some undefined time later, she finds Sharon is gone, and the movie begins. The beginning 30 minutes of the film is a bit long and tedious in my opinion, with Rose simply running around screaming Sharon's name and following a running girl all around the town. I'm sure that since the camera frequently pans to show building signs, that this scene would be interesting if I had played the game, and been able to go, "Oh, I remember that area!". Possibly not, however. At any rate, the movie pretty much gets rolling from this point on. We are introduced to our first monsters rather quickly, and made aware that something is, of course, horribly wrong in this little town.
Throughout the film we mostly follow Rose in her quest to not only find her missing daughter, and figure out just what's going on in Silent Hill. The acting portrayed by the lead character is quite good. Although I don't think the movie portrays her character well. At times she's a frail and scared person who could never take another step, and then in the next scene she's a hardened solid character who fears no evil. This jump happens a few times throughout the movie, and really hurts the character development. Cybil Bennet, the cop who was unfortunate enough to follow Rose into Silent Hill, is a very solid character however. Serious and hardcore throughout the whole film. The other various characters are all also well defined and portrayed overall.
Ok, ok, cut the boring stuff, talk about the monsters! The evil, the demon, we want Pyramid Head!! Yes, well, don't expect much of him. What you see in the trailed is pretty much all there is to see. He makes a couple short appearances, including one particularly memorable scene involving the brutal and manual removal of a humans skin, but overall he's neither shown nor explained very often throughout the film. In fact, most of the story is kept pretty well wrapped up in the film, even at the very end when the apperantly are "explaining" everything for you. I'm not sure if playing the game would have much effect on this, though I would imagine it would. Enough simple bits are provided though to keep you from being completely lost, but it's certainly going to leave you with a lot of questions.
Now, let's talk CG. Silent Hill has a LOT of it, and it does an awesome job! I think, in some ways, the CG was meant to feel a bit videogame-ish, or at least I hope it meant to be that way, because it does so excellently. In fact, many times the movie changes to a common game camera angle, and suddenly
you're wondering where you set your controller down at because it's finally your turn to take control! The most impressive thing about the CG is without a doubt the characters models. They feel like they are really there with the actors, despite their gruesome and disturbing appearances. The only exception to this being the little grey buring imp things in the very start of the film, which just scream CG. The grand finale is a pinnacle of CG marvel, as almost everything is CG, but it all feels like it's really happening. I also have to comment on the gore factor of this film, as despite what you may be thinking, it's extremely minimal. In fact, there's very little blood in the film at all. Of course there is plenty when it's required, but as a whole the film is far more a psychological thriller than it is a hack'n'slash gore fest. Which is good, since that tends to provide a longer term scare than the cheap attempts with fake blood and loud noises.
In closing, I feel that Silent Hill is a good movie, and certainly worth renting and watching. I don't know if it may have been better had I played the game, though I assume it would have, but even without doing so it was still a very enjoyable and entertaining 2 hours. So go rent it, watch it, hopefully enjoy it.
Last Modified: August 24th, 2006
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