Silent Hill

There are a few series out there in the gaming world that Gametrash pretty much collectively likes- Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, and Silent Hill. Hell, Silent Hill has been unilaterally reviewed on this site (Sans the first game, in which we're still scrounging around for), and there's a good reason- the games absolutely rock in about every way possible.

So when we heard about a movie, we may as well have wet ourselves. Silent Hill was never about action, and the phenomenal storytelling aspect of the games would port perfectly to a movie. The sheer concept of putting the horror and disturbing mix of “What the hell is that?” in a movie, at least in our opinions, translated into perfection. So needless to say, I was the first one of us to accumulate the time and cash to run full speed toward the local movie theater when they made it available.

The movie Silent Hill is about Rose, the mother of her adopted daughter Sharon, who decides to do something about her young daughter's sickness. Early in the movie, it is established that Sharon has some sort of disturbing problem, and she murmurs something about a small town in Toluca County, West Virginia- known as Silent Hill. Simultaneously, her husband Christopher searches in the “Real” world, looking for information about not only where their adopted daughter truly came from, but also attempting to save his wife from the hell of Silent Hill.

To satisfy fans and to alleviate previous problems that other movie games have had, Silent Hill sticks quite well to the original concept of the games, to the point of using exact scenes and music from them. Instead of trying to force an alternate universe or some other kind of odd happenstance, the whole movie could be considered a collaboration of the last 4 Silent Hill games- from basic areas in the first (Such at the body hanging from the grating in the reverse world), to more recent concepts, such as miscellaneous references to 3 in the Hospital and the School. This definitely pleased me as a fan of the series, because it prevented the movie from deviating too far from the original concept, and it happily mixes all of this with a “Ooooh, they showed that” feel, while still making the movie independent of all of the games.




A while back when the Silent Hill trailer was launched, I made the comment about the fact that there was an unusual amount of people in the trailer, and that “Silent Hill is about being alone”. Well, thankfully, Silent Hill manages to be disturbing enough to keep the somewhat isolated perspective without completely throwing out the concept of having many people. Not only will Rose meet with local cop Cybil (who proceeds to arrest her), but Rose also meets with the local cult, who is convinced she is a witch due to her daughter's mysterious resemblance to a girl who mysteriously died 30 years ago. Even though this seems like it crowds the movie with tons of extra actors, in reality this only amounts to approximately 30 people in the movie (counting scenes outside of Silent Hill), and I barely noticed their presence.

To somewhat explain a long time running setup in the series, Silent Hill yet again is broken into two sections- the regular Silent Hill, which contains poisonous air due to coal fires, and the Alternate Universe Silent Hill, which is represented much like the games did- dark, disgusting, and bulging with more dead bodies than a cemetery. Just like in the games, after watching this, you feel like taking a long shower and scrubbing yourself with soap- which just shows how well this game manages to represent the game world.

To note, there is also the issue of gore. Much like the series, gore is interspersed in this game, and is not really through the whole movie. Definitely earning it's R rating at times, Silent Hill has no qualms about displaying the more gory parts of the series in detail- even showing Pyramid Head strip and rip the skin off a young woman. Along with some truly gruesome scenes of ritual burning and liberal use of barbed wire to the point of making me paranoid of it, I don't think I need to exemplify that this movie is in no way for small children. While I did see a generous handful of children in the theater watching this movie, I will still say with firm conviction: in no way is or was this move intended for kids, and unless you know what to expect in walking in, this could definitely result in some lost lunches. That being said, half the movie was taken from the games, so if you've played through Silent Hill 1-4, you'll be able to handle this easily.




One thing that made me geekily clap my hands is the fact that the game has nothing in the range of new enemies, and Silent Hill seems to take the best monsters from it's predecessors and mix them up happily. Of course, this means one thing: Pyramid Head. Rendered in glorious beautiful high quality 3D, Pyramid Head now is much more dangerous and imposing than even in Silent Hill 2, and manages to come across as an unintelligible killing maniac with no emotions, as intended. The Homicidal Nurses scene might be one of the best in the movie, the mannequin feel really coming across well and scary enough to feel like the first time I saw them in Silent Hill 2. One surprising thing was the use of the “Baby” monsters in the movie, which had caused quite a bit of controversy in previous games (And if I'm not mistaken, removed in one title). I suppose the saving grace was the fact that Rose simply ran from them, as the whole issue with the monsters was the fact you beat them to a pulp. Oh well.

The camera work in this game is one of the real highlights. Just like the games themselves, the camera manages to pan and work it's way around the levels in strange ways, making Silent Hill look very dark and disturbing, but also open and foreboding. While there were some parts that I noticed the camera obviously doing things to over exemplify the situation (Such as about a minute where the camera just pans around actress Radha Mitchell, who really isn't that pretty in the first place). Irritatingly, the camera sometimes glosses over the detail of certain enemies and miscellany that I really wanted to see more (such as the “thing” in the bathroom), but it can be put up with, but considering half the remaining camera time is devoted to gratuity, I somewhat consider it a flaw of the movie.

One of the biggest things about this movie is the ending, the real “twist” to the movie. Unfortunately, I had pretty much predicted it from the beginning of the movie, but regardless- let it be known that it is really a nice ending, and has that distinct “Silent Hill” touch to it. While it could really be the first of it's kind for the series (Because of the abrupt way it ends, it reminds me of the “Bad” ends of Silent Hill 2), it really leaves you speechless in the way it just redefines the whole movie from what you thought walking in. I will note, however, that the ending seems to be five times as violent and gory as the rest of the movie and the really overdone use of the sacrificial burning somewhat disturbed me. But then again, that still manages to be tame compared to the actual games.




Overall, the acting and the presentation of Silent Hill are great, and this is definitely a movie that will satisfy fans of the series. While it seems a bit gratuitous and some may successfully argue that it has way too many people, it still manages to continue the series in a faithful way and scare the pants off you. It doesn't fall to the overused stereotype of hiring popular actors to make it interesting (In fact, the only big name I saw in there was Sean Bean. One actress, one of the nurses, is hilariously only entered in the IMDB for that position and the part as “Undead Gaudy Hooker” in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Ouch.). Anyone who is really not a fan of the movie will still enjoy it and be able to understand it, but the lack of detail in some of the parts of the movie may leave you begging for more. When this comes out on DVD, I recommend picking this up to add to your collection- because nothing rocks harder than having Pyramid Head on DVD.

4.5 star(s) out of 5

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