Silent Hill

Silent Hill (2006)

Directed by: Christophe Gans
Written by: Roger Avary, based on the video game by Konami
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland, Alice Krige, Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Roberto Campanella, Lorry Ayers, Emily Lineham

I kind of wanted to see this movie based on the commercials - I've never played the game. I don't do that really. I thought it was about a woman who comes to a mysterious town where she loses track of her daughter and then has to help the inhabitants fight a bunch of scary monsters living in the lake. And it looked really cool.

It is, in fact, about a woman who comes to a mysterious town and loses her adopted daughter who is actually the daughter of a child who was burned for witchcraft 30 years ago because the town was built by witch burners. When they tried to burn her, they accidentally burned down the town and killed everybody, except that apparently they're still living there, and the girl they tried to burn is living under the city and every so often everything goes into her nightmare world which is full of really lame monsters which don't seem to do a whole lot. That doesn't stop them from trying to burn the daughter. Fucking witch burners, never learn.

I have no frigging idea what that was about. It wasn't about anything, it was just a whole bunch of stuff in a movie. If you didn't know it was based on a video game, I'm sure you would be hopelessly lost (I did know it was, but the people I was watching it with didn't. Heh heh).

Anyway, it looked okay, I guess. Sometimes. A lot of the time it was so obviously computer generated it doesn't even count, but other times it looks dirty and gross enough to be okay looking. And the cast is actually quite good. I'm not entirely sure how they coerced some of those people into being in the movie - none of them are exactly A-list stars, I guess. They'll do anything for some peanuts. I love peanuts.

But, well... it also looked cheap. And like I said, I couldn't make sense of it. I think they were either all dead or all high on fumes, but I'm not sure. They might have been in a parallel universe. There's probably some gamer out there who can set me straight, but I'm not even sure I care. I didn't waste a whole lot of thought on this movie. It was just like something happened, and then something else happened, and then they had to face a monster, and then some plot happened and repeat. Like a video game.

It was so insubstantial, and really, really disappointing. I remember there being some really cool stuff in the trailer, and I waited the whole movie for it to happen - I kept going, come on, where's that really cool thing that was in the trailer, but I never saw it.

Actually, whoever made the trailer deserves a hug. They actually made this movie look pretty damn interesting.

I just feel bad for the people who were in it, though. I'm sorry, I really do. Radha Mitchell and Alice Krige and Sean Bean (who again sounded really weird. He was supposed to be an American, but his Northern accent just kept on shining through. He shouldn't even bother, really).

The writing, too, was terrible. I mean, all that crap about "Oh no, the darkness is coming. The darkness, the darkness! We're too far from refuge" (Silent Hill is, apparently, across the river from Darkness Falls) Fuck, man. It's like reject dialogue from The Village.

I did like the ending, for whatever reason. Maybe I was just glad it was over. I was a little pissed off, actually. The point where I realized that they hadn't explained jack and there were only about five minutes left. And the fact that the big gore fest at the end was kind of lame. It was just gross and insignificant.

Movies based on video games suck. This movie was completely insane. Resident Evil was better than this (and what was the other one I saw? Oh yeah, Final Fantasy. That was better than this, too). This felt more like Resident Evil Apocalypse in that it was just stuff happening because it did. Not that I recommend watching Resident Evil rather than this. I recommend not watching Resident Evil and not watching Silent Hill, particularly if you have to rent them. I recommend playing the video game. It looks more fun.

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