Silent Hill 2006

This treasure of quality atmospheric horror is flat-out one of the best films I've EVER watched. It's now almost been 10 years since it was originally released and I've only grown to appreciate it more as time moves on. No other such movie has peaked my interest in real events such as Centralia and Chernobyl quite like this one. It's not a turn-your-brain-off and enjoy jump-scare popcorn shit-fest like some recent studio releases in the past couple of years. This right here is an extremely rare case. Not many movies come out like this anymore. Think about it: It's a video game adaptation that's good, a horror movie that's more about the tone than the scares, and a think piece that requires some thought while watching. Even today, I'm still learning new things about this movie and it's production. Roger Avary, who most know as the co-writer of Pulp Fiction, was the lead writer alongside director Christophe Gans, both of whom are extreme fans of the video games, which is very important in making a faithful yet standalone adaptation. The two amazingly put together such a great ride. GoodBad Flicks made a fantastic video summarizing everything you should know and why you should watch it. I recommend this movie hardcore. It's an underrated and underappreciated masterpiece.

GoodBadFlicks' video: youtu.be/CfEnsMWYisI

You have to give it to the film and to the people behind it: they seemed to actually try to make a good movie. It could have been just a shameless cash grab to ride on the wave of the game's success, but you just feel there was passion behind it. Unfortunately, passion is not always good enough.

Granted that this movie is a hard to one to adapt, with the game's confusing and complex story and creatures that are hard to make look good in real life. But that's not just it. The script is bad and the acting of everyone involved is equally bad; the make-up and special effects and CGI may have looked good at the time (as many critics upon the movie release release will tell you), but they just look cheap and bad executed today. For instance: Rose and Cybil have scratches and blood splattered on their body throughout the whole movie, but you never actually see they getting hurt or dirty, the blood and the scratches just appeat out of nowhere. Also these marks are never done in a way that makes them look messy or disstressed, the characters just go throughout the whole movie looking hot and sexy despite them.

However, it has its good moments. They chose to film the action sequences in angles similar to the ones in the game and it actually looks cool, so it makes for good cinematography. Also, in the topic of adapation, it follows videogame logic, but with a good explanation in the end as "the demon" tells Rose it left clues for the purpose of her understanding Alessa's pain. Finally, the end is METAL as hell. Kudos to them for not holding back and actually being able to replicate Silent Hill's very particular hellish creepines and violence that made the game so unique.

Deborah Kara Unger, whoever did the location scouting, and the production design team all deserve laud for a job well done. Laurie Holden was great casting for Cybil, except that she (and Pyramid Head) were in the wrong game/film. And of course, the wonderful score and visual setups that were ripped straight from Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2; Akira Yamaoka and Mary Elizabeth Mcglynn are magic makers.

I tried watching this again, knowing that it was an abomination, and I was pleasantly surprised at how decent-to-inoffensive it was... until shortly after they reach Silent Hill. And what exactly was the point in gender-swapping the protagonist (only for the studio to force Sean Bean and inspector barberson into the film, bloating it and ruining the consistent tone and feeling of surreal and lost isolation) when the cast ends up as basically a split monogender boys-then-girls affair?

Not that that was the only thing that ruined the immersion and tone. The film basically goes off the rails shortly after the sirens start to go off. They needlessly strayed entirely too far from the source material, and ended up with an idiotic and inconsistently written protagonist. I wanted to slap her every time she became hysterical and started shaking a chain link fence, screaming "help me!!" Fucking who exactly are you calling out to? And then, just a couple of scenes after that and crying on a floor, she's all level headed pragmatist next to a now freaking out Cybil. There's also just far too much screaming and crying. This is Silent Hill, not some slasher film. The protagonists are all mentally muted concussed sleepwalkers. It creates a surreal, otherworldly, dreamlike feel to the games, and this just completely missed that in every respect except for Dahlia.

In the end, it does several things right, but stumbles far too often, and far too fatally, and consistently, to be anywhere near a good adaptation. For these same reasons, it just doesn't work well as a film, even if you tried to watch it as an original horror film.

I never played the video game so this review is based solely on the film as a standalone. In that regard, it has to rate as one of my favorite horror flicks of all time, second or (perhaps) third after John Carpenter's The Thing [1982]. I've no idea who came up with the creatures in this film (or the video game) or how such monstrosities ever formed in someone's mind but this movie has some of the coolest (i.e. most hideous, most terrifying, most nightmarish ) monster/creatures that I've seen in a movie. Even today (this is not my first time to watch it; I think it's my fourth.) after 17 years, it still stands the test of time, in my opinion, and rates up there with the best of them. It does have some "jump scare" moments, but the movie overall just has a really spooky, eerie feel to it...which, of course, almost any movie with a band of fanatical "Let's purge the world by crucifying anyone that's not already part of our congregation" would have. Again, since I've never played the video game, I have absolutely no concept of whether the movie is "true to the game" or not but as a standalone movie, it has a great storyline that's easy to follow. The lighting is good throughout (there are some scenes shot in darkness but deliberately so rather than just being the result of bad lighting) and the musical score is excellent as well. The main flaw - and this is undoubtedly just me, since I'm unfamiliar with the game - is that I don't understand the ending. That doesn't necessarily mean it's confusing; it was just confusing to ME. Perhaps it makes perfect sense to those who are familiar with the Silent Hill video game but I had difficulty understanding what happened at the end. (Again, this is my fourth time to watch this and I still don't understand the ending.)

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of horror films, whether you've ever played the video game or not. This stands on its own merit and still - after 7 years - remains one of my favorite horror films of all time.

PS: I still don't understand why people think Johnny Cash was a great singer. (Watch the movie and you'll understand that comment.)