Terror en Silent Hill

I remember I sat down to play Silent Hill a couple of years ago because the mystery genre intrigued me and the game had an interesting look to it, so I started running through the abandoned town of 'Silent Hill' as the main player. I stopped playing very soon because, in truth, not a whole lot was happening. It was mostly an uncomfortable experience, eerily lit and hauntingly scored. I could feel an intense build-up in that foggy place but I never reached the culmination, so I gave up. OK, fine - I was scared.

Years later this film adaptation is bravely made by Christophe Gans and, even though I'd played less than ten minutes of the game, I immediately recognised the haunting visuals of the abandoned city. So 'well done' here is an understatement. It is superbly breathed new life into.

The plot has been glossed over slightly in a Hollywood fashion, but captures the essence of its characters and storyline - which is: as a last resort, a mother takes her ill daughter to a place she often mentions in her sleep - a place near where she was adopted from. But the hope the mother has for her daughter's recovery quickly shatters and turns into despair when the little girl vanishes in the misty mysterious old town.

I truly cannot credit the atmosphere of this film enough. Christophe Gans has successfully captured the eerie mood of Silent Hill and it is a nightmarish place - a fog-enshrouded hell that shifts between two modes: barren ashen daylight and a gruesome decaying state with fiery ember, demons and enhanced by chilling (and very sudden) sound effects. It's strangely fascinating, surreal and above all frightening.

The problems of Silent Hill (2006) are that there are not nearly enough build-ups. They should have been used not only to stay faithful to the video game upon which it was based but to wield tension in the right way and shock us when the build-up finally culminates. But here we are introduced to horrid creatures early on and often without much foreshadowing devices. Because they are presented to us so generously and clear-viewed, they are not that scary. At all. Some even manage a raised eyebrow, like the crawly CGI cripples.

In the end, I think this is quality horror entertainment and probably one of the better game-to-film adaptations, abut it is much too chaotic - too many monsters and too often and too clearly to be frightening. The mood and atmosphere are what is frightening and so it should have been used even more in Silent Hill, but instead the director feels pressured to introduce creatures to satisfy mainstream audiences' need for bloody gorefest and kinetic action.

7 out of 10

First off, the downsides: Some parts of the movie seemed a little drawn out, the film was two hours, and at certain times, you could feel that. It's far-fetched, and I can imagine some people rolling their eyes at the storyline, and there WILL be some people walking out saying "that was a stupid movie". (As many people responded to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.) Of course, some of them will be saying that in response to the sheer amount of gore and violence, which brings me into the 'upsides': This movie certainly had it's 'wow' moments with shock, anticipation, and gore, especially near the climax. Scenes and even alleyways and monsters from the games were almost identical. If you've played the games you will get a lot of deja vu. (For example, the camera goes crooked at exactly the same time and place it does in one of the scenes in the game.) Also, a lot of the sounds and music tracks from the games are used, and so are the monsters. The entire feel of the games is preserved in the film, and you will have trouble keeping your feet on the floor the entire movie. The creepy presentation works, and if you haven't played any of the games, this movie will scare you in new ways.

Having played the games, I have to admit, the movie captures the atmosphere of the game. It does a great job of conveying sense of dread and almost loneliness. I love the liberties the creators of the movie took and some of the changes. They were done in a terrific way.

This creepy and fantastic film gets a riveting script by Roger Avary. It's a spectacular piece and quite scary, so many levels, so many complexities and so many wonderful themes that are permeating throughout. It's like ¨Alice in Wonderland¨ meet ¨Dante's Inferno¨. It's based on known game and completely unique, absolutely frightening and, basically, one of the few games that actually could become a movie. Samuel Hadida , producer of the last three movie of Christophe Gans tells the game was conceptualized on the difficult way, because we had to go convince the Japanese people from Konami Corporation, they produced the game, to give us the right to make the film . The game has such a cult following, the fan base is very protecting. Christophe Gans is careful to maintain the suspense and all the areas , like the means of illumination in the darkness by a splendid cinematography by Dan Laustein and certain key of characters and antagonists, furthermore an appropriate music score by Jeff Danna. Gans has a very surrealist sort of vision of the game and the film itself sort of explores the boundaries of reality. The Silent Hill movie is a great experience, is something disturbing , it's not only about fear, it's also about emotion.

The cast is really exciting. There's a series of fresh faces, actors that you may be familiar with but you haven't seen then a thousand times before, they're going to bring life to the characters. The producers very deliberately went toward actors from independent film because they bring with them something different, a different quality. Actress like Radha Mitchell, Debora Kara Unger, Tanya Allen, Laurie Holden and Alice Krige, it's much more exciting to see somebody who doesn't used to do this kind of movie, but the audience of this type of film love that. For the role of Rose, Radha Mitchell, needed somebody with that blend of vulnerability but strength and determination as well. We have to feel her fear but also appreciate when she stands up to all these terrifying moments.In fact, the producers spent lots of time finding the perfect Rose. In terms of the sensibility that Christophe Gang was having in this character, Rose is sophisticated and very vulnerable and Radha Mitchell has both quality, she has a freshness and energy and excitement and life, there's this original look to her, all of which are precisely what the producers needed for the central character to lead us through this horrific environment. The director is focused on female character with just females leading the story in a way, with exception of two male characters: Sean Bean and Kim Coates. Christophe Gans is almost exorcised the idea of femininity by polarising it with the male characters, and all the women are in this kind of fantasy nightmare.

First of all, Carol Spiers deserved an Oscar for her production design. I'm not joking at all. It was so creepy and unsettling. It's worth watching for that alone. Unfortunately the storytelling aspect of it was pretty meh. Not a great script with some pretty lazy dialogue. In spite of that, I really liked this movie... surprisingly.