Posts tagged Silent Hill

Silent Hill (2006) directed by Christophe Gans is based around a woman who goes searching for her daughter after crashing just outside the town Silent Hill. Again as with my previous review I personally have not played the Silent Hill games but I remember them, albeit vaguely, from my childhood. So not much reference will be made to the games but I must add there is a clear link between the first game and the film in that a parent goes searching for their missing child in the town of Silent Hill. So it’s clear to see where it’s narrative comes from. My problem is how it gets there.

There story starts with a young girl Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) who recently started suffering from sleepwalking, which very nearly comes close to being the death of her. Her mother Rose (Radha Mitchell) concerned takes her daughter to the town of Silent Hill which her daughter often refers too. On the journey to Silent Hill, Rose trying to avoid confrontation with a police officer speeds off and shortly after a figure of a girl steps into the road causing Rose to swerve and crash. When Rose awakens she realises her daughter is missing and goes off in search of her. So whilst in search off Sharon, Rose ends up flickering between two worlds. The first which she awakens in is a ash covered abandoned town, soon after it changes to this dark more industrial world. Rose’s husband Christopher (Sean Bean), who was for some reason not included in the road trip, goes off to search for his wife. Upon approaching the road to Silent Hill he runs into some cops. The cop takes him around Silent Hill, which again looks massively different to the world his wife is stuck in. A lot of confusion is meant to take place leaving the audience wondering what the hell is going on. Unless you are clever enough to work it out. So a lot of stuff starts happening Rose and the female cop try to escape from the mutilated monsters whilst searching for Sharon. So Rose ends up at a church where the townspeople hide from the monsters that come from the dark. Some members of the town decide they want to help Rose in the search for her daughter. Eventually leading them to meet a girl who looks very similar to Sharon, Alessa. Alessa is pretty central to the story, the town of Silent Hill accused her of being a witch and thus burnt her. Unfortunately the fire got out of control and destroyed a lot of stuff. So anyway it seems the Sharon is the good representation of Alessa or something weird like that. So the towns people of Silent Hill who have been hiding within the church seek to burn Rose’s daughter Sharon, because she looks exactly like Alessa. Rose someone absorbs Alessa and goes to the church to save her daughter. I imagine its the only way Alessa could enter the church and once Alessa breaks out of Rose’s body she practically slaughters everyone. After the blood bath Rose takes Sharon home, where her husband is waiting. Unfortunately neither is aware of the others presence and Rose and Sharon are still surrounded by the fog that covered Silent Hill. So that is the story of Silent Hill. Surprisingly the story felt really long and boring. I felt that the films narrative could have been so much better if they had cut out so much boring speech. It drags the film out. Unfortunately for this type of film you do not want the story or explanations to drag on.

There are a few good points to this film, the acting wasn’t terrible which is a surprise given it’s an adaptation of a video game. The visuals were really quite amazing. I was really drawn into this as a film it was great until you reached the parts where the actors droned on and on about witches and cult rubbish. The effects where really quite good and the monsters in the film were actually quite frightening. When I first watched this film I jumped a few times. It’s nowhere near as jumpy now I’ve watched it several times but that first viewing I did genuinely get a bit jumpy at points. To fix this film I’d have cut out like half the dialogue it was totally unnecessary. I understand the directors or whoever wanted the story to be explained and clear cut but it ruined the film, big time. This film could have been a lot better than it was. It just goes to show how quickly a good idea can go bad. Shame on you scriptwriters. So I guess what I’m saying it I would recommend this film it’s worth watching but be careful that you don’t fall asleep.