Silent Hill | the movie

The film finally launched in Australia last night, and Chibi-R and I took ourselves to the local cinema to check it out.

Initial impressions

First up I must say that visually the film was flawless; Chris Gans perfectly recreated the appearance and mood of Silent Hill from a visual standpoint. The town itself looked great with its trademark fog, the creatures looked fantastic, and the CG transitions from foggy Silent Hill to the hell-town were stunning.

I must also compliment the production crew for keeping a whole stack of Akira Yamaoka’s original music.

Before I launch into a more detailed critique of the film, I must say that this really was for fans of the games. While I enjoyed it from this perspective, I also acknowledge that as a film on its own, it wasn’t that great. I know how much ukresistance like to question the ‘out of ten rating’, but in this case it may serve as a useful example. As a fan film I give it 7, as a film in its own independent right, only 6.

The unfortunate bad

The acting in this film is fairly sub-par which is disappointing given the source material. There were times when actors’ performances were laughable, and that really does cut through the mood. I don’t think their performances were helped much by what seems to have been a poor script and screenplay. In terms of lines and delivery, there were never any stellar moments, at best being serviceable. Arguably, Sean Bean put in one of the better performances, but his character was totally unnecessary to the film, more-so irrelevant to the core values of Silent Hill.

This brings me to the whole ‘real-world’ element of the film versus the games. Being primarily a Silent Hill 2 fan, I’m a big fan of Silent Hill as a psychological space rather than a physical one, and as such the sections of the film following Christopher DaSilva (Sean Bean) seemed like filler. As in the games, there are other ways of relaying this information… which brings me to the good’ol’information relaying scenes that almost all horror/thriller films have. I universally despise this device used in films to justify the narrative, and it couldn’t have been handled worse in Silent Hill. Rose DaSilva (Radha Mitchell) reaches a climactic part of the film and suddenly we’re launched into a narrative by Jodelle Ferland (Sharon DaSilva/Alessa) basically filling in the gaps. Granted, if there really was no other way to present this information, then at least the monologue could have been written with more tact. As it was, it really did remind me of a terribly poor cutscene in a video-game. Though the film is based on a game, the moment deserved more respect than it received.
Also on the psychological front, I felt the film should have focussed on Rose. Her appearance in Silent Hill and the events of the film should have been entirely elements from her own psyche, and in the truest sense of the games, having her ‘in Silent Hill’. The film took more of a SH4 approach with her simply being a window onto the events rather than being central to them. While I admire SH4 as a game, I felt it did veer slightly away from the core psychological values of the Silent Hill universe. Perhaps this is why visually, SH4 saw the least inspiration drawn from, as the film did exhibit clear moments of the first three games.

Sorry to harp on the negatives, but I have a few more little things to get past.

The pacing of the film was a little strange, and I can’t help but to think that anyone who wasn’t a fan of the franchise might not truly understand what Silent Hill (the universe) is all about. The sense of dread and menace needs to be unrelenting, as Chibi-R put it in our post-film recap, and the film kept cutting in and out of the horror. Once again, the scenes that take place outside of Silent Hill didn’t help this, and the encounters with the creatures really weren’t handled right; there was a sense of now this is the shambler bit, then time for the nurses, and of-course this is where we see Pyramid-Head, rather than holy mother-of-god, we’re in trouble!. Firstly there were far too many swarms in the film – the babies during the alleyway scene at the beginning (though the alley itself was brilliantly recreated), the nurses, and of-course the beetles that flooded the scene whenever Pyramid-Head appeared. What on earth was that all about? If anything, I felt the scarabs detracted from his sense of menace, and really just reminded me of the swarms of scarrabs in The Mummy… not a good film to be reminded of when trying to immerse oneself in Silent Hill.
While Pyramid-Head looked fantastic, Chibi-R once said when we first saw the teaser for the film that he is sacred and shouldn’t have appeared in a film. I have to agree with him – we both loved his visual presentation in the film, but he was de-contextualised quite a bit from what he symbolises in the game, and as such quite disempowered. Perhaps you really do need an element of interaction to fully understand what Pyramid-Head is all about, and just how menacing he is. Unfortunately as great as he was created in the film, he was relegated to ‘monster of the moment’, which really did cheapen the single greatest creature of the franchise.

The last gripe I have with the film is the siren.
This really was a non-moment in the film, then it was overused throughout, perhaps going for just a bit too long each time it sounded – once each occasion would have been enough, and the actual sound itself was too short and sustained too long. It should have risen in pitch and volume slowly in a more menacing way. Still though, once again for those who haven’t played the game, the relevance and importance of the siren may well be lost.

Still quite good

All negatives aside, Silent Hill did do many things right. While indeed the pacing was off much of the time, there were moments when the sense of dread was just right, combining with the music/ambient sound that was either from the games or styled to be exactly like it. While we did miss a fair few creatures, the ones that did appear were fantastic, the real stars of the film. Speaking of moments, there is one scene that captured one of the elements of the games brilliantly, where Rose has to reach into a place she really doesn’t want to; this is exactly what the game is like! You think to yourself no way is what I need in there. I don’t want to stick my hand in there!, but you’re compelled to, even though you’re terrified. I feel this moment may too have been lost on those who haven’t played the game, but it was one of the film’s flawless moments. Also true to the game was the ‘all bark, no bite’ atmosphere of that moment, but I won’t spoil the exact nature of it.
The alleyway scene in the first moments of entering hell-Silent Hill was superb, and many of the overhead shots through grilles and objects were dead-ringers for camera-angles from the games. The bathroom transformation was also a great moment, and of-course it was so great to see the knife and the hole-in-the-wall from Silent Hill 2 make an appearance, though of-course I would have liked the hole-in-the-wall to have been treated with a little more grace as per the game, but you can’t have everything. Just on that, while the individual environments in the games, the apartments, school, hotel, hospital etc. each have a character of their own, I understand that this isn’t really possible in a film. Seeing Rose run through the hospital in minutes was a real shame, but ultimately necessary. While the climax before the conclusion was probably a tad overacted and quite graceless, the final creature a la razor-wire was fantastic.

Narrated game-style cutscene aside, I actually really loved the ending. Very Silent Hill, and very fitting. It would have been amplified more if the film had been focussed on Rose rather than Sharon/Alessa, but it was still a great semi-psychological conclusion.

The visuals are the best thing about this film, and as a fan of the games and their atmosphere, I really did enjoy it. While the story is probably the weakest in the Silent Hill franchise, the film is worthy of seeing again for its visuals, and keeping on DVD.