Silent Hill (2006) Movie Review
Written By: TJ
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Christophe Gans
Producers: Samuel Hadida, Don Carmody
Writers: Roger Avary, Christophe Gans, Nicolas Boukhrief
Date Released: April 21, 2006
Cast:
Radha Mitchell as Rose da Silva
Sean Bean as Christopher da Silva
Laurie Holden as Cybil Bennett
Jodelle Ferland as Alessa Gillespie/Sharon da Silva
Deborah Kara Unger as Dahlia Gillespie
Alice Krige as Christabella
Kim Coates as Officer Thomas Gucci
Rating = 3/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
Worried about her daughter’s psychological state, Rose (Radha Mitchell) sets to find answers in a ghost town called Silent Hill that her daughter Sharon, (Jodelle Ferland) always mentions during sleep. Despite her husband’s protests, Rose drives Sharon all the way to the mysterious place alerting a police officer who follows them behind. Trying to escape, Rose fastens up her driving and nearly hit a little girl crossing the street, resulting for them to crash. Soon after, she wakes up in a strange place with ashes falling from the sky. But what’s even stranger is that she is being arrested by the police officer, and Sharon is nowhere to be found.
Gore Factor
Silent Hill (2006) is an adaptation from a series of video games of the same name. With most video games including violence and gore as its main recipe, this grotesque and disturbing journey is the place to be for thrill seekers. I first saw this film when I was just a little kid and I do not recommend it to children under the age of 10 because it gave me nightmares back then for almost a week. Expect to see a lot of burned and mutilated bodies, as well as creatures straight out from hell. The prosthetics, makeup, and costumes are all convincing as they will give you realistic experience of the afterlife. One scene that I really like and think that gorehounds would surely enjoy is the part when one of the brethren was stripped naked and skinned to death by the Pyramid Head. After that, the skin, barely whole, was thrown to the doors of the church providing the audience some nasty shower of blood.
The Grave Review
As mentioned earlier, Silent Hill has terrified me when I was a kid, but seeing it now as an adult, I can say that it can pass as a low-budget horror film. It started out strong with creepy atmosphere and the thrill that it gives the viewers of not knowing what lies ahead. However, it was destroyed by cringeworthy dialogues, slow pacing, and a plot that has somehow strayed too far from the original story of the game. As the film goes on, I started to realize that the backstory is just another evil-be-gone cliché. What made it worse is the execution of the climax wherein the evil finally had its revenge on Christabella and the brethren. It seems to me that the director realized that they ran out of budget and just told the crew to hurry up and finish the film.
Silent Hill, on the other hand, has perfected some of the visual representations included in the video game saga. This film made an impressive blend of special effects and computer-generated imagery. I can say that most of the viewers who have an experience playing the actual game are not disappointed to see the end result of the video game adaptation. The monsters are well-crafted by a team of dancers and editors, thus adding a little more spice to the creepiness. As a matter of fact, some of the special effects used in the film, like the morphing environment, inspired similar effects in the later games, adding an effective boost to the evolution of the series as a whole.
In terms of acting, .these actors are acceptable. They somehow stick to their characters, it’s just that they are being dragged down by the script. For example is the role of Cybil, she is good in portraying a badass policewoman, but in the end her role becomes just another person who needs to be saved. In contrary, there is also a character played by an unconvincing actress which is the role of Alessa. For me, Jodelle Ferland wasn’t creepy enough to be the most evil in the story. She was supposed to be the most fearsome, and yet the kid still seems like the innocent little girl Sharon whom she also portrays.
In conclusion, Silent Hill is a classic pseudo-religion madness, with great special effects and impressive visuals. An okay film, in between the good and bad horror genre criteria. Quite an enjoyable watch and pretty scary for the first part, but dragging and uninvolving in the end.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives Silent Hill (2006) three graves out of five graves.
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