SILENT HILL (2006 - HORROR / VIDEOGAME ADAPTATION) **1/2 out of ***** OR 5 out of 10
(Yep. I'm still staying in the city....)
CAST: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Jodelle Ferland, Deborah Kara Unger, Laurie Holden, Alice Krige, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen.
DIRECTOR: Christophe Gans
(WARNING: Some SPOILERS and urgent reasons to avoid any town with a name that's more suited to a cemetery - straight ahead...)
IT'S LIKE THIS: In our recent review of THE OMEN (review # 581), we saw the perils of adopting a kid whose background you have barely any inkling of. In that movie, we saw what happened when powerful American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick) found themselves grappling with none other than.... the son of Satan himself.
Then, in our even more recent review of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (review # 584), we explored the dangers of seeking out and investigating a mysterious town that no one has even heard of. In that flick, we observed as hard-nosed insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) and sleek, sardonic book editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) traveled to the eerie, remote town of Hobb's End in what appeared to be the ass-end of New Hampshire - only to discover that they may have crossed over into another dimension... of evil.
Oooooooooo-weeeeeee-oooooooo!
Well, in our next "31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN" review, the perils of THE OMEN (devil child) and the dangers of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (evil town) collide spectacularly (and, well, bloodily). It is called SILENT HILL, and it's based on the popular PlayStation video game of the same name which made it abundantly clear that that it was not about PacMan or Donkey Kong. Unless they mutated into something that H.P. Lovecraft would've splooged over.
Our heroine is plucky housewife Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell). Rose is married to hunky Christopher, who looks an awful lot like Sean Bean, which is why he's, you know, hunky. They also have a daughter named Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), who seems kind of sweet. Anyhow, Rose and Christopher and Sharon, like Robert and Katherine and Damien from THE OMEN, seem to be the perfect family. Unfortunately, if you'll recall, Damien turned out to have some, ah, issues (which is putting it extremely fucking mildly, folks). Sure enough, it turns out that Sharon has got some problems, too. And just like Damien, she was... adopted.
Ooooooo-weeeeee-oooooooooo!
Now, folks, obviously I'm not implying that all adopted kids are creepy. Just these particular two. And just like Robert and Katherine in THE OMEN, Rose and Christopher decide to look into Sharon's true lineage to find out why she's, you know, so fucked up. Through a turn of events that would only make sense in a movie based on a video game, Rose determines that Sharon's true parents must be from a town called... "Silent Hill" - and she decides to go there to investigate with Sharon in tow. Despite Christopher's warning to not go without him.
This is where SILENT HILL begins to try to one-up IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Remember how, in the latter film, Trent and Linda arrived in the town of Hobb's End and found it to be abandoned save for a bunch of decay-faced kids and one really batty old chick named Mrs. Pickman? Well, SILENT HILL decides to go the "more over the top, more frightening" route and basically give us a town that seems like the birthplace of the Jigsaw from the SAW movies - mixed in with what looks like a never-ending nuclear winter.
Rose finds herself trapped in Silent Hill when her car careens out of control and crashes as they are entering the city limits. When she comes to, she discovers that Sharon is missing. Before you know it, Mama Rose is trekking into the ghost town to find her adopted daughter. Problem is, pretty much everyone - and everything - else in Silent Hill doesn't want her to find Sharon. Yes, folks... the fun is just beginning for our dear, brave Rose.
What the hell is going on in Silent Hill? What secrets is it hiding within its misty confines? And what link does Sharon have to the town? Will Rose find out in time to save her? And what happens when Christopher decides to try to follow Rose to Silent Hill? Will he get swept up in the chaos, too? Can this family be saved?
Put it this way: if you saw what happened to Robert and Katherine in THE OMEN, and to Trent and Linda in IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, then you have your answer.
Oooooooo-weeeeeeeeeee-fucking-ooooooooooo....
BUT SERIOUSLY: In past reviews of films like RESIDENT EVIL and TOMB RAIDER, we've talked about how tricky it can be to adapt popular video games into movies. On one hand, you have to capture the entertaining spirit of the game and please its fans. On the other, however, you have to remember that you're also telling a story - and any good story needs a solid human center that rings true. Given the facile nature of most video games, this is a hard combo to achieve. You either lose the "flavor" of that game that made it appeal to the masses - or you end up with a story that is empty and hollow.
Our latest Halloween review, SILENT HILL, is based on a very popular PlayStation game that spawned an entire franchise. The game is actually one of the few I've ever finished all the way through, and at the time of its release (1998 or so), it was probably the scariest survival horror game out there - even more than the "Resident Evil" games. The game of "Silent Hill" oozed with atmosphere, dread, and utter foreboding. One of the many positive comments from gamers and critics was: "This would make a great movie!"
Well, more like an average one, in this case. Whether or not the game would have made a great film remains to be seen, but the execution in SILENT HILL is lacking. It is by no means a bad movie. It's competently-acted and well-shot - with some strikingly-nightmarish images and sequences that transfer well from the game. The problem is what I cited in the opening: the story has no believable, relatable human center. Rose's quest to save Sharon should tap into a mother's primal instinct to protect and fight for her child, but it just doesn't ring true here. It feels artificial and perfunctory - rather than compelling and genuine. In shorts, it feels more like a game than a movie.
Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean are given little to do but look scared and the characters they play are sketchy, at best. Rose and Christopher feel like plastic chess pieces being moved around a board. Mitchell and Bean are good actors and do what they can, but they are better than the material and they know it. Ultimately, the real stars here are the special effects, but after awhile those get repetitive, too. It's also puzzling why director Christophe Gans and his writers chose to constantly switch back and forth between Rose being trapped in alternate reality of Silent Hill, and Christopher doing some detective work in the real world. This endless switching undercuts whatever tension is built up by Rose's predicament.
What made the game so effective was its sense of claustrophobia and mounting doom because the characters were constantly in the ghost town of Silent Hill. In the movie, that atmosphere is snuffed out before it can build sufficiently because we keep changing back to Christopher's point of view back home and elsewhere. To be fair, though, this splintered approach at least sets up a somewhat creepy ending where both viewpoints dovetail in an unexpected way. Unfortunately, to set up that ending, the movie itself is weakened. I'm not sure the trade-off was worth it.
Ultimately, this movie should please the hardcore fans of the game, who may give it a higher than average rating. However, for fans of the game who are also fans of good, well-told cinematic stories, SILENT HILL is merely passable.
