Silent Hill: The movie

[uberreiniger]

As many of you know, Silent Hill is something near and dear to my heart. You might also know that a couple of French guys up and made a movie about it. You might also know that video game movies, as a general rule, suck.

My advice is to forget this is a video game movie. Even if you have never been anywhere near a video game and don't care to, if you like very scary and thought-provoking films, GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

It's hard for me to divorce myself as a player of the games and view the film in a purely objective fashion. The entire plot of Silent Hill was changed for the film, but all the key players remained, even in altered forms, and above all, the haunted town's unbelievably horrific atmosphere was preserved and amplified a thousands times. The filmmakers created Hell On Earth in that film. Few other horror films I have seen can say that.

Same of the changes they made from the games didn't really gel well for me as an avid player, but to a casual film goer they shouldn't be problematic. Specifically, I'm referring to making Dahlia Gillespie, a major villain from the games, into a sympathetic character. And also the transformation of the town's cult from a child-sacrificing demon-worshipping sect to a witch-burning fundamentalist Christian enclave was a deviation as well. Not sure how I felt about that one. I wonder if the movie studio wasn't afraid of offending occult practitioners, so they switched the cult to Christian Fundies, the last religious group you can safely demonize.

Enough fan-boying. I'll try to give serious movie reviewer-type thoughts now. The cast was perfect. No big names save Sean Bean and horror/sci-fi veteran Alice Krige, but the filmmakers clearly cared more about getting the right people for the characters than getting box office draws and I respect that. I couldn't have dreamed a better cast for this movie. Cinematography was spot-on as well. The atmosphere and tension were unbelievable and those were what I feared would be hardest to capture. Special effects? Best I've seen in years. Kudos to the ballsy move of NOT using overblown CGI monsters, but using more visceral monster effects instead. It fit. The town's "reallity shifts" were perfectly handled effects-wise as well. Seriously, this film has some of the best effects I have seen in years. Perfect blend of CGI and live-action. And the climax... eat your heart out Hellraiser.

Actually, on second thought, don't eat your heart out, Hellraiser, because I know you actually will.

I'd put Silent Hill up there with The Ring, The Shining, and other such horror films which get inside your mind and stay there. Good stuff, good times, bad dreams.

Watch out for Pyramid Head ;)

And by the way, if you're gonna go see it, please don't be like some of the asshats in the theatre we went to and bring your 5-7 year-old kid. Call me old-fashioned, but I think kids should not see films which feature simultaneous anal/vaginal barbed-wire rape until at least the age of ten.

Comments

[bookandcanal.livejournal.com]

Christian Fundies, the last religious group you can safely demonize.

Well, I have often thought that... Christian Fundies may deserve problematic (since from most historical Christian perspectives they are uber-heretics) and that Orthodoxy may be aligned with multi-cultural enforcement so that they don't have to be seen as in league with Independent Baptist Calvinists who protest at soldiers funerals.

But ironically, demonizing Fundies makes them grow...

btw, I think you can safely demonize Catholics in our culture and sometimes Muslims, but only sometimes and only indirectly.

[fadedsecret.livejournal.com]

The vaginal barbed wire rape... *SHUDDERS* God...that was wrong. And yet, so very deserved

[bookandcanal.livejournal.com]

if you're gonna go see it, please don't be like some of the asshats in the theatre we went to and bring your 5-7 year-old kid. Call me old-fashioned, but I think kids should not see films which feature simultaneous anal/vaginal barbed-wire rape until at least the age of ten.

::blinks::
Men, and I thought seeing Full Metal Jacket when I was six fucked me up.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Wow. I thought it fucked me up because I saw it when I was nine. You've got three years up on me.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

... barbed wire rape??

[raihaannah.livejournal.com]

Please forgive my ignorance, but this movie was a take off of a video game? From the previews it seemed to be similar to an old X-Files episodes with imbred hillbillies that wanted to kill everybody. But then you go on to describe some of the plot and it loses the similarities.

Oo, ah... I'm torn; I want to see it, but it seems like it could be really gross. So, tell me horror genre expert: I liked The Grudge with Sarah Michelle Gellar, because it was more suspense than actual gore. Should I see Silent Hill?

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

There is gore, but it is a very suspenseful film. Good atmosphere, interesting characters. It's got more graphic violence than The Grudge, that's for sure, so if you have a strong aversion to that you might want to stear clear.

[kakita-shisumo.livejournal.com]

Rahda Mitchell has to be the best-known unknown movie star in existence.

[freyjas-child.livejournal.com]

Oh ya....vagianl barbwire rape....I remember watching that going WTF!!! I can't believe they did that! Man I REALLY enjoyed that film. I of course am no where near the gamer of it like you and many other friends but I have watched some play and my only complaint is that it didn't scare me anywhere near as bad as the games did and that's what I was hoping for.
Above all else though I agree with everything you've said and did enjoy it^_^ I can't wait to see what happens in the next installment.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

It's a different medium, so I knew it couldn't sustain the terror of the games non-stop. In film you have to have room for exposition, character development, etc, so it's a lot harder to keep the audience in a state of continual tension like the games do. And I imagine a major movie studio probably would be nervous about that anyway as it makes the film less "marketable." Honestly, I'm impressed they were able to make it as scary as they did.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen it (I'm really just not a horror movie guy), but many of the people I know who have seen it and didn't play the games came out of the theater not understanding what was going on in the least. I'd say the most common response from friends of mine was "It's worth the price for the special effects, but don't ask me to explain it to you because it didn't make any sense. I wonder if you might need the game background to truly understand the story.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

That's unfortunate, because frankly they dumbed it down. Everything in the movie got explained through exposition. It's a frequent gripe of mine that American movie audiences are lazy and don't want to have to think when they watch a movie.