You’ve played the video games or at least heard of them. You’ve seen the trailers and heard your friends scream from the thought of it. You were expecting “Silent Hill” to be one of the greatest horror movies of this year, and you even sacrificed your wallet’s durability by going to see it on the premiere night. As you walk out of the movie theater trying to hold back your tears, you feel a strong chest pain all of a sudden. Your expectations for this movie have been torn and ripped. You want to sink into a bottomless dark hole only to drown your sorrows within the darkness of your solitude. The only reason why you will not end your life this very moment is because of the surprising change of pace and resurrection of the storyline the last half of the movie.
Silent Hill was not something worth staying awake for the first half of the movie. Although the storyline was very resourceful and entertaining, it was not communicated in a consistent way. There are many scenes that stretch out far too long, and eventually your brain begins to lose the subject matter of the scene. Wishing gets you nowhere, and so when you’re finally pondering whether to leave your friends and run away forever, the movie suddenly gets interesting and addictive.
Beware to those of you who do not find blood attractive, for there’s plenty of it. This movie did do a great service for humanity in the sense that it showed what nobody ever wants to see or at least admit they appreciate: Blood, guts and torture. It was incredibly well done as the demons were actually people dressed in latex and live makeup. Consequently, they look real, with human-like movements and expressions. The only computer generated images were those of the fog that drenches the town and some shots of cliffs and fast mid-action shots of blood and people being ripped to pieces, your typical everyday scenario of course.
The plot itself is simple. It’s about a mother searching desperately for her daughter who got lost in a town named Silent Hill. That town is everything but ordinary, many horrible things took place there years before and it has been scarred for life. The movie indeed did a good job in maintaining the same story and characters as the video game. The only apparent difference is the main character which, in the movie is the mother, Rose Da Silva, while the main character in the video game is a man. Despite this, it will definitely please the gamers in the audience as it didn’t betray the essence of the video game which is rated among one of the best ones ever released.
The actors were amazing, they were talented and passionate. Horror movies could easily be among the most complicated movies to act out. All of the actors did a wonderful job portraying fear, sadness and plain madness which enriches the rest of the movie. Radha Mitchell (as the mother, Rose Da Silva) and Jodelle Ferland (Sharon Da Silva, as her daughter) are just two of the many impressive talents starring in Silent Hill.
Despite the long and sleep-inducing beginning, the movie takes a 180 degree turn into something intriguing that you cannot stop watching. It would be a good investment to rent and fast forward through the first hour in order to be able to appreciate the rest, which is visually stunning.