Silent Hill

This creepy and fantastic film gets a riveting script by Roger Avary. It's a spectacular piece and quite scary, so many levels, so many complexities and so many wonderful themes that are permeating throughout. It's like ¨Alice in Wonderland¨ meet ¨Dante's Inferno¨. It's based on known game and completely unique, absolutely frightening and, basically, one of the few games that actually could become a movie. Samuel Hadida , producer of the last three movie of Christophe Gans tells the game was conceptualized on the difficult way, because we had to go convince the Japanese people from Konami Corporation, they produced the game, to give us the right to make the film . The game has such a cult following, the fan base is very protecting. Christophe Gans is careful to maintain the suspense and all the areas , like the means of illumination in the darkness by a splendid cinematography by Dan Laustein and certain key of characters and antagonists, furthermore an appropriate music score by Jeff Danna. Gans has a very surrealist sort of vision of the game and the film itself sort of explores the boundaries of reality. The Silent Hill movie is a great experience, is something disturbing , it's not only about fear, it's also about emotion.

The cast is really exciting. There's a series of fresh faces, actors that you may be familiar with but you haven't seen then a thousand times before, they're going to bring life to the characters. The producers very deliberately went toward actors from independent film because they bring with them something different, a different quality. Actress like Radha Mitchell, Debora Kara Unger, Tanya Allen, Laurie Holden and Alice Krige, it's much more exciting to see somebody who doesn't used to do this kind of movie, but the audience of this type of film love that. For the role of Rose, Radha Mitchell, needed somebody with that blend of vulnerability but strength and determination as well. We have to feel her fear but also appreciate when she stands up to all these terrifying moments.In fact, the producers spent lots of time finding the perfect Rose. In terms of the sensibility that Christophe Gang was having in this character, Rose is sophisticated and very vulnerable and Radha Mitchell has both quality, she has a freshness and energy and excitement and life, there's this original look to her, all of which are precisely what the producers needed for the central character to lead us through this horrific environment. The director is focused on female character with just females leading the story in a way, with exception of two male characters: Sean Bean and Kim Coates. Christophe Gans is almost exorcised the idea of femininity by polarising it with the male characters, and all the women are in this kind of fantasy nightmare.

Although I have never played the actual game I am aware of its story and how this film decided to take another route. It borrows many elements & ideas from not just the first game but it's first couple sequels as well & blends in with the director's own ideas. The end result in my opinion I think works rather well both telling a solid story that doesn't hold your hand while also nailing the look and feel of its source material. I've seen many claim they couldn't understand much of the story but I personally think it explains everything pretty well. There are a couple exposition dumps & maybe at times some of the elements from the video games can feel disjointed but nothing feels out of place or forced in. Especially have to give the director and production crew props for the set design and visual effects that really brings to life the disturbing imagery of the games. There are many effective sequences especially one involving creepy nurses & there's no cheap jump scares to be found.

The only issue for me with the film are the boring and slow paced scenes with the husband character. It feels like they just added these scenes with him cuz the movie didn't have enough males but you could honestly cut all these out and it wouldn't effect the movie any. Other than that Silent Hill was definitely a milestone for video game adaptations especially from around that time. Even today you don't see many get as much effort put into them as this one did.

First of all, Carol Spiers deserved an Oscar for her production design. I'm not joking at all. It was so creepy and unsettling. It's worth watching for that alone. Unfortunately the storytelling aspect of it was pretty meh. Not a great script with some pretty lazy dialogue. In spite of that, I really liked this movie... surprisingly.

Fans of the game will enjoy this film. Critics should be impressed with the set design, effects and cinematography; but I'm afraid most of them will miss the boat entirely. As far as a game to film translation, this is one of the best ever made.

There are scenes in the film that are direct recreations from the game. Sounds, music, colors and even meticulous set design that pays homage to the game series. In as far as a horror film, there were scenes in this movie that are incomparable. Really disturbing, solid moments of horror.

Pyramid Head is this decade's Pinhead. A new cultural icon to be feared, and loved.

Good movie. Keep an open mind, and enjoy. This is one of those films that actually deserves its R rating. Don't take the kids, unless you're into the whole "terrible parent" thing.

First off, the downsides: Some parts of the movie seemed a little drawn out, the film was two hours, and at certain times, you could feel that. It's far-fetched, and I can imagine some people rolling their eyes at the storyline, and there WILL be some people walking out saying "that was a stupid movie". (As many people responded to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.) Of course, some of them will be saying that in response to the sheer amount of gore and violence, which brings me into the 'upsides': This movie certainly had it's 'wow' moments with shock, anticipation, and gore, especially near the climax. Scenes and even alleyways and monsters from the games were almost identical. If you've played the games you will get a lot of deja vu. (For example, the camera goes crooked at exactly the same time and place it does in one of the scenes in the game.) Also, a lot of the sounds and music tracks from the games are used, and so are the monsters. The entire feel of the games is preserved in the film, and you will have trouble keeping your feet on the floor the entire movie. The creepy presentation works, and if you haven't played any of the games, this movie will scare you in new ways.