After being a film critic for a few years now, I've started to learn the cardinal signs of a film that hasn't exactly come together the way the studio had hoped. Back in Toronto on the set of Silent Hill last summer, things looked promising. Director Christophe Gans was a big fan of the games, the sets looked very cool, the casting was perfect and Gans himself appeared to fully understand the many, many failings of video game movies past. The teaser trailer earlier this year looked good, the promotional posters and ads looked good. Could it be? Could it finally be? Would there actually be a video game movie that was worth its salt? All of the sudden, Screen Gems pulled the plug, as they have so many times before. The press junkets and interviews were cancelled. Screenings were cancelled. Days before the release at the premiere, critics were turned away. This was a really, really bad sign. I figured it was one of two things. Either the film was downright junk, or just a bit too weird . Still, I liked what I had seen on set, I liked the cast and I thought Gans was an interesting choice, so I tried my best to alleviate preconceived notions and proceed to this day-of-release press screening with an open mind.
Silent Hill opens with the dreams of young Sharon . She is sleepwalking outside in the night and her mother, Rose , is desperately pursuing her. When she finally catches up to her daughter, the girl utters out cries of the words, "Silent Hill, Silent Hill…" Against the wishes of her husband Chris , Rose decides to take a trip with her daughter to this mysterious town and try to find out what she remembers from her past before she was adopted. Through some internet searches, Rose has learned that the town is rumored to be haunted, but its true secrets have been hidden in locked records for years. Just before entering the town, Rose encounters a persistent policewoman named Cybil. Scared and determined, Rose speeds away and down the road to the abandoned town of Silent Hill. When a girl who looks like Sharon appears in the road, Rose swerves to avoid her and crashes, falling unconscious. When she comes to, her daughter is missing. The town, as gamers well know, is no normal town. There are assorted ghouls around most every corner, especially when the town siren sounds off and all goes dark. Cybil soon joins Rose to help her in the pursuit of her lost daughter. The deeper they get, the more is revealed of the past atrocities of Silent Hill and the demons that still lurk about in the dark.
Visually, Silent Hill looks spectacular. The dark, highly atmospheric, intricately detailed set pieces are often lifted straight from the game. Silent Hill is, at its most basic level, a haunted house movie, but the house is the whole town. Every corner reveals another barrage of horrific imagery. During the day, a snow falls constantly on the town, but when Rose catches a snow flake, she realizes it is actually just ash. The transition of the town from day to light is a very cool effect. Rooms turn to ash, bloody-vein like branches cover the walls. The look of Silent Hill is undeniably creepy. The set pieces are often so good that they seem to promise something more to come than is ultimately delivered by the unfolding storyline.
From armless demons with vacuous pits in their stomach, to dwarf-like, face-less assemblages of ash to a big dude with some kind of gladiator helmet wielding a machete that would give Jason Voorhees an inferiority complex, the creature effects of Silent Hill are well done. Primarily Computer Generated, they are perfectly lit and never look jerky or obviously fake. Again, these eerie, frightening characters themselves offer more irks from their look rather than how they play into the movie.
The starting point of the problems with Silent Hill is length. This film is 127 minutes long. Yes, that's right, it's freakin' long! Believe it or not, it's rumored that Gans original cut was nearly three and a half hours. Good lord, save me now. Much like Brotherhood, Hill meanders through its storyline at a very slow pace, lingering within scenes far longer than needed. There are countless sequences that repeat expositions we've already gotten once before. The editing of Hill is sloppy and overtly proud of itself, full of scenes that might look cool, but don't serve the plot at all. One thing a scary movie should never be is boring, but it was often a struggle to stay alert and coherent through this morning's entire epic screening. Shaving at least 35 minutes would greatly improve Silent Hill.
Speaking of scary movies, that's probably the biggest problem with Silent Hill. Scares. Anyone see any, anywhere, any place within the vicinity of this movie? There are a few moments that appear to be leading to scares where I felt a few goose bumps form on my arms in anticipation of something, anything… But alas, there was no payoff. Letdown after letdown. There is not a scare anywhere in sight of Silent Hill. Part of this can again be blamed on the editing, which does very little to build intensity appropriately, and part can be blamed on the story, which is more intriguing than invigorating. Even the nurse sequence, in which Rose must navigate a room of inanimate knife-wielding nurses only brought alive by touch or light isn't especially scary. Seeing it filmed, I expected this to be a really creepy scene once effects and music were added, but like so much else in Hill, it was just a let down. You'd expect the right music, the right sets, the right creatures, etc. to equal scares. Still, something else is missing to pull it all together.
There isn't a lot to say about the cast because the problems with the film are not their fault. I liked the casting when I first heard it and I still liked it in the film. Mitchell continues to develop as a very versatile and competent actress. She gives off an inner-strength and competence that serves the character of Rose well. Laurie Holden, whose work I've been only vaguely familiar with before Hill, does a very good job as Cybil. Deborah Kara Unger, nearly unrecognizable through most of the film, is good. Sean Bean, who finally plays something besides a bad guy, doesn't have a whole lot to do, but he makes his part work well enough. The best acting of the film comes from Jodelle Ferland, who handles some extremely intense scenes with relative ease, especially for a girl her age. She has a bright future ahead.
As director, Gans brings his unique visual sense and little else. As a self-professed fanatic of the game series, it seems as though Gans' take on Silent Hill is less concerned with what gamers or laymen would like to see in the movie and more what he wanted to see. The result is a movie that will likely please only Gans.
There are some clever homages to the game that fans will surely appreciate, but the story also deviates from the game and takes some twists and turns that seem needless. Roger Avary's script is all over the place, beating you over the head with one plot detail and skipping over another.
So there we have it. Our worst fears realized yet again. The video game-to-film genre has endured more than a decade of mediocrity. Silent Hill is probably the smartest and best-looking video game adaptation yet, it just doesn't have much else going for it. After all, video games are about entertainment, and Silent Hill is a chore to sit through.
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Seriously, it truly is like you are living the game. (Having a woman as the main protagonist, ensure's the main character is more vulnerable, than if it were a man). The production design is truly superb and you get the feeling that Silent Hill really does exist. I was so skeptical about this movie, as traditionally, Game-To-Movie adaptations are, let's face it, crap!Again, it really is the best horror movie in years!