Oct 052006
 
four reels

Rose (Radha Mitchell) takes her daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), to the ghost town of Silent Hill in hopes of explaining and overcoming the girl’s nightmares and dangerous sleepwalking.  However, the daughter disappears after an accident on the outskirts of town, and Rose must search for her, aided by a motorcycle officer (Laurie Holden).  Silent Hill, where it is always raining ash, is far from empty, with demonic creatures attacking from all sides, the buildings themselves changing and moving, and a cult of witch hunters held up in the old church.  Worse still, there’s no way to leave.

The videogame-based movie Silent Hill promised to satisfy fans of the game and those new to the franchise with a frightening, twisted tale, and shocking images.  What is really shocking is that it succeeded.  This is one bizarre movie, that satisfies on almost (almost, we’ll get to that later) every level.

It kicks into high gear immediately, giving just enough plot and character background to explain why a mother and daughter are traveling cross country and then: bam, we’re into Silent Hill and the horror begins.  For the next half-hour, this is the best haunted house you’ll ever walk through.  Nothing is explained.  Nothing is set up.  But a lot happens.  Creepy monsters of all sorts (and some horrendous victims, such as the man tied up with barbed wire) pop up, and our heroine does the only thing she can—run.  Does it feel like a video game?  In structure, yes.  But you won’t get that “I’m looking over someone’s shoulder as he plays” feeling.  It pulls you in and you’ll be there with Rose, and you won’t want to be.

Things slow down after that, but only to the extent that you get to breathe, and small plot elements show themselves here and there.  But plot is secondary.  This is an experience, and on that level, it’s a great one.  There’s a few things to think about when it is all done, but this isn’t an intellectual film.  It’s all for the back-brain.

I was surprised at how good every frame looks.  I’ve grown to expect little from video game films, but this one is beautiful.  The city, with its non-stop rain of white ash, is a Norman Rockwell masterpiece with a severe disease.  The effects are more than realistic; they are a joy to watch (provided you take joy in the deeply odd).  And the camera sweeps you into the action.  I’ve seen many renditions of Hell onscreen.  This is the first that made be nod and think “yes, that’s what it would be like.”  I can’t imagine anything worse.

Radha Mitchell carries the film effortlessly.  She is given quite a challenge, as we’re thrown into the middle of the action before we’re given a chance to know Rose, but you’ll find yourself cheering for her long before the end.  Jodell Ferland manages the two essentials of a child in a horror film: she’s adorable and eerie.  And the lovely Alice Krige (Ghost Story, Sleepwalkers), who has made it her cinematic mission to out-weird Christopher Walken, creates yet another memorable whack-job.  There was palpable hatred in the theater whenever she appeared.

Silent Hill only stumbles twice, but they are “trip over the couch and catch your leg on the priceless vase as your head slams into the only uncarpeted section of floor”-type stumbles.  The first involves the outside world segments.  There shouldn’t be any.  The word on the internet is that a studio executive sent the script back noting there were no men in it, so, Sean Bean’s character of the husband was tacked on.  And tacked on is the proper expression.  If this is true, that executive needs to be out on his ear.  Once Rose reaches the town of Silent Hill, there is no reason to leave it till the end.  We gain no new information and no insight.  The only thing it accomplishes is breaking the tension, and that isn’t a good thing.  And several of the events in the nearby town are never properly explained.  As all of the husband-and-local-cops material is disconnected from the heart of the film, even now they could be chopped out with zero changes to the rest of the movie.

The second problem is the explanation of why Silent Hill is a ghost town.  Yes, it is a bit hard to take, but that’s not really the difficulty.  What’s wrong is the way the information is delivered.  We are told almost nothing for an hour and a half.  Rose finds out little.  And then it is all just dumped in our laps.  This needed to have been integrated into the story.

A few errors stop Silent Hill from being a horror flick that you’ll be reliving in twenty years (and I still have hope for a changed version on the DVD), but it is well worth your pennies.

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