Silent Hill review

Silent Hill

At this point we have seen movies for the two other most popular survival horror series, resident evil and alone in the dark. While entertaining these two movies where not that close to the games. Will silent hill fair better? Read on to find out.

Silent Hill is about a mom whose daughter talks of a town while sleep walking. The mom then takes her daughter to the town of silent hill where her daughter disappears after a car crash. While searching for her daughter rose comes across deranged religious freaks, a cop, and all sorts of monsters.

Ok so I’d like to start by saying this is by far one of my favorite video game adaptations ever. This is why it was number 2 in my top ten video game movies. But besides me liking it there’s a ton of reasons why this is good while not exactly following a specific game plot.

The first and most important thing that helps make this movie good is the director. While practically unknown at the time having done one really big movie beforehand (brotherhood of the wolf) Chris Gans who has admitted loving video games put about 5 years of effort into securing the rights for a silent hill movie from Konami. He filmed an interview of himself and explained how much he liked the games and what he planned to do for a movie. Konami was so impressed they gave him the rights.

The director is not the only thing that helps this movie out it’s also the fact that Konami and team silent (the team responsible for the games) where involved from start to finish. A lot of game companies don’t do this most of the time they will just sell their rights off and not care about the movie and count their money. Going back to the director there was a lot of stuff he did to make this movie good. He had the sound designer for the games flown to the set several times to help with the music for the movie. He also hooked up a ps2 and played the original game for the cast and crew to show them how he was going to recreate certain camera angles and scenes.

Now about the plot. The film is primarily based on the first game. Several scenes including the miner tied to the fence and the burning children attacking rose are from the first game. The main plot line of searching for her daughter is also the point of the game although in the game it is a father. The female cop and Dahlia are both characters in the game as well as all the monsters and the religious cult. Other notable things from the game are the transfers to the dark world and item collection every time rose picked up a picture I could see it spinning in mid air saying you have found picture #1.

There are however major changes to the plot like the fact that in the game the religious cult worships the devil and wants to bring a demon to life not kill who they think is a demon. Also in the game it’s a father looking for his daughter not a mother. But despite the changes the movie always has the creepy atmosphere of the games. the monsters use a good mix of practical effects and CGI, from what I found out most of the monsters where physically present then touched up with CGI with the exception of the bugs that follow pyramid head and the barb wire at the end witch where all cg.

The ending is another great part when Alyssa is killing off the cultist with barb wire tentacles. This scene was inspired by one of the very first tentacle hentai’s legend of the over fiend. A hentai is basically a porn anime.

The acting was good you can really feel the concern and worry in Rose for Sharon and it slowly turns from emotional to physical as the stuff she goes through to get her daughter back is harder and harder.

The pyramid heads where done well however in the game they appear when someone feels as if they need to be punished for what they have done so I think in the movie they were just there as fan service and it was great fan service. They looked just like the ones from the game and like the other monsters where actual people.

I believe this movie is a prime example of what happens when the film crew and the video game company both care about the movie and source material. The monsters are attracted by light like in the game and electronic devices such as radios and cell phones produce static when monsters are near.

Konami was so happy with the silent hill that they reference it in their newest game and have already green lit and started working on a second film. However the director and writer both got hired to do work on an Onimusha film so they will not be returning but Gans said he would help by consulting so the look and atmosphere of the first movie is present. Witch game the second movie is based on has yet to be officially announced however it’s rumored that the second game will be the inspiration.

How I would do it. This movie was good I honestly have no real improvements I could suggest except maybe a longer run time.

Over all I give the movie a perfect 10 out of 10 pyramid heads. When I saw the preview I got my hopes way up and this movie doesn’t disappoint it’s great for fans of the games as well as plain old horror fans.

The acting gets 9 out of 10 most everybody was on but the female cop was just a bit over the top.

The plot gets 6 out of 10. Why a low score u ask. Well because to be fair this score is supposed to be how much the movie followed the plot to the game and it’s not exactly one of the games plot but do not let this deter you.

The content how ever gets 9 out of 10 the monsters, some characters, music, locations and atmosphere where all there even the camera angels where right from the game

Ok well its done took a bit longer then I thought hope you enjoy it. Next up is dead or alive a.k.a. D.O.A. it’s a movie based off a fighting game so the review should be quick but I am going to play some dead or alive 2 first and rewatch the movie before I sit down to write.