Good movie, despite being unfaithful to the games

Rating: 6/10 (27 April 2006)

From the average movie-going standpoint, I liked Silent Hill. Its acting was good (except perhaps for a couple scenes of Rose, who was otherwise decent), its monsters were demented and scary, and the way it switched between normal and horror world was cool. The storyline was weird, but good, and LOOSELY based off Silent Hill, the original game for Playstation.
From the videogamer standpoint, however, its ties with the Silent Hill games was disappointing. There is nothing in common with the movie and game other than the fogginess of the town and the characters' names. Going into detail about the discrepancies would be unnecessary, since almost everything is different. Here's a hint: in the original Playstation game, there was no big emphasis on some fire in the city's history, and there was no church full of religious zealots. And since that is the basis of the movie's plot, that goes to show how little the two titles have in common.
Another thing about the video game: I think Silent Hill will never be faithfully made into a movie, because the medium is incompatible (mostly). What makes the Silent Hill games scary are their slow, creeping sense of dread and horror. A game can take you about 15 hours to beat, unlike a movie which is over in 2. Movies just don't have enough time to create the horror that the games do, and because of this, Silent Hill will always be at its best in the video game medium.
That said, it was an entertaining horror movie, and managed to stand out from the many in its genre.