Everyone should see this movie!

Rating: 8/10 (22 April 2006)

RESIDENT EVIL - very popular series, very bad movie.......FINAL FANTASY - most popular series ever, highly disappointing film ...........DOOM - highly acclaimed action series, by far the worst game-movie adaptation yet ...........SILENT HILL - very popular horror game series...very satisfying film...whew, finally! I saw SILENT HILL on it's opening night at the 7:30 showing with a half-full theatre. I've always liked going to movies on opening nights with a lot of other people - no real reason, it just seems to, and I'm sure a lot of people agree with that unexplainable feeling, enhance the experience of the film. This is especially true when it comes to horror movies.
SILENT HILL is not totally a horror movie - I would personally say it's mainly a thriller/suspense. However, it does have its shares of scary and disturbing scenes, to which I will touch on later in the review.
As far as the fans of the SILENT HILL video game series go, I'm positive just about all of them will be very pleased. The movie looks, sounds, and overall feels dead-on to what the games had. Especially as specific as camera movements - in certain scenes that happened in the games, the camera tilted a certain way, and was done perfectly the same way in the film. Even the famous, and undeniably erie, music from the SILENT HILL games was used in the film. I'm telling you, if you're a fan of the series, this film WILL NOT disappoint you.
For those of you that have never played and/or heard of the series, that's perfectly fine - all that means is that you're in for a very unexpected surprise! It has it's creepy moments, it's drama moments, and it's downright scary moments - guaranteed to satisfy any boyfriend-girlfriend couple looking for a good scary movie with friends.
Of course, I must say that this film has its weaknesses. By no means do these weaknesses completely ruin the film - in fact, they merely put small dents in it. But the fact is that they are there, and unfortunately, they are rather obvious. These weaknesses are almost entirely in dealing with the film's storyline. What the film did was, take several chunks of story lines from the games, and put them together with some fill-ins to make a completely new storyline.
While, unlike basically all the other film-adapted games, SILENT HILL sticks almost entirely to the story of the games, it is a rather incoherent one. The first hour of movie, expect NOTHING to be explained. Which is OK, because too much explaining early on ruins surprises that could occur later in the film. However, as the film goes further and further on, it's harder and harder to follow exactly what is REALLY happening, and WHY. It's not really a confusing story, its just hard to piece together. Unless you're an absolute die-hard fan of the games, and played through them enough times to be able to write your own book about them, you'll be fairly lost, while not entirely confused, if that makes sense.
Now, to sum it up - THE GOOD: - The movie sticks to the game series. I can't stress enough how good a job they did of this. If you've watched the other films that are adapted from games, they are completely ruined by making up their own story lines and making the film look nothing like the game. SILENT HILL is an almost mirror image of the games, and, while a tad incoherent, the story is very true to the games.

It has a plentiful share of shocks and scares. Some scenes are filmed very creepy, using limited light and deteriorating, dark backgrounds. Other scenes are just downright disturbing, and could leave you with a rather unpleasant feeling in your stomach. There are at least three or four scenes I can remember seeing half the audience gasp and cringe at.

The music. That's all I need to say about that. I guarantee you'll dig the soundtrack.

THE BAD: - Incoherent story could turn some people off who don't like trying to think about it and figure it out.

The acting, while for the most part is quite good, is sometimes a little awkwardly wooden.

Overall, I give this movie an 8 out of 10, and I highly suggest seeing it. Don't let any bad reviews of the film stop you - that's really the only reason I can think of for this movie not doing as good as it would be able to.
You want a good horror flick, this is the one to see until the summer blockbusters come rolling in. And if enough word of mouth goes around, I could easily see SILENT HILL being a failry big money-raker.