Ultimately, a confused mess

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 2006)

I wanted to like this because I loved Gans's "Brotherhood of the Wolf". I know nothing about any video game, let alone this one, so I came at this from a position of ignorance. The first half hour enchanted me. Wonderful opening sequence. Incredibly original score. Stunning photography. And Gans's transporting aerial shots. So far so good. The film references some of my favorites, including Soavi's "Dellamorte Dellamore" and, possibly, Hasebe's "Assault Jack The Ripper" (the abandoned bowling alley). It draws you into an intriguing, complex situation that will be explained later on, I guess.
Well, I guessed wrong. All the creepy weirdness, which is very well done, ends up amounting to not much. We do get some convoluted explanation when religious nut Alice Krige appears with her robed minions, but it still doesn't wash. The film becomes a mess. The blame lies at the feet of scripter Roger Avary and director Gans. Although Avary penned the thing, Gans surely had the opportunity to sharpen it and work on some clarity.
The biggest problem is that the exposition is disconnected to most of the horrors we have witnessed. If Avary and Gans had chosen to explain nothing and dispensed with the annoying Krige character, the film would have been better off -- more like a waking, "Eraserhead"-style nightmare. Unfortunately, "Silent Hill" tries to have it both ways, and it fails.
If the film had been an extended version of the trailer, it would have been much more interesting. As it stands, it falters half way through and never recovers.