Blew away my (admittedly low) expectations. Best game to movie ever?

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2006)

As stated above, my expectations for this film were very very low, based not only on the EXTREMELY low quality of game-to-movie adaptations, but my ignorance to the team involved with making this movie.
I should have done a bit of research before writing this one off as a guaranteed stinker...as Roger Avary has always provided his viewers with entertaining screen writing, and Christophe Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolves was one of the best films I saw the year it was released.
I've also played the first three Silent Hill games to completion, and enjoyed them (as strange and hard to follow as the stories were) so that added to my trepidation...were the filmmakers going to monkey with things like the Resident Evil movies? Were they going to make things easier for the audience to "understand"? Were they going to leave out characters or change the location / origin / story of the entire film to retro-fit it for a movie-going crowd like DOOM or Tomb Raider or just about any game-to-movie in the past 10 years...
...The short short is that my low expectations were blown away. The characters, locations, visual design, cinematography, and even the acting were all VERY respectful of the source material.
I ESPECIALLY enjoyed the sound design...which contained (as many other reviewers have cited) a LOT of the music from the 1st few games.
The movie was every bit as creepy, off-putting, tense, strange and violent as the game series, and it retained the feel of the game throughout....I commend the filmmakers for producing what very well may be the most faithful adaptation of a game to the big screen to date.
The only thing keeping me from scoring the film higher is the potential for viewers of the film who are not familiar with the game series to get lost in the material....there may be SO much visual and story reference to the game series that it becomes obvious...like listening to an "inside joke" that appears that it should be funny, but you don't know the source material that it's making fun of.
If you're a fan of Silent Hill, and have played the first few games...this is quite a ride through world of Silent Hill.
Avary penned a VERY smart screenplay (based on Boukhrief's story) and Gans did an AMAZING job of staying true to the feel of the game both visually and atmospherically.
I'll be looking forward to a deluxe edition DVD for re-watchings trying to pick up on more of the game references.
Loved the ending too...it could very well be the pre-cursor to the opening of the 2nd game!!! -Frankie