Somewhat deceptive

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2009)

I haven't written a review in a long time. But I feel I have some semi-insightful ideas to contribute to the reviewing of Silent Hill. So.....
I originally bought this film as soon as it came out on DVD. I watched it right away, put it on the shelf, and pretty much forgot about it. Today, something drew my girlfriend and I to Silent Hill, and we decided we would watch it again.
I had a decent recollection of the film, but decided I would open IMDb and read a little bit to refresh my memory some more. Upon logging on, I noticed I originally gave it a score of 6/10. I also noticed that it's overall rating was 6.5. That intrigued me a bit as I assumed it was much lower. Plus, my favorite horror film of all time happens to have that same rating. So, I had semi-high hopes as my opinion of many films has changed over the years.
Right from the start, it is very appealing. They waste no time whatsoever getting to the relevant stuff. The film has literally no empty, needless minutes, like many 100+ minute films have (The best example of this would be many of Stephen King movie adaptations). And I must say, 45 minutes to an hour in, I was beginning to wonder why I rated it as low as I did. Everything was moving along quite nicely. Very creepy, very interesting.
Then, the second half of the film started to take it's course, and everything started going downhill. The eerie atmosphere and suspense created by the creatures themselves started to dissipate as we begin to see less and less of that aspect of the film. The focus began to shift completely to the actual history and story itself, which is not necessarily a bad thing, by any means. But, I feel they did a poor job of incorporating the terror and fear of the present situation, and the urgency of the task at hand. And as a result, the whole second half of the film became quite dull.
Then you have the crazy religious freak, which gradually goes from a significant but simple part of the story, to a shameless attempt to portray religious people in as negative a light as possible. We've seen enough of that in films these days. If the opportunity presents itself, even in the slightest fashion, it is capitalized on nearly every time. But that, in itself, does not ruin a film for me.
The real problem comes as we get closer and closer to the conclusion of the film. And it's a problem I see repeatedly, mainly in the horror genre. The relentless desire and attempt to create dramatic effect and shock value ends up creating aspects of the film that are just completely over the top. It's as if the director reaches a plateau of fright and apprehension, and then just cannot resist trying to take it one level higher. Typically, this ends up taking away from the film, overall. This is a real problem with MANY films. In fact, I watched another horror film last night that had me thinking the exact same thing.
There are also some confusing elements and loose ends that are ultimately not tied up. I wont get into detail on those. I suppose there is something to be said for leaving certain things to the imagination. But everything has to be just right for that to work. That really didn't appear to be the case with this film. Still, it is NOT BY ANY MEANS, Mulholland Dr.-type confusion and uncertainty. But then again, no film has confusion and uncertainty to rival that mess.
Overall, it's decent. It's user rating is fairly close to accurate. Definitely not a waste of time, but certainly nothing that will rock your world in any way.