Transporting & Creepy

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2007)

For those who have never seen the game, "Silent Hill" is the best ever survival/ horror game series. It is difficult and confusing (a lot of mazes and D&D-like details) so expect major disorientation at times during the film-which is a bit like actually playing the game.
The acting was convincing, the editing extraordinary, and the atmosphere oppressive. Not 100% how I visualized it before viewing but even the differences tended to work in favor of the film.
The town itself looked and actually felt familiar, unlike the mess they made of "House of Wax". This is definitely the sort of film best seen on the big screen with a theater sound system. Everyone should be totally creeped out.
Enough said, more at this stage might spoil things so read on only if you have already seen the film or if you don't mind some spoilers.
Dahlia Gillespie had a daughter (by an unknown father) named Alessa. Alessa became the town outcast until a bunch of religious nuts (led by Christabella) decided she was a witch and must be sacrificed to keep evil out of Silent Hill. Dahlia went along with this because she was afraid of her own damnation for having the child. But the ceremony went wrong and the nut cases were not just killed but sent to a netherworld between heaven and hell.
The dark side of Alessa ended up in the same place but she was split into duel entities and the good part stayed in the normal world where she was adopted by Rose and Chris, and named Sharon. Sharon's sleepwalking is caused by her connection with Alessa who wants her to return to Silent Hill.
On the way to Silent Hill, Rose and Sharon arouse the suspicions of a motorcycle policewoman (Cybil Bennett). This happens because Cybil has been extremely protective of children since she saved a little boy from a psychopath. Cybil follows them to Silent Hill (once a coal mining town that was abandoned because of a burning seam of coal under the town). At the town limits a mysterious girl appears and both vehicles crash. When Sharon and Cybil regain consciousness Rose is gone.
As they explore the abandoned buildings they discover a church with a warning siren where the religious cult hides when Alessa (presumably) causes a darkness to take over the town; for some reason the darkness and Alessa cannot enter the church. It turns out that Alessa sent her Sharon identity back into the world of the living to bring back someone (Rose) who can take her into the church where she can finally exact her revenge.
Everyone is dead in the netherworld of Silent Hill, even Rose and Cybil-they don't know it yet but they died in the accident-because you can only enter the town if you are dead. Alessa needs Rose which is why she died, it was just Cybil's bad luck to have been involved in the accident.
The tip off to their being parallel towns comes when Rose's husband Chris enters the real Silent Hill and finds nothing supernatural in the place; although he senses a connection with his wife and adopted daughter, he finds no tangible sign of them. Rose passes right through him and the ending scene of Rose and Sharon in their home is blurred, but the scene with Chris in the parallel home is completely clear.