Did they cut the wrong scenes?

Rating: 5/10 (22 April 2006)

I would describe Silent Hill like a roller coaster that just gets over way too soon. The film sets you up to expect an entree and instead gives you one very tasty but very small hors d'oeuvre. With the movie clocking in at 2hrs and 7min, you might be wondering why I describe the movie as too short. The problem is how the attention is focused.
The majority of the film takes place in fog world (or ash world or haze world or whatever else you want to call it), and occasionally the town of Silet Hill gets transformed into a very dark nightmare. OK, sounds like Silent Hill. The movie for the most part is portrayed like the game: running from location to location with clues-check. Camera angles pulled straight from the game but tasteful and not overused-check. Props and sets straight from the game-check. Twisted creatures-double check. Early on, the balance of fog Silent Hill and dark Silent Hill is good. The dark scenes are perfectly done, intense, and seem to promise bigger and better is coming, then it doesn't.
A good comparison would be Aliens. Picture the movie this way-the first half is great, intense at times and setting up the bigger encounters later. Then we get to the point where the hidden plot is revealed and (Aliens spoiler warning) Sigourney Weaver and the others get double-crossed. Image at that point in the movie, the focus shifts to Ripley's confrontation with Carter (Paul Reeves) and gets stuck there, almost forgetting the Alien core of the film. Silent Hill left me feeling like that.
The dark scenes felt like setups, not good, long, intense scenes of survival. Silent Hill has always been about the balance of puzzles and fog world with intense survival within the dark world. The player is strained with their own adrenaline, anticipating the next encounter. The dark scenes are there, yes, but not nearly enough in the film. The whole stay one-step-ahead-to-survive feeling is rare, and the frightening anticipation of what is coming is almost nonexistent. The movie uses it sparsely, instead preferring to just jump straight to the nightmarish scenes and villains. The Silent Hill game has always focused on anticipation and messing with the imagination, not the gore and action-and that's what sets it apart from other survival horror games.
What do we get in its place? We get scenes that focus on the story way too much and are actually repetitive. The history of Silent Hill has always been a dark undertone to the game franchise, not the primary focus, and much has been left to the imagination. Not with the movie. The movie gets stuck in the story and has doesn't step out to entertain nearly enough. I heard the film was originally over three hours long and was cut down. I can't help but wonder why they didn't do more cutting of the story scenes. Also, did they cut the wrong scenes? Did they remove the good dark scenes the movie setup up, leaving instead the overblown story section? My friend, who didn't play the game, repeated what has been often said by Hollywood-video game movies fail because every gamer comes in expecting to see 'their' movie, not what is made. No, Silent Hill fails to deliver because it doesn't deliver enough of what the movie is supposed to be: scary. I thought the first half of the movie was perfect, the director nailed it. Then it gets lost and ceases to frighten. That's why it failed. However, at least there is a movie here and not some flashy drivel for people with ADHD like other game to movie adaptations. Acting ranges from good to passable. The dialogue is poor at times but passable. I felt the Sean Bean scenes were a good addition and not the culprit for the movie getting lost. Special effects were superb. The story was really quite straightforward and maybe too straightforward. I don't know how some people have been confused by this movie, even if they did not play the game.
My verdict: If you like the Silent Hill games, give it a try and see the game on the big screen. Just expect the scares to take a back seats to an overdone story. If you didn't play the games, see it if you want to see a movie and nothing else appeals to you. Otherwise, wait for the DVD. In the meantime, go rent the Silent Hill games and play them.