Here we go again...

Rating: 5/10 (9 August 2008)

Let's just say for a moment that the Silent Hill series in completely bankrupt, over. It's done. Now, they are trying to sweat out money from any pore that they can. Now lets snap back to reality. Silent Hill is still a major franchise with over a thousand fans and it's still going strong. Yet the director of the Brotherhood of the Wolf, an award winning film, has produced this razzie-worthy video game adaptation film. Now, don't get me wrong. While the movie deserves it's fair share of point-outs such as it's accurate usage of the characters and environments, the film still derives from the game and lacks the strength and ability to move the audience that was seen in the game.
In the film, Rose Dasilva(Replacing Harry Mason from SH1) and her daughter, Sharon(Replacing Cheryl Mason from SH1) make their way to Silent Hill, a small resort town in Toluca County, West Virginia to see if they can solve the mystery behind Sharon's sleepwalking issue. While stopped at a gas station, Sharon is approached by an motorbike officer, Cybil Bennett(Same Character in SH1), who believes that Sharon is a missing person and Rose is her captor. A few minutes pass before Sharon and Rose continue their journey to Silent Hill. While driving down the road towards Silent Hill, Rose realizes she is being followed by the motorbike cop. She sees a sign pointing to Silent Hill and speeds up. A chase ensues followed by Rose breaking through a roadblock into Silent Hill territory. The officer is lost in a fog. Rose is relieved to have lost the officer, but suddenly, relief is broken by loud white noise coming through the car stereo. Rose attempts to shut off the radio, taking her eyes off the road. Before she knows it, she is swerving to avoid a young girl traversing the desolate road. She crashes her jeep and is knocked out. She awakes in a fog, Sharon is gone, and her only chance of finding Sharon is to go into town. She wades through the blinding fog, soft petals of ash fall onto her face like snow. As she enters town, a old scraggily woman named Dahlia(Same Character from SH1) welcomes her in an odd way. After showing her a picture of Sharon, Rose is attacked by the woman, who seems to think Sharon is her own. Rose manages to escape the madwoman and continue her search. Coming upon a small shopping street, she notices the image of a young girl. thinking it's Sharon, she quickly pursues. She comes across an entrance to an alleyway and descends down a dark stairwell that she saw the young girl enter. While descending, a siren sounds, and she is dropped into the nether-realm of Silent Hill.
ACTING - 1/10 - Surprisingly poor acting really marred the beauty of this film. Had the acting and script been a little less wrought with emotion and bad lines, I might've been able to watch this the full way through without cringing.
MUSIC - 8/10 - Using Akira Yamaoka's music in this film was a very good choice. I'm glad to see that they didn't use their own brand of music because Akira's is Silent Hill exclusive. You can't duplicate it. The only major problem I had with it was that some of the music was used at awkward moments.
DESIGN - 6/10 - I like how the design was close to Silent Hill's in appearance, but too many of the characters seemed to be made up. Cybil and Alessa are really the only accurate people in the story, but Dahlia was way too overdone. Set design was fairly well done and the monsters were freakish in well played Silent Hill fashion.
OVERALL - 5/10 - I gave it a 5/10 because while the sets and characters were almost very well played, the acting was excruciatingly bad. It was like watching a High School play almost. The actors seemed too cued and organized like they were forcing their lines. It's definitely a well played horror film, but if you're a die hard Silent Hill fan, look away.