Very disappointing.

Rating: 2/10 (26 April 2006)

My memories of playing Silent Hill for the Playstation are fond ones indeed. It was the first video game to actually scare me, and I can remember thinking as I cautiously wandered around the sinister, fog-drenched town, "This would be a cool movie." It's really too bad that after all these years, the flick finally gets made, and it's nowhere near the same level of brilliance and creativity that the game possessed. The movie is bad. It takes the video game's classic setting and combines it with ideas and themes stolen from The Ring. It's an unfortunate mix.
After reading all of the positive reviews on here for this movie before I saw it, I can now only wonder what the average age group most of these fans fall into. It's an 'R' rated movie, but really, it plays out no differently than most of the generic 'PG' rated horror flicks that have hit theaters in the last couple of years, except this contains more senseless violence. I'm all for seeing disturbing images on screen if it propels the story, but in Silent Hill, these scenes come off as being pointless and meant for shock value only. Most mature horror movie fans will find this boring, not "cool".
The story is really what sinks this movie. I don't exactly remember the entire plot from the original video game, and I could have honestly cared less if the movie completely re-wrote it for the screen. All I was really hoping for was a decent script, and this movie does not deliver in any way. In fact, there are moments that just don't make any sense, and fans will argue the point that "it's meant to leave you with questions for a sequel" or "it's supposed to make you think." Whatever.
There are moments in the movie that are unintentionally silly, which really hurt the viewing experience since the audience was supposed to be feeling a sense of fear and dread. These parts are subtle, but at least the majority of the people in my theater were older and understood how ridiculous it was, as there was a few instances of shared laughter at the foolishness of it all. A perfect example is early in the movie when the lead actress holds out her hand to catch what could be a snowflake falling from the sky, but when she rubs it between her fingers, it leaves a black residue. What would any half-intelligent horror movie fan think at that moment? It's not snowing; it's raining ashes, right? Well she has to literally say out loud to herself, "It's ash", so that we, the simple minded audience that could never possibly grasp this visual for ourselves, can understand what's happening and keep up with this "intelligent shocker". Bah.
It also needs to be said that creepy little kids in movies who are scripted to speak like creepy adults just isn't scary anymore. It fact it is downright irritating. Please screenwriters, let this crossover fad from Japanese horror movies die once and for all. Another problem with the script was the addition of Sean Bean as the frantic father searching for his wife and daughter, alongside a cop who seemed to know more about the town of Silent Hill than he wanted to admit to. Both of these characters were pointless to the story and added nothing to the movie. I don't think I've ever seen two characters in a flick interacting with this much screen time that had absolutely nothing to offer. What a waste of Sean Bean, who is normally interesting to watch and adds some kind of needed element to a story.
For fans of the original video game, there are a few good parts to the film. The music is pretty cool, and at times it flashed me back to scenes from the game that made my skin crawl. And there is no doubting the brief sense of fear that strikes you when the town siren first goes off in the movie, as anyone who played the game can remember, it was always a chilling moment when you knew that bad things were coming fast. Unfortunately, things like the radio static, which was also very creepy in the game (as well as being extremely useful), was poorly underused in the movie, as was any form of "puzzle solving". I know, watching an actress on screen trying to decipher a brainteaser isn't exactly horror, but it was a huge part of the game, and I'm sure it could have been done somehow in the movie to make it more interesting.
Rent this only if you were a fan of the video game. Don't expect to like it though.