Silent Hill the video game movie that succeeded

Rating: 8/10 (29 April 2006)

Before I went to the movie theatre I already planned to see this a year ago. After being so let down by so many video game movies, I was still cautious of not letting my expectations too high.
Now I want to let you know about a few changes first. The changes I knew before hand were that Rose is replacing Harry Mason, and the added husband Christopher, both make up mother and father in this movie. The daughter Cheryle in this movie is named Sharon in here. Dalia is somewhat of a more caring mother. In her place is a religious leader of the cult in Silent Hill named Christabella, she basically takes Dalia's cruel personality from the SH video game.
Like in the game, Sharon is taken to SH by Rose because of Sharon's nightmares of that town. Cybil the cop follows them suspecting the mother of for her odd behavior, and gets her license plate number. This journey was against Christopher's wishes, so he cancels the credit card, and reports the car that Rose drove off with Sharon. Sharon in this case speeds off trying to get away from Cybil, and swerves off the road trying to avoid a girl. Rose wakes up in the car and finds Sharon missing.
The story starts picking up from here, Rose sees oddities from the ashes coming down like snow, the fog blocking out the sun, and the seemingly deserted town. The environment changes quite a few times, which makes the town a dark world and creates monsters within it.
Some of the locations should be familiar with the people who have played the first game. When the environment changes you can actually see the walls rot and turn rusty. All of a sudden the sky turns pitch black. CGI of course had to be used on the environment changes, it was used only when it had to be used, not to make shortcuts. It is much more amazing seeing it in the movie than the game. I was pleasantly surprised they were playing the soundstracks from all the SH's. It just added to the mood of the movie, and the right tracks I would say were played at the right scenes.
The monsters in this movie are from both SH1 and SH2. The first monsters that Rose runs into are the children from SH1. They look very grotesque and scary, also with their high pitches screaming. The monster children go after Rose, attacking her. The most infamous in the SH series is the monster Pyramid Head, he does make an appearance in here, and I thought he was used well and not too much here. And before I saw the movie, I did question why is he in here, he was supposed to be James's tormentor from SH2? But I still liked seeing him in anyways. The monsters all look great, just like they appeared in the game. I didn't notice too much CGI on the monsters, mainly costumes and special effects. Like the environment in the movie, CGI was only used when it had to be.
For Christopher's role in this movie. He tries to get to his wife and daughter, but the police are blocking the road to SH. An FBI agent blocking the road with the cops, goes with Chris look to look through some parts of the town to find his Chris's daughter, but it turns up nothing. Rose and his daughter are nowhere to be found. Chris does some investigating of his own, trying to find out more about his and Rose's daughter who is adopted. This mainly gives us the viewer a little more background of Sharon and the town.
The main character Rose eventually travels along with Cybil who empathizes with Rose's situation and tries everything she can to help her find her daughter. Cybil is very responsible by the book cop. And she is a good person, going beyond her duties. She had a chance to have a real peronsality here, so I like her here better than the game's version.
The cult does play a big part here. It shows a group of them in this movie, and Rose and Cybil meet with them. Their leader Christabella like I said before takes Dalias cruel role. While Dalia in the group loves her daughter, yet tries to keep some loyalty to the group. I thought the cult was used a bit too much. But only really towards the end of the movie, so it's not that bad. They are a big part of making the town cursed and the power it already held to come to life. I'd recommend playing SH 3 to know even more history of the town than the movie explains, or wait possibly for any future SH movies.
So I actually do like some the changes made in this movie, didn't mind some of them at all, and didn't care for a few others. So I'm not going to put in a negatives for that. But on this board their is a lot of contorversy about that. The story was well told, a very oppressive environment, and the monsters really made a lot of intense scenes. The story is a sad one very similar to the game.