A mixed bag, but a damn good scare

Rating: 5/10 (21 April 2006)

Silent Hill - Rose DeSilva (Radha Mitchell) looks for her daughter Sharon in a malevolent ghost town known as Silent Hill.
Being a fan of the beloved game franchise for years, I awaited this movie with bated breath. I come off with mixed feelings about it though they lean more towards the positive. I really feel that Christopher Gans captured the town's essence and the feelings of sheer terror found in the gameplay.
Parts of the movie are gross, disturbing, and the film overall is depressing. The monsters are horrifically real and truly inhuman creations. Truly, the movie is in its stride in the middle of the movie when Rose, sometimes accompainied by cop Cybil Bennet (Laurie Holden), is exposed to the various ghoulish creations and environments of the town's rotten core. Never has a film made me feel so terrified and very ill-at-ease. (I heard people laughing at points that seemed to be caused by excess tension that from actual mirth.) Though Johny Cash's "Ring of Fire" is amusingly used, there is very little to laugh about in the film. The rest of the music is taken directly from the games and is well used to create a depressing atmosphere. Either you like it or you don't.
I should say "nothing intentionally written for you to laugh about" because a few bits of dialogue are kind of clumsy or unnecessary and caused me to grin slightly. I would've expected better of Roger Avary, writer of Pulp Fiction, but he probably gets tired of everyone comparing his stuff to that film.
The acting is mostly strong, and when it isn't, it sticks out like a big ol' sore thumb. Mitchell does well as Rose. Always showing concern for her daughter, never screaming too much or overacting. Holden plays good support. Sean Bean is completely wasted on the sidelines as Christopher, Rose's anxious husband desperately looking for her while the real story goes on. Why couldn't they have saved him for the sequel? I could almost see him almost yearning to do have some big part in the story. Instead, as it happened in North Country and Equilibrium, he is thrown away. Alice Krige is suitably creepy as Christabella, and Tanya Allen just sucks as Anna. Why did they include her? She brings down the quality of whatever scene she's in. Thankfully, she gets killed off. Unthankfully, it's one of the most gruesome things in the movie.
The second half of the movie doesn't hold up to the first half, and I really dislike that so many people are around the "ghost town". In the games, there were at most 6 people total in the town. Here, there's maybe 30. It really brings down the quality.
The movie ending (and hell, the entirety of the movie) is likely to be confusing for most and depressing for all if they figure it out. In any case it's a bloody good scare and a must see for horror afficionados. For Silent Hill fans, a mixed bag. I'm still unsure where I stand on Gans interpretation. There was a lot he did I like and some that I really didn't like. I might appreciate it more with repeated viewings.
This gets a B/B-