Almost as good as the game.

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2006)

After all the hype, ads, leaks, and one stupid poster contest, Silent Hill finally hits the big screen! Silent Hill fans, High-FIVE! This movie isn't a scare a minute, roller-coaster ride through Hell, like I suppose the trailers lead you to believe. Which I think is great for a movie based on a story driven survival horror game. It isn't what Resident Evil was. How it was matrix kicking dogs in the face, and ultra bad ass type characters. This was more story driven, and less action oriented. That isn't to say that Silent Hill isn't scary, creepy, or violent. There are plenty of pulse pounding scenes , some of which I couldn't believe they actually put on the screen, because they were very extreme, sadistic, and not exactly parent friendly. It isn't a fast paced slasher, or like anything as of late that has been released in theaters, but more of a slower paced Japanese ghost story. Its kind of like watching someone playing Silent Hill, except really really fast.
There were a few parts to the movie I didn't like though. The dialog wasn't the good. It was alright, but it just didn't seem natural to me, but its still levels above the games voice overs. Maybe they were trying to stay true to the source material. The story didn't completely follow the games story, but still it is very damn close, which is great, just a few parts stray, and contradict with the game universe, and that bothered me a bit. They tacked on "ph" on it, which is kind of a double edged sword. It doesn't make any sense for him to be in this one, but he is one of the better characters in the game, so yeah its bad and good. All very small annoyances, that I can live with.
So I of course loved the movie. It had a lot of envelope pushing scenes that totally amazed me, and was very interesting, and it was based on SILENT HILL! This movie is the best video game based movie I have seen, even better than Mortal Kombat! Oh and of course, it contains some of the best music from the silent hill games, and video games in general!