Eerie and effective

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2011)

Silent Hill is a seemingly fog-bound and deserted town to which mother Rose travels in search of her missing daughter. And, when she gets there, she finds it is not as deserted as she thought.
Based on a video game (of which I have no experience), Silent Hill has rather more going for it than the straightforward linear series of obstacles to be overcome which is the usual format of such adaptations. There is some quite strong story material here, an atmosphere of creepiness throughout (there is something very wrong in Silent Hill, that is clear from the start), some genuinely scary moments, decent effects, and performances of commitment from an excellent cast, with Radha Mitchell's Rose particularly effective as the protagonist.
Silent Hill turns out to be a good horror film.