Memorise this: up, sidestep, turn, exit, forget.

Rating: 4/10 (28 April 2006)

Christopher Gans: Sounds a bit like glands and its a synonym for that part of the male reproductive organ that could be a nickname for you if you gained any satisfaction from this pointless bit of game-whoring. Silent Hill the movie is a dead ringer for the video game except that you can't join in and therefore don't have a chance of getting involved. I've watched Mrs Frames play it many times and then, as now, I watched a girl run around a ghostly town over which atmosphere and the creeps had ejaculated to high volume. The problem with the film is that it offers no more depth because it absences plot and characterisation. These would be vital additions to any game to movie transfer because without them you've got a lose series of set pieces linked by a lot of running but sans, or should that be Gans, any emotional or cerebral involvement. Roger Avary who touched greatness with Pulp Fiction and then horribly relaxed, turns in a two hour gaming sample ripped from the screen of his PS2. What he fails to do is add anything to the mix. The acting such as it is doesn't convince because there's nothing for the cast to latch on to; Sean Bean's Sheffield-American accent being the only unintentionally amusing strand. It looks good - engenders dread in many places but as a piece of storytelling its pure bunk. Surely it doesn't take a genius to work out that gamers fill in the blanks themselves through the act of participation in these things. They make the story. When you can't pick up a controller and join in you need a script writer to flesh it out for you and sadly for Silent Hill thats exactly what no-one thought to do. Whats next, Outrun the movie? Enough is enough surely.