Don't waste your time. It's all hype.

Rating: 3/10 (25 April 2006)

I don't write reviews too often, but I wanted to voice my opinion on this one, because the ratings on IMDb were truly deceiving this time.
Let me first start out by saying that I did not play the games much before seeing this. I spent maybe 10 minutes walking around in Silent Hill 2. Enough to see the overall atmosphere and beat up some zombies, and that's it. I didn't know anything about the storyline.
The atmosphere in the movie, from what I saw in the game, was dead on. They did an excellent job matching that for the most part, and it had a great feel to it. However, this is the only thing I really enjoyed about it -- the creepy atmosphere. Then comes the actors. A few of them did what they needed to do, but they just didn't come through for us. Nothing felt genuine, to be perfectly honest, it didn't seem like they knew what their roles really were. On the flip side, a few of them (particularly Laura Holden, the police officer) were downright awful. For me, she completely ruined the first half of the movie, simply because she didn't fit her role. Another thing that added to the cheesiness of this was the makeup. The special effects in the movie were excellent, kudos to them for that. But the make up was terrible. When someone's supposed to look dead, or sickly and pale.. I don't want to see pink flesh on their eyelids where they didn't put white makeup. When someone's supposed to look like a mutilated burn victim, I don't want the skin to be shiny and look like plastic, and I surely don't want to clearly see where the makeup stops and their real skin begins. These were all things I immediately noticed when I watched Silent Hill.
Now comes the story. Again, I do not know how the story went in the game. In the movie, the story was a total mess. It seemed EXTREMELY rushed, and nothing fit together right. I honestly don't know how to explain it, so here's an example. Let's say you're watching a comedy, laughing until your sides hurt, and out of nowhere, Robo Cop comes in and starts terrorizing the city for no reason. Then Robo Cop leaves, and the comedy continues. This is how I felt with Silent Hill. Something would happen, and then it was over. Then something completely different would happen, then that was over too. No focus was placed on a single event for more than a couple minutes. Multiply that over 120 minutes, and throw in some time fillers, and you have the story of Silent Hill.
The IMDb rating on this movie (6.9) was the reason I went to go see it in theaters tonight. Judging by the comments I've read about the movie and by the movie itself, it seems you HAVE to have played the games to really enjoy this.
Don't get me wrong.. I wasn't bored while I was watching it, I wasn't mad when I left the theater, and I didn't feel like I completely wasted my money. It kept me entertained, I was just very disappointed, because I was expecting a fresh new horror. It had some nerve-racking moments, but no good scares. I had a wimp of a girl next to me who didn't flinch once. We both walked out ready to just go home.
All-in-all, the story had potential, but they screwed it up. If nothing else, I suggest waiting until it comes to video and rent it. If you're a fan of the game, and have thoroughly followed the story, you might really enjoy it. If not, I can almost guarantee you're going to be disappointed.
3/10