Not To Bad, But not Good Either

Rating: 5/10 (27 April 2006)

When you make a movie out of a video game you get mixed results. If the movie is done right, you get a decent film like Laura Croft: Tomb Raider. If it's not done right you get Resident Evil or House Of The Dead. Where does Silent Hill fall? strangely enough, right in between. I love the game Silent Hill. When I heard that a movie was being made out of it, I didn't know what to think. The plot for the game is great, just like Resident Evil and as mentioned R.E. was terrible. A friend of mine got us passes to see this film (Thank You Joe) and I was accompanied by my wife (who also loved the game), my friend and his wife. When we left I can say That my friend wasn't sure what to make of it, his wife hated it and my wife though it was okay. Silent Hill is the story of a little girl named Sharyn who keeps having hallucinations that bring her (spiritually, I think) into a demonic possessed world. When her mother Rose decides to get her daughter some help, against the will of her husband Chris, Rose brings Sharyn to the place she keeps seeing in her vision/dreams Silent Hill. S.H. is a town that has a reputation of being a mysterious ghost town. Now when Sharyn and Rose get to S.H. that's when "The Darkness" comes and all kinds of strange zombie looking things start attacking Rose who has lost Sharyn and is fighting off these monsters to find her daughter. Silent Hill held my interest and had a great mixture of CGI and latex costumes (something that is a rarity in movies now a day's). However it's when the film hits it's big climatic ending that leaves you scratching your head. When "The Evil Reaper", who comes in the form of Sharyn starts explaining what is going on to Rose I became confused and I could hear audience members becoming just as confused and one person behind me asking what was going on for like the 50th time, and asking her boyfriend if they could leave yet. I know die hard fans of the game, tat also saw this film and they were just as confused. Plus there has always been an unwritten rule in Hollywood that horror flicks should not go over 90 minutes. Silent Hill goes on for 2 hours and 11 minutes. Overkill. Silent Hill could have been a great horror film in the same vein as Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, and other great zombie flicks. Sadly with a confusing ending it comes off as more a George A. Romero rip off, and your confusion turns into complete frustration. While Silent Hill is better than Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat, it's not nearly as good as the Tomb Raider movies. Don't get me wrong those films won't earn Acadamy Award winner Angelina Jolie any more awards, at least they were entertaining, and didn't confuse or aggravate you. On a scale of 10 I give Silent Hill a 5. Better than most video game movies, but not nearly as good as the few that have earned the right to be called good.