"Honey, Sometimes When You Go To Sleep You Go On A Little Walk. And Sometimes You Talk About A PlaceCalled Silent Hill." --- Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell)

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2006)

"Silent Hill" (2006)
Directed By: Christophe Gans
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland, Deborah Kara Unger, & Alice Krige
MPAA Rating: "R" (for strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, and some language)
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I do not have that much experience with the "Silent Hill" video games. I have played the third game and have beaten it twice, but I have yet to play the first two and probably never will. Fans of the game may, therefore, consider me unable to review the movie accuratelyor, at least, accurately for them. So, this review is specifically for those with limited or no experience with the video games. If you have played the games, then reading any further will probably prove to be useless to you. If you choose to continue reading, please do so with the knowledge that I did not go into this movie with the knowledge that you, no doubt, have. "Silent Hill" is a strange movie. It is a grim, violent, and deeply disturbing horror movie that takes its viewers onto a roller-coaster ride into Hell and rarely lets them get up for breath. The problem is that "Silent Hill" hardly ever gives its audience a chance to even understand what is going on, while they are taking this ride, making it all seem far less effective. How can we be terrified of something if we have know idea what it is, why it is there, or what its intentions are? This is the question posed by "Silent Hill", concerning the dark creatures that lurk in the shadows of the town. What are they? Why are they evil and disgusting? In "Silent Hill", they are because it makes them seem more terrifying.
Rose Da Silva (Mitchell) is worried about her adopted daughter, Sharon (Ferland) who has begun to sleep walk and talk about a place called Silent Hill. Rose's husband, Christopher (Bean), feels that medication is the proper treatment, but Rose wants to take Sharon to the town of Silent Hill, in hopes that something inside of her will snap back into place or whatnot. Rose, of course, takes Sharon, but, on the way, is involved in a car accident that leaves her unconscious. When she wakes, Rose finds Sharon missing, the road behind her now divided by a huge, endless canyon and ashes falling from the sky like rain. Rose makes her way to Silent Hill, but, instead of help, she finds years of buried secrets, undead monsters, and an obsessed religious cult that will do anything to keep its past hidden from outsiders. The plot sounds simple enough: a woman and her daughter find themselves trapped within a hellish world and must find a way to escape. The problem is that the movie wants to make it seem more complex than necessary. Everyone has a back story and hundreds of secrets are exposed, but none of them do much in explaining what exactly should be explained. It relies on its audience to piece together the impossible to connect pieces of a puzzle, just when they think they have everything put together, the last three minutes swoop in and smashes the puzzle to pieces again.
Do not get me wrong. I have no problem with movies that choose to make their audiences think. However, I do have a problem with movies that make their audiences think and then never give their audiences a basis on which to do so. Thus is the problem with "Silent Hill". The entire movie seems to be exposing pieces of the puzzle, but, in the end, you realize that you have two-hundred puzzle pieces, all from different puzzles and none from the puzzle you are trying to solve. However, "Silent Hill" still won my approval for its technical prowess and its overall disturbing and terrifying mood. The movie looks wonderful and the special effects are absolutely amazing. The creatures are brought to life with stunning detail and the sets are hauntingly flawless. The movie, as I have said, is terrifying and kept me on the edge of my seat, even though I had no idea what was going on. The performances are good enough, with Radha Mitchell being the highlight. She practically carries the movie and does a nice job. Sean Bean, whose character was actually absent from the original script, has a minimal part but does with it what he can. Laurie Holden was also good, but I didn't buy her two-dimensional character that came off as artificial and laughably clichéd.
If I had been a die-hard fan of the "Silent Hill" video games before I watched this movie, I may have loved it. As it is, I simply liked it. It was scary, grim, and deeply violent, but I had no idea what was going on half of the time. Why do the creatures exist? I don't know. Why did the ending occur as it did? I have no idea. What exactly did the ending mean, concerning the fate of our characters? I haven't the faintest shred of a clue. It did not make sense, but, for most horror fans, this will not matter. They will just want to see the violence, the gruesome and deformed creatures, and the hellish underworld formed whenever the lights go out. As for casual movie-goers and people who have never played the video games, "Silent Hill" probably will not cut it. They will most likely not like the overly-complicated plot that does not explain anything that it really should have and they will definitely not like the inane ending. But, it is still a fairly innovative horror movie and has plenty of thrills to go around.
Final Thought: "Silent Hill" is a good horror movie that fans of the games will love.
Overall Rating: 7/10 (B+)