Game to movie... can it be done?

Rating: 9/10 (6 September 2006)

Usually I am extremely skeptical of a game that's turned into a movie. Quite often the elements of a game are completely different because they involve player interaction while movies are a much more passive form of entertainment.
However, Silent Hill has always been a very cinematic game, both in the way the sets were designed so artfully in the games and also because of the extended FMV sequences trademark to the series. Because of these details, putting it into a good movie was easier.
Not that the cast and crew didn't work hard. Silent Hill retained the good old horror feeling we all felt when we bashed away our first dog or ran from our first nurse enemy in the game. The including of darkness and the fog everywhere was very well done, keeping us in a perpetual world of change.
The creatures are gruesome, but not gross. You want to look at them, at their twisted fate of being stuck in this hellish world. The actors inside the suits performed well, too. The scene where the nurses block the path was so well choreographed I had to rewind it and watch it a second time.
While there are some minor changes made to the characters and the nature of the cult, Silent Hill is amazingly close to the game plot-wise. You can tell that the script was well-researched.
All in all, Silent Hill is a good movie made from a good game series. The next time you're at Blockbuster, pick up a copy.