remarkable horror movie

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2006)

I've never been a friend of horror computer games and probably i will never be. Nevertheless, two years ago I've played one part of the Konami's Silent Hill game series. At that time I've noticed quite soon, that this game will be different than the other ones. It was a different kind of fear I felt when playing it. It was not because the sudden appearance of monstrous creatures, dark atmosphere, weird sounds or any other usual horror elements like these generated the main thrill, well, they also did, but there was something else, something that happens beyond the story: helplessness in an impossible situation, that becomes real.
When I went into the movie theater I was excited, but honestly, I didn't expect too much. I was afraid and almost sure, that the director probably paid a lot of attention to the special effects and to the look of the foggy town Silent Hill itself, just to make sure, that the optical characteristic is good enough for a well made mainstream horror movie. But fortunately I was wrong. The french director Christophe Gans created a movie, that has not a typical story, beginning at point alpha and ending at omega. Of course there's a story, and by the way, it's a good one. But there is much more this movie offers to us. It shows us what happens, when the impossible hits us unexpectedly. The result is paralyzing and unconscious helplessness. In this case "the impossible" really means something, that gets ahead our ability of thinking and understanding about what's imaginable. This exactly is happening to the main characters who enter Silent Hill without knowing what's going on there.
I think this movie is absolutely remarkable and special. It doesn't happen very often, that a mainstream horror movie creates such a deep and lasting feeling of uneasiness in such a philosophical way.
When you go home after cinema or you switch off the DVD-player after watching silent hill, don't be surprised when there's an irritating taste left in your mind. That's because this movie is maybe touching your imagination and not just the lust for a scary movie....