Stunning and faithful video game conversion

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2006)

First of all, if you are a fan of the games, you are in for a treat. Silent Hill is very faithful to the games, from the music, the town itself, "other" silent Hill and the monsters. Unlike doom which was "loosely" based on the games, SH feels as though it has been created by fans and players of the game itself.
Whilst this isn't a 100% faithful conversion, with elements from all the games being thrown in, the story loosely follows that of the first game, with a woman (slightly unnecessary gender change from the first game) crashing her car on the way into Silent Hill, once revived, she finds the passenger, her daughter who has problems with sleepwalking and always talking about the town, has disappeared.
From there things get spooky, then nasty, then spooky, then nastier, then spooky, then downright disturbing. It's such a welcome relief from the current flood of "little dark haired girl wondering around spooking people" films that started with the Ring, and have now been drawn out to total boredom. For those who aren't familiar with the genius of the games, imagine the best parts of Clive Barker mixed in with the best bits from "the ring" creators and you are quite close to the money. The film deserves Oscars for it's use of sound and set designs, possibly the most impressive I have ever seen.
the are some issues however, Sean Bean's role as the worried father is somewhat defunct and does ruin the pace of the film entirely. some of the acting can be somewhat lame, from Sharon and Anna in particular.
But all in all this film made me, as a die hard fan of the games and someone who likes horror movies themselves, extremely happy and the fact that I have seen it twice in one weekend is testament to that fact.
go see it now!!! P.S. Pyramid Head is the absolute mutts nuts, one of the most disturbing creatures ever to appear in game or celluloid.