This flawed but fascinating premise (Based on a video game) is a well made movie.

Rating: 8/10 (13 September 2006)

Rose (Radha Mitchell) is been trying to cure her daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) from her sleepwalking and sometimes she would mention a place called "Silent Hill". Rose's husband (Sean Bean) is been trying to convince his wife to their adopted daughter to be placed her in a psychiatric institution for their Sharon's care. Instead Rose brings her daughter back to the place, where she's originally from. Which Rose is hopefully trying to get her questions answered, why her daughter is being acting oddly in the past months. When Rose and her daughter arrived to their destination, which now an abandoned town for over thirty years. Because of a mysterious fire that started but Rose is been hit on a collision course near the town and blacked-out. Once Rose is been awaked, she find herself alone in the foggy town of "Silent Hill". When she's desperately trying to find her daughter, Rose find help from a determined cop (Laurie Holden), who's also blacked-out. This town is not what it seems to be, once they encountered different strange begins and this place is cursed for a reason.
Directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) made an interesting, intriguing, fantasy horror film. Which is actually based on a video game. This film is perfect on its strong visual style by the director, arresting production design work by Carol Spier (Who worked on memorable David Cronenberg's movies like The Fly, eXistenZ, Videodrome), terrific atmospheric Widescreen camera work by Dan Laustsen (Darkness Falls, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Nightwatch) and especially good performances from the cast including:Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen and Alice Krige. But the picture isn't as eerie or scary as it should have been. The premise of this movie never loses it's intriguing premise, which keeps the audience interested and even those are not familiar with the video game (like me).
DVD has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) transfer and an strong-Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. The DVD's extras are on six part entertaining featurettes with plenty of interviews with the cast and crew. Although the DVD could have used a filmmaker, crew or cast commentary. Also Deleted Scenes and the terrific theatrical trailer is missed in this DVD edition. It's a rumor that Gans is working on a possible Director's Cut of this film in the near future. Gans' first assembly cut was over 3 and a half hours. Some of the behind the scenes footage from the DVD are not seen in the final cut. One of the highlights of this picture are the amazing visual effects that truly served the story well from this flawed but certainly unique movie. Some will be disappointed or confused by this film (especially towards the conclusion). Attention must be made by watching this picture. I find this movie more enjoyable by seeing the second time, once it did came out on DVD. This is worth seeing. Scripted by Oscar-Winner:Roger Avery (Killing Zoe, Pulp Fiction, The Rules of Attraction). Super 35. (*** ½/*****).