Best Video Game-to-Movie Conversion

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2006)

I've been a fan of the Silent Hill video games since the first game. When it was announced that a film was to be made, I was disappointed, as movie conversions always leave out important things, make a mess of the story, change stuff, etc. It didn't help when it was revealed to be based on the first game but with the main character being changed from a single dad to a married woman with a husband appearing in the film, as well as the town being abandoned for decades instead of seemingly inhabited but mostly deserted.
By some stroke of genius, this movie managed to alter the story significantly but stay true to so much of the series.
Specific locations were faithfully reproduced down to minor architectural details (the gas station, the bowling alley) and many sequences were identical to the game (crying in the bathroom), right down to the camera angles (the nightmarish sequence right before Harry/Rose wakes up in the diner/bowling alley). Most of the monsters from the game are recreated in frightful detail (especially the nurses, a Silent Hill staple, and "Pyramid Head," a fan-favorite from Silent Hill 2).
Something that I've always DREAMED of seeing in a movie made from a video game was done: almost all of the music was from the video games. In a lot of games, the music isn't all that important but Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks for the Silent Hill series has always been incredibly eerie, moody, and unsettling.
Much of the climax felt too over-the-top and excessive to me and was the culmination of how much the movie had veered from the original story. I should have seen it and its truckloads of gore coming but I find it easy to let slide considering the filmmakers' faithfulness to so much else.
In short, the filmmakers did a fantastic job of paying close attention the Silent Hill games and comics and recreated it wonderfully but also in a way that can still be enjoyed by the average horror film-goer (this is useful since the games have multiple endings, most of which are a little cerebral and confusing).
Definitely worth seeing in the theaters.