Good Film... Visual Marvel.

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2006)

As we all well know by now, horror is an all but dead genre. To achieve anything with "Horror" being associated hand and hand with your film, you have to be crafty, you have to be original. Understanding that Silent Hill is first a drama, then a thriller/horror, it is a film that pulls of a very successful balance.
Christophe Gan's Silent Hill is the film adaptation of the widely popular four parted video game series of the same name. A young girl, Sharon, has spells of sleepwalking, which always end in cries of a place called Silent Hill. Sharon's mother Rose, played by Radha Mitchell decides that taking Sharon to this place called Silent Hill might make her problems go away. However, what she finds in the cut off ghost town of Silent Hill is a life or death fight to find her daughter who has gone missing in the thick fog of ashes that constantly rain down there. By overcoming her fears, Rose slowly begins to uncover the dark secrets that lay buried deep beneath the city, the secrets that are ultimately linked to her daughter. The plot is straightforward enough, a story of a mother fighting to save her daughter, yet is heightened by many factors.
To start, there are very few films, especially in the horror genre that can match the consistency of the cinematography in Silent Hill. This is where, along with other details that amateur viewers reviews fail to deliver a complete view on Silent Hill. Whether you liked it, hated it, or did not care one way or another for it, it is impossible to ignore what Silent Hill achieves visually and artistically, because it is in fact a visual marvel. As ironic as it may sound, the grotesqueness and Gothic-esquire of the settings illuminate an incredible beauty that is consistent throughout Silent Hill. Gan's did a phenomenal job with the falling ash to create an unsettling and eerie yet captivating aura around Silent Hill With it being known the use of CGI was scarcely used in the film, I am amazed more people are not talking about the seriousness of Silent Hill taking an Oscar for best Costumes/Set Design. The creatures of the film are phenomenal. I can honestly say that in no film have I ever seen such imaginative and horrifying creatures done so convincingly. For fans of this genre, the gore and slayings, oddly as it sounds, are highly rewarding, sophisticated and yes, appalling.
Also on par with the aesthetics of Silent Hill is the expert cinematography and editing of the film. Return Gan's cinematographer Dan Laustsen and editor Sébastien Prangère, whose work can be seen in Brotherhood of the Wolf, display a very disciplined and controlled level of suspense and horror in Silent Hill. A great example of how well these two play of each other is a scene where a crucified corpse, serrated in barbed wire, becomes reanimated, chasing Rose. While Laustsen horrifically catches fragments of the creatures face, lashing tongue and tearing skin, Prangère keeps the horror alive by taking these fragments and throwing them in a frantic order against Rose's desperate escape.
Another aspect of Silent Hill that deserves applause is the sound. The soundtrack and sound editing are both highly attractive and effective in point. On several instances Silent Hill takes the audio and plays on the interaction of characters with the environment; Rose's hearing temporarily distorted with her body slamming to floor. The film's soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka, who did the original soundtracks for the Silent Hill series as well, returns to create the most modernly fitting horror style soundtrack to date; it is a gorgeous arrangement.
While I was impressed with so much in Silent Hill, there were certainly aspects that I found to be less than impressive. The most obvious is what seems to plague all video game based films, and that is the excessive trite dialogue. While it did not prevail so much in Silent Hill, as lets say, Resident Evil, there were still enough lines to make you feel embarrassed. I have noticed that the source of the bad dialogue in this genre of films almost always stems from one source: the overly aggressive female sidekick. And you can bet that Silent Hill has one of those in the form of a pesky butch cop who ends up helping Rose find Sharon.
What I find most people complaining about is that Silent Hill either has no plot or that the plot is too hard to follow, both of which I try to see, but simply cant. The plot is classic and ever present. I saw this film with people who have never played the series before (I have) and none confessed to being lost in the plot or feeling that they were left out by not have played the games, and I would agree. What furthers my confusion on peoples Silent Hill confusion is the films take on the riskiest form of exposition at the films conclusion. It is an absolute form of clarity that if done wrong can completely ruin and discredit a film. However, Silent Hill takes a very unique approach on a technique that few films would touch.
There are also a few occurrences that at first glance you would write off as insignificant to put in the film or just simply unexplained, but Christophe Gan displayed enough control and direction to let those who take a second look know that there is another story here, that these things fell how they fell for a reason, and that reason is no doubt with the success that Silent Hill is receiving, a sequel. With the conclusion that Gan's chose for Silent Hill, it is obvious that everything that has to be said was not said in this installment.