A 'Mystery' movie with 'Horror' as the secondary theme ..

Rating: 7/10 (25 August 2006)

First of all, this is not a horror movie in which evil ones say 'boo' and jump on you when you open doors, the silence is shattered with a sudden high pitched shriek, and in which you never know where the evil lurks .. It is devoid of all those things that scare you suddenly, boost your heart rate to the max, letting it down gradually, making all your body twitch with the short but high impact .. There are no such scenes in this movie .. If you are a movie goer that expect this kind of reaction at a horror movie, pass this one ..
Starting with the end of first half an hour (at most), the movie presents its creepy atmosphere where you fell pinned down till the end .. Constant high heart-beating rate .. You will know what is going to happen a few moments later, you will know when the creatures are coming .. Oh yeah, you *will* know when the characters are in real trouble .. And that is certainly *not* a bad attribute of the movie .. This is actually the standing ground for it .. The story and atmosphere is the important factor here ..
And the story .. This is certainly the best story in any video-game adaptation, bar none .. Well developed, given the 2 hours of runtime, there is a lot going on here .. No rush, 99% of all the questions are explained .. The remaining 1% ?? .. Well .. The ending .. and your imagination .. Another plus ..
Never played any of the Silent Hill games (nor Resident Evil games if they count) .. Nevertheless, you will *know* the settings based on a computer game, when you watch it .. The color tones, the lightning, the view angles etc. .. I would not even be surprised if the game has the EXACT backgrounds with those used in the movie .. Don't be intimidated by my words .. All of the scenes are (eerily) beautiful .. With the complementary sound, this can be the most artistic horror movie ..
My rating is 9 for this great mystery-horror movie (-1 for the unsatisfactory acting of the lead character, below my expectations, with better acting, this movie would be a masterpiece) .. But still, one last word, proceed with caution, since it may not be suitable for your taste if you are looking for sudden scares ..