Unscary, uninspired, and nowhere nearly as good as the game

Rating: 1/10 (9 December 2006)

there is a reason why very few horror films come out of France. the french are usually not good with minimalistic, nihilistic, or disturbing imagery. quite the opposite actually. unfortunately, that is the sensitivity needed for creating a scary, modern Japanese horror film or game. gans, whose brotherhood of the wolf i love, completely failed in recreating the haunting and freakish atmosphere of the terrific silent hill franchise. his film is bland, borderline boring, completely unscary and uninspired. as for the screenplay, the plot is annoying and the characters are completely one-dimensional. there is no sense of discovery, no element of surprise or fear of the unknown. gans's monsters just show up, move at the pace of snails and are evaporated by the rising sun before they can really do any damage. as a fan of good stories, atmospheric cinema, silent hill and scary movies, i find myself disappointed on all levels. stay away from this stinker, rent the games instead and be afraid...be very afraid!