Darkness will never forget the past.

Rating: 5/10 (26 March 2010)

Not terrible, but quite a frustrating experience. Being less of a gamer and not knowing anything about the video games its based upon probably didn't help, however this a feature length film ( a strange one too) and not a interactive game. Visually I loved it (thanks to director Christophe Gans' appealingly slick and vast eye), but the story was hard to come to gripes as it doesn't go to much lengths to build upon its interesting set-up. It leads you on a nightmarish puzzler, and then tries to cram everything in towards the end. The usual explanation for the events. Due to some lulling passages, I found it hard to truly get in to with the saving grace being the very good central performance from Rahda Mitchell and the eerily disorienting atmospherics with the superbly presented, if exaggerated monster creations (make-up and CGI being used). These demons do like to hand out nasty, explicit punishment. The ideas were there, but the execution of it was cluttered and unfocused like one set-piece was thrown on top of another --- and in a way I found the side-story of the concerned father (admirably played by Sean Bean) trying to find his missing wife and daughter while also digging up the history of the tainted town Silent Hill to be a lot more engrossing then the leaden angle of the mother looking for her missing daughter while experiencing the town's many demons - unnatural and human. In all honesty the story is meant to be a teaser and what you call a mind^%#@ with random occurrences and an ending that's rather haunting in its suggestion through imagery (mainly the performances) and the use of an airy score (which during the intense moments can be bruising). Also the slaughterhouse climax in a church is a sight to see too.