As a movie, or as a VG movie?

Rating: 5/10 (26 August 2006)

I have never played the game, Silent Hill, therefore I am judging the value of this flick as a horror movie, not as a horror movie based on a video game. The visual effects were absolute madness. The concept of the ghost town is realized with a dreamlike hellishness that is often missing in most contemporary horror flicks. The characters and settings seamlessly blend with the overall ethos of the story to create a mood that is heavy and palpable, jolting the viewer with paranoid urgency and a claustrophobic, no-way-out mentality. The imagery is poignant, the camera work exploiting each scene gracefully.
Silent Hill has a few glaring issues. While most people who see this movie will know that it is based on a video game, hardly any audience member wants to be reminded of it. I recall the battle scene with the super-zombie at the end of Resident Evil 2 (one could almost imagine life-measurement bars next to Milla Jovovich's character). Silent Hill contains one of these scenes, a scene that takes you right out of the movie to remind you that it is all based on a video game. For VG fans, that is probably OK, but for horror movie fans that is a big "no no." The acting and plot are very instable, as well. The speaking characters are simply vehicles for the plot, pushing it along to it's eventual conclusion, rather than shaping the course of the story. Granted, a whole lot happens between A and B, and to squeeze in development would derail the whole film, but S.H. relies too heavily on it's flawed plot structure to make up for it's lack of character development. Does anyone truly know what the outcome of the movie is, gamers and movie buffs alike?
Overall, Silent Hill is a nice, gory, entertaining nightmare, stylish in it's use of effects but staggering under the weight of a busy plot and it's obligation to viewers who played the game first.