Silent Hill

Silent Hill

Action (Horror)

2006

Rated: R

Running Time: 127 minutes

Starring: Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger

Directed By: Christophe Gans

Rating: 1 out of 10

Outline

A mother searches for her daughter in the town of Silent Hill whose inhabitants are evil mutations. Based on the video game of the same name.

Review

Look out House of the Dead you have a new running mate for worst video game movie of all time. Silent Hill should be renamed Silent Hell as it really felt like I was in purgatory watching this film. Video game stories are notoriously hard to bring to the big screen and this one was no different. The film centers around a family but specifically a young girl Sharon who has night terrors and constantly talks about the town Silent Hill. In a desperate attempt to help her daughter the mother Rose played by Radha Mitchell takes Sharon to the town of Silent Hill to solve these terrors. The start is uneventful and the kid is terribly annoying. Silent Hill never catches the viewer’s interest and then somehow gets worse as the film goes on. The arrival of the mother daughter combo at Silent Hill accompanied by a creepy but attractive cop officer Bennett is the last time this movie makes sense in terms of story and the last time you will probably care what is happening on screen. A good hour and a half of this film is Rose running around Silent Hill searching for her lost daughter and encountering evil you would never expect say I don’t know…outside a video game maybe. The evilness she has to face is the only redeemable feature to this movie. Although the twisted humanoid monsters that pop up throughout this film do not fit into the movie well they are decently thought up and add a tiny element of horror to this unexplainable film. Silent Hill is a living nightmare that is kept at bay to the outside world by a chain link fence that a six year old could climb. One would think with coal fires that are constantly burning under the city maybe a chain link fence might not be the best deterrent from keeping people out? Silent Hill is infested by evil mutations and religious zealots whose explanation to why they are inhabiting the town is laughable. The film is a jumble of nonsense back dropped by an incessantly annoying soundtrack and lacks any real fright or directive style. The film plods on at snail’s pace with Roses husband played by Sean Bean searches for Rose as Rose searches for Sharon but if they find each other or not will not keep you interested. The film ends in a style that can only be described as a Hail Mary type fashion. Trying to make the movie work with an amazing last ditch effort ending (which it wasn’t) is not going to save the rest of the film. As the credits roll it concludes one of the worst films of 2006. I cannot recommend this film as the story is a disaster and the frights never happen. I do not know if this film would have been better if I played the game but I highly doubt it.

T Factor + If you like video game movies this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor - If you like Sean Bean as an actor he is not utilized well in this film and it could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendation: House of the Dead, Doom