Silent Hill (2005)

Director: Christophe Gans

Writer: Roger Avary

Tagline: Enjoy your stay.

Actors: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Alice Krige, Jodelle Ferland

Runtime: 2h 7m

Category: Demon, Religious, Supernatural, Video Game

Synopsis: Sharon is a little girl who sleepwalks; lately it has been getting worse. She keeps mentioning the same thing in her trances: Silent Hill. Over the protests of her husband, Sharon's mother Rose, takes off with her child. She ends up driving and crashes. She wakes up in the eerie and deserted town of Silent Hill. Sharon is gone. It's soon clear the town is not like any place she's ever been. It's inhabited by a variety of creatures and a living darkness that descends and literally transforms everything it touches. The human inhabitants - the ones who are left - are trapped and fighting a losing battle against the Darkness. Joined by a cop named Cybil, who was pulled in with her, Rose searches for her little girl while learning the history of Silent Hill.

Review: Since I don’t play video games I was ignorant as to how lame this could actually be. I have to imagine that as with most games converted to movies that the game was way better. I was bored with the concept. I felt that everything was forced and so obvious that it ruined any suspense that the movie tried to present. The one cool thing was that she appeared to be in another realm. When her husband and the cop (who looks an awful lot like Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole Smith’s attorney/boyfriend) they are in a sunny abandoned town in the exact same location as Rose. While she is fighting the Darkness her husband is two steps behind her and “senses” her but neither is able to see the other.

The creatures were well done and the special FX were pretty good, but the story was paper thin. The humans left in Silent Hill were all very religious in a freaky, Children of the Corn (1984) kind of way. They sacrificed people to the demon because they can’t figure out how to beat it. There wasn’t anything surprising or new in this movie. The acting was good which may have saved this “should be low budget” movie.

Rating: 13 out of 25. Dude this movie was lame. If you liked the game I assume that you will feel bummed out that they wasted the time doing this movie. You will probably think of 10 other games that they could have easily ruined in an effort to give gamers what they want. A way to see the end of the game since they can’t beat it by playing it. (13of25).