Movie Steak

Game to move adapations rock. Most people hate them, critics especially but I thought Tomb Raider and Resident Evil were decent movies. The latest attempt at such an adaptation is Silent Hill, one of the few games, along with Resident Evil that could actually claim the status of being a “scary” game.

Unlike Resident Evil, Silent Hill follows very closely to the game. I’m told. I haven’t played the game much and am not too familar with it but I am reliably informed that the movie sticks to the plot quite closely. It would appear so in the movie too, certain factors make it very game-esc.

It’s a bit of a cloudy movie anyway though, the first thing two of the three people I went with said after it finished was “huh? I thought I was following it until I saw the end. What’s going on?” It does kind of click at the end but it’s not really putting the final piece in the puzzle, it’s more that it kind of wipes the puzzle and then completes a slightly different one.

The plot revolves around Rose taking her daughter Sharon to a creepy ghost down named Silent Hill because Sharon has been sleep walking in dangerous places and saying Silent Hill randomly. It was either take her to a doctor, or pay a visit to the town despite massive amounts of warnings on the internet so Rose choose the latter.

The town itself is abandoned and has been for 30 years. Underground coal fires give off toxic fumes. People do live there though. Or rather people, who used to be alive live there. But I can’t really say much about that without giving away too much of the plot.

Of course the real asset of the game was that it was so creepy that it actually was scary. Does the film achieve the same thing? Well, to an extent. It doesn’t have the unseen horror that really gave the game it’s effect but it still manages to very creepy and while it didn’t massively scare me, looking at it from a critical point of view, it was quite a scary film.

Overall I quite liked it but I could see why most of the critics don’t. If it’s your type of thing then go see it but don’t be suprised if you walk out feeling confused, not only about the plot but also whether you actually liked it or not.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.