Silent Hill
Radha Mitchell (PITCH BLACK) stars as Rose Da Silva, a young mother whose adopted daughter Sharon speaks of the eponymous West Virginia mining town as she sleepwalks. Rose decides to take Sharon there in an attempt to discover why it haunts her dreams--but Silent Hill has been a ghost town since a series of underground coal fires in 1974, and the residents who stayed behind are the stuff of nightmares.
First things first… I have never played any of the Silent Hill video games. So although I am familiar with the imagery and the games’ approach to the survival horror genre, I don’t know much at all about the storyline and in-game events.
This said, Silent Hill is probably the first ever video game to film adaptation to successfully capture what it is like to play a survival horror game – the way your gut drops when you run around a corner into a swarm of enemies, fleeing defenceless from deformed creatures who pursue you relentlessly, the way you panic when a siren heralds the arrival of pitch darkness… and something else.
Forget that brief First Person sequence in the Doom movie. Silent Hill is the real deal – the first ever ‘proper’ video game movie. Hell, there’s even a loony character who follows heroine Rose around for a while, in fashion of video game NPCs (non playable characters).
Not that Silent Hill is flawless by any means. After an excellent first hour or so of nightmarish imagery, the film begins to unravel as it falls back on the ‘Demonic, wizened little girl’ cliché that has been overkilled in films like The Ring, The Grudge and Amityville Horror. Even though it means we get to see South African actress Alice Krige in action, her appearance, as one of the remaining Puritanical human inhabitants of Silent Hill, marks a point where creepiness gives way to silliness.
What Silent Hill is, is consistently disturbing. It is not a horror film that gets its scares from jump moments. It’s all about atmosphere. The ghost town, coated in white ash, is populated by humanoid creatures who genuinely are the stuff of nightmares – and the film makers have cleverly ensured that we only see them in glimpses to maximise their scare potential. Similarly, violence comes in short, bloody and highly effective bursts.
What’s also refreshing in Silent Hill is the prevalence of female characters. While feminist subtexts are only skirted over (how easy it is to abuse women without male protectors), there’s a strong sense of women in the film as proactive, and leaders. Silent Hill is a strangely matriarchal society, where the men are frequently powerless and cannot in fact even gain access to the town’s weird purgatory zone. I was especially fond of Laurie Holden’s swaggering, leather-clad police offer.
Silent Hill is certainly not unforgettable. And I doubt I’d pay full price for it. But it is, and I’m very surprised to admit this, probably the best video game adaptation to date. It’s certainly made me keen to go back and play the games now.
For anyone interested, here’s the Wikipedia article on the game series and film.
First things first… I have never played any of the Silent Hill video games. So although I am familiar with the imagery and the games’ approach to the survival horror genre, I don’t know much at all about the storyline and in-game events.
This said, Silent Hill is probably the first ever video game to film adaptation to successfully capture what it is like to play a survival horror game – the way your gut drops when you run around a corner into a swarm of enemies, fleeing defenceless from deformed creatures who pursue you relentlessly, the way you panic when a siren heralds the arrival of pitch darkness… and something else.
Forget that brief First Person sequence in the Doom movie. Silent Hill is the real deal – the first ever ‘proper’ video game movie. Hell, there’s even a loony character who follows heroine Rose around for a while, in fashion of video game NPCs (non playable characters).
Not that Silent Hill is flawless by any means. After an excellent first hour or so of nightmarish imagery, the film begins to unravel as it falls back on the ‘Demonic, wizened little girl’ cliché that has been overkilled in films like The Ring, The Grudge and Amityville Horror. Even though it means we get to see South African actress Alice Krige in action, her appearance, as one of the remaining Puritanical human inhabitants of Silent Hill, marks a point where creepiness gives way to silliness.
What Silent Hill is, is consistently disturbing. It is not a horror film that gets its scares from jump moments. It’s all about atmosphere. The ghost town, coated in white ash, is populated by humanoid creatures who genuinely are the stuff of nightmares – and the film makers have cleverly ensured that we only see them in glimpses to maximise their scare potential. Similarly, violence comes in short, bloody and highly effective bursts.
What’s also refreshing in Silent Hill is the prevalence of female characters. While feminist subtexts are only skirted over (how easy it is to abuse women without male protectors), there’s a strong sense of women in the film as proactive, and leaders. Silent Hill is a strangely matriarchal society, where the men are frequently powerless and cannot in fact even gain access to the town’s weird purgatory zone. I was especially fond of Laurie Holden’s swaggering, leather-clad police offer.
Silent Hill is certainly not unforgettable. And I doubt I’d pay full price for it. But it is, and I’m very surprised to admit this, probably the best video game adaptation to date. It’s certainly made me keen to go back and play the games now.
For anyone interested, here’s the Wikipedia article on the game series and film.
Comments
Its the typical female role... ignore the good advice from the male and go do your own thing ... I suppose that is a feminist message :)
But look where it got her in the end! See women need to learn to listen and adhere.