| Product: |
Silent Hill (DVD) |
| Date: |
20/09/06 (257 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good horror, especially for gaming fans
Disadvantages: The plot deamnds your full attention
The Silence before the Screams
I was rather dubious about spending £3.50 to rent Silent Hill from my local Choices video store. Video games turned into movies do not really entertain me, the recently released Doom movie starring the Rock I thought was dire, not to mention a few other video games turned into movies. So I can’t say I was interested in viewing this at all.
However, so many friends were recommending it, and after reading some reviews on the film, which did not make it sound bad, I thought I would give it a fair shot.
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Plot Outline
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Sharon, a young girl, is suffering terrible nightmares of a place called Silent Hill which is haunting her, which in turn is causing her to sleepwalk and have seizures. After much concern over her ever growing condition, her adopted mother, Rose Da Silva, takes her to the place which is continuously haunting her daughters dreams, much against her husbands wishes.
Their journey to Silent Hill becomes increasingly difficult and a Police Officer ends up pursuing Rose, until they all suffer a blackout. Rose awakes from this ‘blackout’ to find her daughter has gone and she’s in an abandoned old town, blanketed by a eerie glowing mist. She is now in Silent Hill.
With the help of Cybil, the cop who was pursuing her, Rose desperately searches for her daughter through the hellish ghost town, following a silhouette which she’s sure is Sharon.
As she finds out the history of Silent Hill, and why the town has a grip on her daughters dreams, she encounters a variety of unworldly creatures, and the human inhabitants that were left behind to fight the darkness.
Will they all leave Silent Hill alive?
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My Thoughts On The Movie
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Ther e are two main words that describe this movie for me - ‘Pleasantly Surprised’.
Having been far from what I expected to be another dull video game movie, it provided me with over 125 minutes of quite compulsive viewing.
I found watching it alone on a late Monday evening was not a good idea, I don’t easily jump at a horror movie but I was like Tigger from Winnie The Pooh that night.
To put it more sensibly, I found it quite horrifying, even for me, but even though, I could not keep my eyes off it for fear of missing an important part of the movie rather than fear of the movie itself.
The plot itself I thought was good, and I was really interested into the mystery of why the young girl was being haunted by this place so much.
The setting itself looks very eerie, which adds to the lasting effect of the whole movie. Never being able to see much in front of the main character it focuses on because of the rather disturbing mist, creatures and other nasties can surprise you at anytime.
The creatures themselves can range from zombie looking types to strange sorts of insects, all quite gruesome in their own right, especially when some unfortunate soul gets killed by one….awful I tell you!
At no point in this movie did I feel bored or confused. However, I can imagine that if I lost my concentration for any length of time during the movie I may have got lost with the story as a whole, so I would advise you watch the movie when you have time in which you will not be disturbed.
Silent Hill is directed by Christophe Gans (and yes, that is Christophe and not Christopher), not a director I had heard of until this movie. I was pleased with what he delivered here, there was always mystery in the way he followed certain characters through the movie, and too the fact that he never let you see to much until it reached out from the darkness to scare the living s*7t out of you. I would like to see him direct more horror movies.
Christophe experiments with lots of different graphical visualisations within this movie, with special effects sometimes going from a grainy scratchy visualisation to more of an ‘in your face’ image visualisation.
Now its probably worth mentioning that I have played the game before watching the movie, and if I am honest, it does assist with the plot of the storyline. However, I do not feel that the viewer would be at too much of a disadvantage with the plot if they had never played or heard of the video game before.
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My Thoughts On The Cast
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Main Cast List:
Radha Mitchell - Rose Da Silva
Sean Bean- Christopher Da Silva
Laurie Holden - Cybil Bennett
Jodelle Ferland- Sharon Da Silva
Casting was relatively well picked for this movie, a few new faces to which I had not personally seen before which always in my view makes a horror more entertaining as their reactions are not what you always expect from actors/actresses pulling the same expressions as they normally do.
Radha Mitchell, (Finding Neverland, Man On Fire) definitely provided the best performance as Rose Da Silva. Very believable as a concerned mother looking after the well-being of her adopted daughter. Her emotions through the movie are well acted and provided the best presence on screen.
Sean Bean however provided the least entertainment, and not as believable as most other roles he normally plays. His accents are extremely dodgy to say the least, sometimes sounding rather Irish for an American speaking role, and his presence on screen didn’t demand the attention as his peers on set.
We also get a very good performance by a young Jodelle Ferland playing the troubled girl Sharon. At the tender age of 12, she delivers a good screen presence and I genuinely felt concerned as a viewer for her well being.
Finally Laurie Holden (Fantastic Four) delivered a good back up role as Cybil the Police women, although she looked more like a striper-gram cop than your everyday police women, needless to say her presence got attention on screen rather than demanded.
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DVD Special features:
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* Note* This DVD was a rental version and may differ from the DVD released to buy, although it shouldn’t in many cases.
Apart from the 50 minute documentary ‘The Making Of’ Silent Hill, the special features that compliment this DVD is rather anorexic, boasting a Picture gallery and theatrical trailer.
The making of Silent Hill documentary is interesting, and gives you more of an insight into the plot and the directors views on his adaptation from video game to movie. Worth viewing.
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Other DVD Details
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Genre: Horror/Thriller/Mystery/Suspense/Gore
Rating: 15
Running time of Main feature: 127 mins approx
Official Website: www.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill
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My Overall Opinion
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I would recommend renting before buying this movie, especially if you have never played or heard of the video game. As I said, I rented this movie from Choices for £3.50, the average price to buy this movie at the present time is £12.99.
In my view this is the best video game too movie adaptation I have ever seen. After being very dubious of viewing it in the first place I was very impressed with it.
I found the movie very compulsive viewing to the extent that the movie actually lingered with me long after I viewed it.
It is a good horror, which contains disturbing and gory scenes which will no doubt make you jump from time to time, so if you’re a bit week at the knees, beware!
As far the directing and acting performances go, on the whole, they are really not bad.
I do not think viewers are at a disadvantage not knowing the video game, the movie incorporates its own style and if you have time where you feel you won’t be interrupted and can stick closely with the storyline I think any viewer that likes this sort of genre will like this movie.
Overall, good movie and I would give it 7 out of ten.
Summary: The best adaptation I have seen from a video game too movie I have seen
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