I never played any of the Silent Hill computer games. In fact, until the movie trailer came out a few months ago, I don’t think I was really even aware of them. The trailer looked good and creepy, and so I went with Adam tonight to see the film (for free – yay!).
Rose (Radha Mitchel) is worried about her adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). Sharon sleepwalks, and talks about a town called Silent Hill. Against her husband’s wishes, Rose decides to take Sharon there and see if she can figure out what is going on. Silent Hill, you see, is an abandoned town in West Virginia where underground coal fires still burn, but something more sinister happened there. After an accident just outside of town, Rose wakes up to find Sharon missing – and a strange fog surrounding the area. As she explores Silent Hill, she starts to realize that things are not at all right. A weird darkness suddenly descends upon the town, and demons and nasty creatures come out to attack her.
As Rose searches for Sharon, she teams up with a cop who also got trapped in Silent Hill. Soon the cycle of darkness and light starts to make sense as the details of a sinister plot come to light. An interesting backstory about witches, a cult, and a cleansing gone wrong – and the ultimate revenge – come to the fore.
Directed by Christophe Gans, who did the very stylish Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill has amazing visuals, a great score by Jeff Danna (arranging many tracks from the computer games apparently), and an okay storyline that has a great backstory – but lame ending. It’s not really gory, except for a few moments, and I liked that about it. It sets the tone through mood and visuals, and not lame “boo!” scares. There is some disturbing imagery, and it is rated R for obvious reasons. But it’s one of those films that, after seeing, I want to see more of, just because the visuals were so great. But I’ll probably wait until DVD so I can see the cool extras.