Review This, by thmilin, inc.

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You ready? You look ready.
Originally Posted by thmilin
how don't you agree?
Failure to Launch didn't hold enough water to get that high a rating, even with the supporting actors. And V for Vendetta, there were things like, they didn't build on the character of the man. Well, I personally think that they didn't want to build on that character. In the movie, they say it themselves. A man can die, but an idea lives on. If they were trying to stay even a bit true to this I don't think they wanted to put too much character into the man. But that's just an opinion.
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Female assassin extraordinaire.
Originally Posted by John McClane
Failure to Launch didn't hold enough water to get that high a rating, even with the supporting actors. And V for Vendetta, there were things like, they didn't build on the character of the man. Well, I personally think that they didn't want to build on that character. In the movie, they say it themselves. A man can die, but an idea lives on. If they were trying to stay even a bit true to this I don't think they wanted to put too much character into the man. But that's just an opinion.
ah, yes, re: the rating thing - if I know I'm going in to see something we all know will win no awards and will be forgotten easily, then i rate it according to what i went in knowing it would be.

ie, if i am going to see Deuce Bigalow, and expected crap that would make me laugh, I will rate it based on the expectations it met or didn't meet. If it goes above them, I'll say so, but I won't give it a C or D just because I knew what I was doing when I went in there to see it.

So for what Failure to Launch was, I feel it deserved the rating I gave it. If it'd pissed me off, annoyed me, bored me to tears, given me no laughs at all, it'd have gotten crappier grades.

that's my stance in general with crap flicks, anyway.

re: the idea and the man -

the movie itself provided markers to give the Idea a history as a man. if it was not prepared to properly resolve that history, it should not have provided those markers. having the film say "an idea lives on" is not an excuse for having said "this idea is a man who fell in love with Evey." which it did. it also did things like have him prefer a certain type of music, desire to dance with a girl, apparently have a revenge relationship for the girl he was incarcerated next to (which implies his vendetta's grounds were not as pure as the "idea" the film and he himself claim).

basically the film provided many contradictions because it couldn't stick to its guns. if he's an idea, then he has no feelings. if he is only an idea bent on revenge, he kidnaps Evey to use her and convert her, not because she saved him. he does not feed her breakfast.

someone else argued he's a gentleman, and does gentlemanly things. i'd argue if he's turned toward vengeance, he has no room for being gentlemanly beyond basic politeness, and jazz music, fried egg breakfasts, and missing Evey are extravagances he cannot afford.

anyway. i get the idea thing, i just don't think the film lived up to that.
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Thanks for the great reviews. i hope you write more soon
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You ready? You look ready.
Originally Posted by thmilin
re: the idea and the man -

the movie itself provided markers to give the Idea a history as a man. if it was not prepared to properly resolve that history, it should not have provided those markers. having the film say "an idea lives on" is not an excuse for having said "this idea is a man who fell in love with Evey." which it did. it also did things like have him prefer a certain type of music, desire to dance with a girl, apparently have a revenge relationship for the girl he was incarcerated next to (which implies his vendetta's grounds were not as pure as the "idea" the film and he himself claim).

basically the film provided many contradictions because it couldn't stick to its guns. if he's an idea, then he has no feelings. if he is only an idea bent on revenge, he kidnaps Evey to use her and convert her, not because she saved him. he does not feed her breakfast.

someone else argued he's a gentleman, and does gentlemanly things. i'd argue if he's turned toward vengeance, he has no room for being gentlemanly beyond basic politeness, and jazz music, fried egg breakfasts, and missing Evey are extravagances he cannot afford.

anyway. i get the idea thing, i just don't think the film lived up to that.
They could have been getting at how difficult it is for a person to stick to an idea and how many would stumble on its path. It's all how the person interprets it really.



Female assassin extraordinaire.
Silent Hill
Rating: ***

Director: Christophe Gans
Cast:
Radha Mitchell ... Rose Da Silva
Sean Bean ... Christopher Da Silva
Laurie Holden ... Cybil Bennett
Deborah Kara Unger ... Dahlia Gillespie
Kim Coates Officer ... Thomas Gucci
Alice Krige ... Christabella
Jodelle Ferland ... Sharon/Alessa


Synopsis: Rose takes her 9 year old daughter Sharon to a mountainside ghost town that seems to be haunting and drawing the young girl via dark dreams. Hoping to find answers, Rose wakes up after a car crash on the edge of Silent Hill with her daughter nowhere in sight. As she searches for Sharon, Rose meets stray characters who both help and hinder, looking for clues and realizing she may have made a mistake in pursuing her daughter's demons. Along the way, she loses all contact with the outside world and gets swallowed up in a demented saga of personal faith and dark redemption in the quest to free them both from the grip of Silent Hill.

The Nutshell

As I said in summary in the movie's own thread elsewhere on the board, this movie swerved dramatically in the details and some key elements of the plot of the game. It suffers a lot because of that, but squeaks by into "worth watching" status because it remains:

generally good at telling a unique story, with actors who do well enough, with cgi that captures some truly original and gruesome imagery, and at least a basic respect of the game's soundtrack and setting (Silent Hill, the game and film's main character, is perfectly and lovingly rendered).

The conflicting public synopses (IMDB Synopsis | Yahoo Synopsis), the well-established game story, and what this movie actually ends up being about show a troubled story development for what could have been something far better.

The Review

Come on in ...


Some haven't seen or played the games, and could care less. However, being deemed an adaptation, and being entirely derived from this source, and making such a point to capture some key elements, I am badly disappointed by how they deliberately - because when it's written out for you in advance and you change it, it can't be anything but deliberate - dropped the ball for other key elements.

Overall, this is worth watching if you're prepared for horror wrapped in suspense - this is not a "jump and scream" sort of horror, this is more of a "slowly clench up, stop breathing, and widen your eyes" sort of horror when it's actually doing its job correctly. It includes some truly graphic, mind-bending, "oh my god it makes no sense why is it happening," "how do I cope," awful images. And in that, and rendering the town of Silent Hill perfectly, the film captures the basic foundation for a satisfying horror film.

The reason the game has done so well is that survival horror makes the player FEEL as though they are truly in the game, surviving the horror (and all that entails). Like "Resident Evil," Silent Hill is a game that forces you to be as confused as a real person would be when suddenly thrust into a trying, nonsensical situation in which no one gives you answers, people are cryptic and self-serving, you have practically no weapons or knowledge of your surroundings, and you are an every day human being. This is how life would really be if you were stuck in the situation, and the game makes you FIGHT to get out of it alive - like a real person would have to do.

This is absolutely prime ground for creating a true and powerful horror film. Because the story, from genesis, is built as a powerful story. It's not a narration, it's an EXPERIENCE. And what is a film, but an experience that makes you suspend disbelief and instead believe you are IN the film, or seeing the story through the eyes of the main characters? You become those characters.

You do a lot of running in the game ... and in the movie.


The film teetered on the edge for a good while of this chance to plunge the viewer into this so they could truly feel it, versus watch it, and chose to do the latter by the middle.

Then, the film veered pretty heavily from some key story elements - changing the reason certain characters existed, and therefore changing why they were there. Doing that changes the mood of things, and sometimes it's not a big deal, and some times they lost a chance to make the movie more powerful.

If you want to look at the story as it is unchanged, we can do that, and notice that there's a good amount of basic movie logic. This is things like "so and so got this done to them, so naturally they went and did this." A little too plodding and rote for a storyline rich with unique details.

Then there's some "walking the watcher through." They basically baby the watcher, stopping to even have a "here's your reward - the truth" segment, with flashback scenes. I'm sorry, but any movie that does that ... is just losing major points. What if they'd stopped in the middle of "Memento" to do that? The purpose of Silent Hill is to make you figure it out for yourself, as it makes our heroine figure things out. Why on earth are you going to stop and just tell her everything, including the viewer, in the middle?

Then there's the extraneous parent - a father in the outside world trying desperately to reach his wife and child. He struggles trying to find out more, finds out nothing much at all, and by the end you realize what he was used for was not a good thing at all, and he didn't even need to be in the movie.

But the movie did have the town live and breathe as it was supposed to - a town that has a mind of its own, and it's a dark and evil mind. It does focus on the small-town "incestous" aspect of stagnation - where too many minds trapped together can think up something evil and perpetuate it because the outside world rarely interferes. It includes the murderous religious fanatacism that adds an element of the sickness and dementia of the town, which is true to the game. It also shows how the town is both absent and darkly warped, creating monsters that roam disembodied through the streets. Were they previous citizens? Are they only ideas? Why do they exist, and why do they attack?

Do you want to see what's behind this? And why does that nurse have such wicked highlights?


There are a lot of "why's" - this is the core of a horror movie - like in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," our terrorized group slowly begins to learn the why of their demise. It begins with madness and only as a few key characters skulk around and fight for their lives do they get answers, and it may not be in time.

The movie does so-so with those whys - mainly falling short in that it babied way too much and really limited details. Those whys are what add meaning to what's happening - a person murdered in a symbolic way is murdered for a reason. You can leave clues for the viewer and the heroine to see (and figure out on their own) or you can tell them. The movie chooses to actually tell us, which is sad. Showing would have been so much better.

But, it's good at capturing the manipulation and deceipt of characters, and the sometimes creepy crypticality. Dahlia Gillespie (a mysterious crone who proves to be a major character later) says some things and they don't make sense at first, but do later - they did a good job with her, except that she was way too beautiful for the state she was supposed to be in.

This used to be such a nice room ...


The leader of the religious fanatics (Christabella) is a strong character (remember her from Aeon Flux?) but receives way too much power in the movie, and way too much screen time. I'm not saying it's not possible for one woman to drive a congregation to the point she has, I'm just saying it was a little much and sometimes just hard to believe that she could actively keep that level of control on that many people for that long without any dissenters - at all. Silent Hill is a place for the rabid and hungry - black souls twisted into whatever place their tortured minds have taken them.

Christabella is serene, cool, and calm, which doesn't fit. Her congregration is like a pack of mules or donkeys, stubborn and drawn to fits of violence but generally easy for her to control. How did she remain that way and how did they become that, and nothing else? Shouldn't she be foaming at the mouth and bloodthirsty? Shouldn't Silent Hill have killed most of them off and left the rest of them slightly off in the head and some of them entirely broken? These guys are acting like they go out and do a little work every day and come back with no harm done, sleep easy in the church, and start all over again. This makes no sense, most of all, in Silent Hill. These guys should be more obliterated than they are to keep true to the darkness of the city.

Also, the foundations of their religion and what make them "believe" and the reasoning behind the evil things they've done - you might find that mess hard to swallow. We're supposed to, because they're just "crazy" but i mean, even crazy has to make sense sometimes. if a man had a chemical imbalance and was psychotic and killed his family, ok. that makes sense. but if he was just raised to be really christian and had no chemical imbalance but had a problem with premarital sex, would he burn his daughter for it? would he cut off some limbs? i don't think so. then again maybe the film was trying to wake us up to the injustices done under "religion" in modern society. but that's not what this film is for or about, and it shouldn't have been done, if that's the case.

Don't answer the door ...


And the ending, I'm afraid, will probably piss a lot of people off. I think they were going for bittersweet and meaningful, but after all they put you through, and some of the iffy things they pull, it was not justified. It was rather unfair, actually.


Below, I get into hard core overall details for those that care about the original story/loved the game. Spoilers ...


Ok, so the game versus the movie, let's get into it ...

TWO PARENTS.
I could have been fine with just using a female parent, but having both and one floundering on the outside was utterly useless. I know why they did it, and they thought it would help to break up the horror and the wandering around confused in The Land of Evil. They also probably thought that people would wonder "Doesn't the disappeared person have anyone looking for them?" But the very point of SH is that you disappear, and the viewer never knows whether you had anybody else or not.

The viewer never knows whether you had friends, another love interest, a parent still alive. It doesn't matter. You're in SH now, and they can't help you. You don't know what's going on, and that's all you've got. It's up to you figure sh|t out, you don't have a fuzzy light on in your chest telling you someone's at home waiting for you. And you do not have a cell phone that works, or at least lets you dial anything to give a sign to anyone in the outside world that anything is going on. Or hey, let them make a call, just don't show us the person on the other end who may or may not be receiving it. The point is, THERE IS NO OUTSIDE WORLD. This is it. You're in Silent Hill. There ain't no outside world.

There was no reason on earth to even include SHOWING someone trying to help. They were also trying to use Gucci to add to that "this evil is known outside and has touched others but it's buried because of fear and shame" detail, but they could have cut that out and accomplished it with having Rose find some damned newspaper clippings like in the game, or discuss it with Cybil. Waste of time.

DAD ALONE.
The ending is just ... unbelievably wrong. I'd rather have him DIE than what happens to Rose. Showing both parents separated like that was ... well it literally undercut the movie itself. Why show us a mother struggling so badly to save her daughter, work to get them both out alive, and then have them end up potentially dead, at least in the real world? WTF? Do NOT show me the dude who couldn't even help and has no idea what happened. Or are you implying the hubby is going to go looking for them one day? Better be, cuz that was f*cked up.

CYBIL.
I hate this. A typical horror movie has noooo problem with having a random person who was helping you sometimes end up dying for no good reason other than the world was too d@mned hard on you all and that person just had rotten luck. They got rolled, and it's just the way life, and SH is. Either that, or the person makes it out, or you assume they did. But having her sacrificed like that and tied in to their silly puritanical Christian fundamentalist whatever plot pissed me off. If anything should kill her, SH should kill her, not crazy wackos that shouldn't even be in the movie in the first place.

SILLY PURITANICAL CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST PLOT VS. THE DEMON SAGA.
Ok, this is actually what pissed me off the most. Everything else I can let roll off, but this plot point, after it was soooo thoroughly beefed up in the games, they had to go and twist around into some modern recognizable thing. and i get they were trying to capture the "old american town" history, but the history of the game did just that and better.

A 500 year old blood demon who is worshipped by bloodthirsty, crazed Native Americans and later worshipped by invading settled Americans in an underground cult that occasionally turns to dementia, mass murder, sometime slaughter, etc., in attempts to appease the demon god and birth him into the world through a chosen female (who will become the "Mother of God") - COME ON. That is SO much richer, and explains so much about why human beings would go mad. A strict church with some people who think they can burn out the impurities in a girl who is a witch _just because her mother is single_??? Why would that happen in 1970? Seriously. Why? Burning witches is fine, but the witches generally show some dementia, some awful powers, etc. And wouldn't the witch be the _unwed mother_ not the _poor unfathered child_?

If you have a demon following cult with their minds warped by a blood demon's lust for suffering and madness, seeking to bring him into the world, and their human frailty can't stand up to it, all the crazy things they do will make sense. If they have the girl as a birth mother to the demon (a la Rosemary's baby) isn't that far more compelling than she's "a witch" and they're going to burn her and that's what her mother has to allow? I'm sorry but in the movie's scenario, even if the mother shares the beliefs of the group, she'd have run off with her child before giving it to be burnt. She'd know the punishment didn't equal the crime, if any. But wouldn't a mother warped by a demon easily feel, hey birthing a god isn't so bad, she'll still be alive?

REALITY VS. "ALTERNATE DIMENSION"
Notice the synopses everywhere talk about "walking into alternate dimensions." The movie explains it as the will of the girl. Which technically the game dances around, the will of evil transforming physical reality, but what happened to the nuance that it could all be in your head? That what you might be seeing could be someplace your mind created, and the horrors happening to you are happening because YOU made them? That the nurse with the pipe after you in the hospital can't be seen by anybody else, but she can most certainly beat you to do death and tear your throat out? And that while you're running from nurses no one else can see, the other people whose paths you've crossed are running from their own demons? That was a mindf*ck you could think about for hours - how real is it? Is it ALL in your mind, or is only SOME of it in your mind?

The movie kinda messes with it, but doesn't really go there. You get saved by Cybil, who sees what you see. Not that in the game it's not like you don't sometimes have someone to protect other people from things, but anyway, the only bid might be the end where we realize perhaps Rose is still in hell and just doesn't know it. She thinks she got out, but Sharon is really Alessa and who knows what Alessa will do next ... but that's still not a happy resolution which was DESERVED after the struggle mang.

THE NURSES / MANNEQUINS / BUGS / CHILDREN / PYRAMIDHEAD
Pyramidhead came in way too early and I wasn't happy with him wandering around in the upper floors of the hospital. What the heck he's a major boss AND he's tied to the Executioner storyline of being used in mass sacrifices and evil experimentations at the insane asylum of Silent Hill (which was used by the Mad Demon worshippers, see, for their awful shenanigans - taking helpless patients and doing sick things to them, sacrificing them, etc.) He was an old character for the town with a deep backstory and blip you just get him sliding around upstairs for a little bit. Come ON! Wouldn't have it been awesome to have Rose come across some old articles about strange judges/juries and executions underground in the town with some sketches and then run into the real thing in the basement?

The Nurses were way to f*ckin sexy. As soon as they started I thought they were going to do Thriller. That middle one in front had major cleavage (they all did) and was doing moves like she was trying to do the Paris runway. COME ON! If they'd just had them moving more like broken, attacked women still bent on killing others ... with their proper clothes on ... and their real sneakers on ... some pervert in movie production basically wanted to get his fetish fed so he put curves and boobs and white pumps on them and tore their tops open and this is what we got. SAD WASTE OF POTENTIAL FEAR.

Also, that whole gangup in the hall, suddenly discovering 20 of them there? Stupid. Overkill. I guess they just wanted to show them and have her get away from them, then get back to the movie. I think it'd have been better to be true to the game - have her run into 4, and having found a gun along the way, killed 2 and got away with a few cuts and a limp. Find a first aid kit, patch it up, run off to do some more gumshoeing, meet another nurse, slip right by her, etc.

The Mannequins were all right. They should have had flailing upper limbs instead of unformed heads but I feel like they were merging this with another monster I can't remember at the moment. Or maybe that was the other monster. Anyway, the mannequins were supposed to be Executioner experiments, all the crazy demon worshipers gone astray and doing sick things to bodies, because everything is mindless and hungry, everything is after death and disregards suffering. Everything is slow, methodical, mindless, like a meat grinder. Just there, and just on. Only it moves, and looks really freaky. These Mannequins could have been scarier but got the job done.

Bugs were perfect. Not much you could do to mess em up I guess.

The childmonsters were odd. Over the years I can't remember what they were supposed to model these from. But I guess they did the job. Also, too many of them. Same issue as the nurses. Unnatural to have her get ganged up on to that level by that many. Overkill.

SIDE CHARACTERS
This, along with the true plot line, is another major flaw that could have gotten them more points. The game has richer story lines and fewer side characters. Get rid of that whole church congregation and the wandering girl who leads them to the church. Get rid of the detective and his buddies. Get rid of the husband. Get rid of Christabella.

Keep the nurse. Give her back her richer storyline. Even though she's female and that won't pull on our female protagonist's heartstrings as much as it did our male protagonist's, wouldn't it have been better to see her frightened and suffering and then going off to find answers and then showing up a little twitchy and crazy, and Rose could wonder if she was going to turn on her? You see how rich a character she was in the game, that it feels like a LOSS they demoted her to someone with no personality who just gets victimized by Alessa?

Have the heroine bump into one or two random people who frighten her, seem a little off, but don't last in the film. Just enough contact to make her realize she's not entirely alone, but might as well be.

LASTLY ... SILENT HILL. They were pretty much perfect on this. Only failing was that a large factor of Silent Hill is the Evil is nonsensical - everything is symbolism but the symbolism is all tangled up and you have to try and make sense of it to get out of it alive. The point is you are in Mental Hell. Mental Hell is a place that makes no sense, it's a world like your dreams. Thus, you turn a corner that you know didn't exist a minute ago, and now there's a tunnel with a blood coated fan and right behind you is a Pyramidhead. Or, you went through a hole in the wall and suddenly came out in an entirely different part of town with a twitching, bloody body in a bag two feet from you, and the person you had with you for backup disappeared.

They tried to make Silent Hill make too much sense. That ties into the plot - a lot of the atmosphere, drama, suspense, and horror, comes from not knowing what's going on and trying to make your own answers. They made too many things black and white, and linear. Take the sirens. Suddenly they're tied to the church which announces when darkness is coming. Everyone in town runs to the church, and this is how they survive. This is too orderly for SH! You can't have day/night come at regularl intervals! You're supposed to fall asleep and wake up and things are warped. You're supposed to go down some stairs in a normal wing of a building and come out into the bowels of dementia. You're supposed to sometimes wake up into madness, and sometimes wake up into no-one's-here but stuff's not bleeding normalcy.

Here, Dahlia gave birth to a daughter, the daughter got raped and burnt alive, and in her rage became a split personality with powers and sent her good self in physical form to an orphanage while her original real self festered underground. This all makes too much sense. In the game people are victims and never get retribution, people run out of luck or never had any, people are nice and turn evil, people are evil and won't change their minds and stay evil and don't get slaughtered in groups as if they might have been not so bad after all.

That was a key element. Once Rose started finding stuff out, everything just felt safe. She's only got nutty mad fanatics to deal with, not monsters hunting her while she faces the Demon God's Mother. Augh.

... i guess i'm done. clearly, i was disappointed. but, it's worth seeing. i was literally grinning and cooing at the cgi action sequences. i was rolling my eyes at the church scenes. *shrug*



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Dead on write up, thmilin. All my same complaints.

You know a horror movie is treading water when I'm given time to think, "man, Radha Mitchell is pretty hot in that art teacher dress..." or notice the clevage on the nurses. This month's issue of Fangoria has a shot of one of the nurses on the cover, and I remember the first time I looked at it I barely noticed her awesome face design and instead thought, "nice rack". That was just a silly move...

Or maybe I'm just a guy, either way, could have been avoided.
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In the Beginning...
Nice review (yes, I actually read it all - even the spoilers).

Now, can I bother someone for a write-up on "Triangle-Mug"? Everybody who's played the games tells me that he's so incredibly awesome, but I don't see it. He looks ridiculous. He's got an overly large pyramid shape for a head (how does he fit through doors?). Every time I see him, I roll my eyes. I know he's probably this wicked villain that scares the crap out of you in the game, but so was the Nemesis in Resident Evil 2, and that guy also looked ridiculous.



Yeah, you nailed it there. Even though the script was weak as, i loved the whole design and a lot of the direction, the Pyramid Head attack was spot on.

Never got far enough in the games to have much to compare to in terms of plot, just started Silent Hill 3 though.

Pyrmaid Head is awesome because he rapes and kills and has a ****ing huge rusty blade and just the fact he has something as stupid as a pyramid for a head yet is still something you **** your pants over (in game).

Btw, wasn't Nemesis Resident Evil 3?
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In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Originally Posted by Sleezy
Nice review (yes, I actually read it all - even the spoilers).

Now, can I bother someone for a write-up on "Triangle-Mug"? Everybody who's played the games tells me that he's so incredibly awesome, but I don't see it. He looks ridiculous. He's got an overly large pyramid shape for a head (how does he fit through doors?). Every time I see him, I roll my eyes. I know he's probably this wicked villain that scares the crap out of you in the game, but so was the Nemesis in Resident Evil 2, and that guy also looked ridiculous.
Thmilin can give you a run down on who Pyramid Head is in the game's mythos, but just from my standpoint, I don't think he looks ridiculous at all. In fact, I do believe he's one of the coolest monsters to ever grace the silver screen. Take a look at this picture and tell me that isn't the coolest ****ing thing ever...

As for why he's so awesome in the movie (spoilers):

WARNING: "Silent Hill" spoilers below
He trolls the hallways of the school, dragging his gigantic knife along the ground and bringing a wave of bugs with him. There's a scene in which he plunges that amazing knife through a wall repeatedly, trying to stab Rose and the Cop, while his bugs pour through the hole. It's a very, very badass scene.

He dips out of the movie for a bit after that, but he rematerializes (literally) later on and performs the film stealing scene in which he rips the clothes off of a woman and then in one single motion rips off all of her flesh and slings it to the ground.

Bad, ass.


Pyramid Head is a horrorgasm, even if the rest of the movie can't touch how intense he is.



Female assassin extraordinaire.
hey, thanks for reading it all guys . i was impassioned, plus i could remember all the details having just seen it.

i did some story hunting and found this pretty good entry at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill

Gets into the background story, and sensations of Silent Hill, and also touches on the movie adaptation. A key comment:

Gameplay elements that create the unique atmosphere in the game are the dense fog/pitch black settings, limiting visibility to about a three foot diameter about the character, coupled with the use of a radio that emits some of the so-called 'chilling sound effects' whenever a monster comes close to the main character. This creates a general feeling of paranoia in the player. One finds themselves dreading hearing the noises that indicate the presence of the monsters roaming the streets. Being unable to see them the player is forced to either run or hope they are facing in the correct direction for attack.
yeah. PARANOIA. Glad we got to see sooo much of that.

if you want to get a real taste - and i mean just a taste - go to this link and click on "The Experience" in the right hand nav. it's slow, but the sounds and visuals and all that are what you deal with in Silent Hill.

http://www.konami.com/silenthill/she/

You can hit this URL to explore the town and the entire game series - i get more fun and suspense out of this than the freakin movie. They discuss with each the game the type of experience you're supposed to have ... and doesn't it just make you resent the movie more?

http://www.konami.com/silenthill/


Originally Posted by Sleezy
Now, can I bother someone for a write-up on "Triangle-Mug"? Everybody who's played the games tells me that he's so incredibly awesome, but I don't see it. He looks ridiculous. He's got an overly large pyramid shape for a head (how does he fit through doors?). Every time I see him, I roll my eyes....
Pyramidhead (his official name) - you know why he looks ridiculous to you? cuz the movie failed. if you played the game, or the movie did him justice, he'd have been glorious. you would remember him forever.

here's a pic at OG's site: http://horrorsnotdead.com/wpress/200...w-silent-hill/

here's another at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sh2_judgement.jpg

And the Wiki provides the entire history and theories about who and what he is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Head

I'm posting the "Symbolism" explanation of what he is, which is up for debate because SH has different "meanings for existence" across the games (you could see the evil side as a manifestation of your mind, or it could just be real and the way the town is because of the Demon Samael).

Just before battling the two Red Pyramids at the end of the game, James seems to gain insight into his situation, and admits he needed them because he was weak. After James asserts that he does not need them anymore, the Red Pyramids become vulnerable to attack until they impale themselves. In contrast to the first and third games, in the Restless Dreams installment, the town of Silent Hill feeds off of James' guilt and repressed sexuality. In effect, the town acts as a self-imposed purgatory for the people trapped in it, and is more of a background than a central character. Most of what James sees and experiences is directly related to, and symbolic of, his need to punish himself for his wife's death. It can even be said that the town indulges James' wishes and brings them to life. In this regard, the Red Pyramid functions as both an executioner of Maria, but more importantly, the tormentor of James. James is subconsciously using the town and the Red Pyramid to punish himself for his own sins. Watching the Red Pyramid continuously destroy a highly eroticized version of his late wife is the perfect torture for someone in James' position, and most completely satisfies his masochistic desires. Once these needs are met, James is free from the Red Pyramid. Their official functions having been fulfilled, and thus their usefulness having been spent, the Red Pyramids destroy themselves.

In the additional back story material delivered by creators (Walter Sullivan Victims and Book of the Lost Memories) it was revealed that the physical appearance of the Red Pyramid was an effect of James fascination with Silent Hill folklore. As we may learn throughout the game, the Red Pyramid's appearance was a variation of the outfits of the executioners from the Valtiel Sect (connected to the feeling of self-punishment) who were wearing red hoods and ceremonial robes to make themeseves similiar to the Valtiel, the angel of the town.
The page has way more info which I of course encourage everyone and anyone to read.

The thing about Silent Hill is what it is now, it's evil side, is supposed to be the RESULT of its history. Ie, it used to be a Civil War prisoner camp, and had awful executions going on. It used to have a native american contingent worshipping a supposed blood demon. It has a current cult that may or may not be following that same Demon, or may have made their own new religion up and the demon chose a new group (versus the group choosing him) to torture and use for its own purposes. But the idea is that the people of the town have done the sickest darkest things, and are both victims and perpetrators.

Thus, the monsters encountered reflect the things they've done in the past. The Pyramid Head is an Executioner and he is relentless. However, an Executioner was once nothing but a man and has been made into something ugly. He could be suffering, and so as an executioner's face is always hidden, he gets a metal triangle smashed down onto his head. His movements reflect both pain and the intend to harm - every monster, in fact, is bleeding and suffering, oozing and bruised, cut and defaced.

These horribly disfigured creatures were harmed by what - the townspeople, they're desires? In self flagellation they create minions to go out and flagellate others in kind, and these minions are blind in their own suffering and the suffering they dole out to others.

There is a mindlessness to all the creatures - they are lost in this hell, and it is real, and it is all they exist for - to perpetuate it.

The reason Pyramid Head is the scariest of all is that he CAN'T be killed. You fight two of them at the end of one of the games. As the wiki says, they end up killing themselves for dubious reasons (theories abound). But their purpose exists beyond anything you do in the game, and your reactions may or may not have contributed to with their suicide.

One theory is that if they belong to Samael (and note that the floor you face them on in the game has the Seal of Samael on it) they might have failed him because you've survived for so long. Sometimes they do things in the game that have nothing to do with you and imply they're being controlled by something or called away. So out of nowhere, they impale themselves on their own spears.

Another is that they're manifestations of your character's potentially murderous past (you may have killed your own wife) and repressed sexuality (you meet a woman who looks exactly like your wife who may or may not be real and who keeps getting tortured and victimized by SH in front of your eyes). Thus PH represents guilt, rage, homicidal intentions, etc. You encounter him at random times during the game and he is this latent, horrible threat.

It's just sitting there, but you don't know what it wants and if or when it will do something to you. And it is very likely it will, because that is what it's made for - it's the Executioner, after all, and it spends its days tearing people apart limb from limb, raping sewn together bodies, gutting people, and chasing after you.

AAAGH! so much wasted potential, this movie ...



In the Beginning...
Originally Posted by OG
Take a look at this picture and tell me that isn't the coolest ****ing thing ever...
That isn't the coolest ****ing thing ever.

He just looks stupid to me. He's on the right track to horrifying, but they've stylized him too much. He reminds me of the type of thing you get when anime goes to far. Triangle for a head that's WAY too big. Token skin-sewn duds. Big butcher sword nobody (not even this scrawny monster) could lift. Anime pose. I've seen this stuff before. It's nothing new. Sure, if this thing were real, I'd be too paralyzed with fear to take it. But after I'd gotten away, I'd be laughing at it.

"Did you see how big that triangle-thingy was?! I shoulda just ran him into a closet!"

And that's where the concept, for me, fails. This thing isn't real, and never will be. I'll never have to peek over my shoulder, in fear that Pyramidhead has shuffled in behind me. I have a strong imagination, but he's too far removed from reality to ever make me take him seriously.

Originally Posted by thmilin
Pyramidhead (his official name) - you know why he looks ridiculous to you? cuz the movie failed. if you played the game, or the movie did him justice, he'd have been glorious. you would remember him forever.
Thanks for the links, particularly the Wiki link. Hadn't thought of reading up on him there. I'll check it out.

I haven't seen the film yet, and don't know if I will. I've only sampled the games, so maybe it's just that I'm objectifying the monster without experiencing him in context. But part of my angst about the design, I think, stems from the inflation of horror movie design these days. Everything has to look scarier and more screwed up than the last big thing, and it seems like Pyramidhead is just the latest example of something that was designed to be the stuff of nightmares, but has been pushed by inflation to a stylization that borders on goofiness. Even his name - Pyramidhead - is the ridiculously obvious designation that, for me, throws unnecessary comedy onto the character.

I like all these psychological attachments to the character, though. It seems like it mirrors the concept of The Cell, where all these monstrosities existed inside the mind, and were the product of a deranged human being prone to fantasizing. I could buy Pyramidhead in that world, perhaps.



Female assassin extraordinaire.
yeah, he has one true source - the demented realm of the mind, spawned by two possible things - a demon's influence on your mind and the world around you, or just your own traumatized psyche.

that's the proper context. the film makers made the "monster" just every day humans in a puritanical church. the only true "power" or horror you saw was in the little girl and its glossed over and never properly explored. why did the little girl become what she did? it's not supposed to be the cruelties done to her by locals, it's supposed to be the town's evil source/history.

All the monsters get their names from an "by experience" mythos. if you are wandering around in the dark and you hear someone crying like a child and you walk up to it and it turns around and attacks you - you call it a childmonster - which is basic and cheesy but all you can do in the crazy new world you're in. you don't care if it's silly, that's the way you're going to recognize it.

Hence "Pyramid Head" - in this warped world it's the mask that hides the Executioner, and we recognize him by that thing on his head, so that's what we call him.

I agree about the movies and horror over doing it - in the game, he's just a gigantic man who moves slowly, methodically, and brutally. He doesn't have like, The Hulk details (bulging muscles) and most of him is covered and you just see arms and a butcher apron smeared with rotting meat and blood. In the movie they gave it the whole skin thing and the implication is, he's made up of parts, or he made himself an apron out of skins, which is really too much.

The butcher butchers not for use, but for the sake of butchering. He's not going to sew clothes out of the bodies, for cripes sake. He may sew a couple body parts together but most of his time is spent tearings things apart.

Also in the game the sword is big but not as big as they made it. He lets it dangle on the floor cuz it's clearly heavy but he can easily lift it. It's like in fighting games where a big brawny man is slower with his weapons but more than capable of doing the job with them? And you're faster with a little magnum trying to survive the fight. But of course in the movie they had to overdo it, and give you nothing but a knife that the heroine doesn't even get to keep.

Crap.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Silent Hill:

In the original script there was no father. Then the studio complained that there were no men, hence Sean Bean was added.
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Suspect's Reviews



A system of cells interlinked
Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
And Sedai is "said I".

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I read through most of Thmilin's review... sounds weird. I might just have to catch it.



Female assassin extraordinaire.
should have used the male characters! the mis/use of the body, particularly the female body, was def a key vision in the story. men haunted by things they've done to women, the cruelties done to little girls to make them turn into dangerous monsters, etc.