Silent Hill

Went and caught the matinee for this, and was pleased. Having never played the game, I really had no comparision to anything else. The acting isn't Oscar material, but it doesn't have to be to be entertaining. The visual effects were phenomenal, especially when the "darkness" came on.

I was surprised by the length of the movie, clocked at around 2 hours. Most game-to-movie adaptions run out of material within the first half-hour, but this kept going.

This movie has disturbing sequences, and I don't really want to ruin the surprise, so I'll let you see for yourself.

Like I said before, this ISN'T Oscar material, but it's still a good movie.

My opinion 3 and a half out of 4

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

I was somewhat disappointed at this. This visuals were insane and the best bit by far along with creature design. The script was pretty weak as were the characters, Sean Bean (doing a crap American accent) was completely un-needed along with his side story, which destroyed the pace and mood as did most the extras. As soon as the isolation aspect went and they met the others it went downhill and trying to fit in an over amibitious plot during a 10 minute catch up at the end spoiled it. The creatures needed a lot more screentime, especially The Janitor and Pyramid Head- who was totally awesome btw, and the plot slackened to something that doesn't recquire as much time to try and explain. I've played the games somewhat and captures a lot the style and aspects well, so the best VG adaptation yet but, for me, only

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I was hoping for more from this. I have not seen it yet, but your quick review does not merit your 3/5 rating. At least IMO. Should I go see it?

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I hate the world.

I'm writing a review right now, but just to get my frustration out here...

Damn it!

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Horror's Not Dead
Latest Movie Review(s): Too lazy to keep this up to date. New reviews every week.

OG ... yes. i'm writing one too. guess we all saw it today eh?

This is it, in a nutshell, but the sad thing is that the exact things you said could have improved it (been removed or added) ... were all in the game. They chose, alas, to wreck a handsomely developed story that has literally fed a video game series into multiple releases. Which I've played, by the way, every single one from the first.

They did deliver on the gist - religious fanaticism/cultism, pursuing/loving/protecting/fearing a child, the "wander around chasing after ghosts pulling yourself out of hell via clues and survival" theme, the dark unreality and the raw gruesomeness of it ...

And that's it. Not that that's not enough to make a movie but when the game creators literally hand you a 4 star horror flick plot, theme, ambiance, etc., and all you need is to get the crap made with some decent actors, it's a stupid thing to still come out at like, 3. they did it to themselves. sigh.

details, including spoilers, in my review (eventually to appear here:

http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=11722

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life without movies is like cereal without milk. possible, but disgusting. but not nearly as bad as cereal with water. don't lie. I know you've done it.

You can read my full review here, but in summation, all of the film's faults lay almost entirely in its script. The movie never, ever gets scary. And as soon as it does threaten to become thrilling, it cuts back to Sean Bean wandering around the safe world with the most force fed motivation I've seen in a while. The production design is phenomenal, but the products of it are never really given much of anything to do. Red Pyramid was the single coolest thing about the movie, but his total screen time was less than 5 minutes. ****, was he awesome, though.

Silent Hill is just constant introduction, with little to no followup. So much so that we never bother to ask the film questions, but take everything at face value. But then the script decides that it's going to grind the movie to a halt to answer the questions no one was ever asking. That narration sequence killed the entire movie for me. It was already limping meekly on at that point, but that was just the bullet right between the eyes.

I understand the film's characters are running from what they fear, but that doesn't mean the film itself has to run from what it fears. Let us be afraid, you don't need to cover our eyes whenever things threaten to get interesting.

After all has been said, I agree with everyone else and take away my 3 and a half out of 4 rating and give it a solid 2.

If anyone cares, here are some helpful links:

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

Experience Silent Hill (a little 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/

Explore the game and Silent Hill town

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

Seriously. . . Thats disappointing. I havent seen it yet, but I love scary movies so I was excited to hear about it. Maybe I'll still like it though. My love for horror and the fact that it supposedly has good visual effects might override the crap acting. I've only played Silent Hill 4: The Room. Anyone else?

I guess, I'll just have to check it out for myself.

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Happily in love since 16 Feb 2005.

I still think it's worth watching for the amazing art direction, sets and monsters, plus there are still some rather kick ass memorable bits as well.

I agree there was a lot left to be desired in the writing. For one thing, is it really necessary to patronize every character except the main one, by making them brain-dead cliches? On top of that, it starts off on the wrong foot, with very thin motivation for its characters to actually go to Silent Hill. It felt they they were rushing ahead to get past the exposition, and they once they did, they slowed down obscenely and started explaining things non-stop. There was never time to experience the creepy atmospherics that the game provided and the movie should have provided as well. It was constantly disrupted by laughable dialogue and a overly cluttered story. Instead of details that we've seen before that really aren't interesting, why not keep it stark? A girl is missing and her mother is looking for her, cue creepy setting and horrifying creatures. On top of that the plot became a bit too convoluted and it seems like even the writer didn't exactly know what happened because it really didn't make sense. The portion of the film where Rose goes to meet the demon is heavily anticlimactic because there is such a build-up and then it is accomplished way too quickly, with relative ease. Either the writer was lazy, or wanted to save more time for his crappy storyline. finally there was no information in the film that would facilitate what happened in the end, so I'm convinced it's only there as their attempt to avoid a standard happy ending. It doesn't make sense even within the context of the film, so...it fails. Very lame, what a shame.

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

yes, that's true.

that still doesn't stop me from being peesed off.

hear hear, Strummer521.

Im not a big video game into movie fan but i do appreciate the effort put forth to create a pretty good movie. I've seen it twice so far and think the cg effects are sweet and the audio factor works very well. The sounds alone remind me of a zombie themed game where you hear the noise of an unseen being dragging its leg or a pipe down the street before you even see the creature. ITS WORTH SEEING.

yes, the game is also known for its own zombies. in fact, a key factor of "ambiance" is sound, smell, taste ... and sound in movies and games is equally important. if the voiceover or the music or the sound effects suck, the movie OR game is drastically worse.

in the very FIRST silent hill, you'd hear the sound of moaning and crying and random screams when you went through an empty room you could have sworn no one was in. the walls throb, things creak, and there's an industrial violence kinda sound to the track - grinding, gears, machinery, cutting, engines, chainsaws, that kind of thing. it makes you feel very frail and easy to destory, because something violent is out there shredding humans up and chasing you.

we used to play the game where all your character has is a lighter/flashlight (happens in the movie - but you don't get that kinda flame from a lighter , and outside of that one foot of light you've got pitch blackness and some mist to make the lighted area in front of your face fuzzy instead of clear. you'll be walking and hear winged things sweeping and screaming, then WHOOMP - a winged monster attacks you cuz you turned left too soon in the dark. you'll try to run away and run into a dumpster or a fence or get stuck behind a car and there's nowhere to go (a lot of this happens in the movie, dealing witht he environment while being chased, which was welldone).

it's worse in enclosed spaces where things (including zombie nurses) are coming for you and you have 6 handgun bullets left and you need 8 shotgun bullets to kill them all.

your whole world was about sound, and panic. what was super cool - well, not so cool but freaky - was in the game your radio would go off with static if a monster was close. you'd hear it all the time and never quite be sure how close the monster was, etc. you got super attuned to discerning how close something was and if it was relaly there or not.

so for MONTHS afterward, me and my friend would HEAR the static and HEAR the creature noises and freak. long after we completed the game, we'd you know, be coming up the steps tomy apartment late at night and hear static or creaking or whatever and get scared.

THAT is an experience, yo.

someone link me to everyone that did a review on this movie, cause i don't want to have to shuffle through everyones personal threads...

well, i'll shuffle through Peters and thm, cause they be special.

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letterboxd

Sorry...can't help you...I'm lazy too...

I enjoyed this one, I will agree and give it a solid 2 stars, maybe 2 and a half becuase I am such a gorehound and I got quite a few juicy kills towards the end. But thats really all I expected...a good gory popcorn movie that is a pretty decent game to film adaptation, much better than Doom or the first Resident Evil film.

I have not seen it yet, couldn't bring myself to pay theater prices for this one. But my question is, is it worth buying on DVD or should this be one for rental only?

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"I know, honey. Look at the map. We go your way, that's about four inches. We go my way, it's an inch and a half. You wanna pay for the extra gas?"

I'd say strictly a rental.

I'd agree with the rental status. I don't think it's that good of a film... beautiful in places but never creepy or scary in the slightest. At the same time, it has a dark, sorrowful atmosphere that stays with you. Or at least it stayed with me. I was surprised by the lulling, contemplative tone of the film. There is something to be said for Gans' pinache.