Silent Hill (2006)

Originally reviewed on 10/31/22.

Silent Hill's poster, a young girl rendered like a cracked painting. She has no mouth, just blank skin below her nose.

There's this one video by a woman named Jenny Nicholson where, at one point, she is reviewing a bag of candied almonds. She says something along the lines of, "I think I like it. I don't like this gross candy coating, but I like the almonds... But I guess that just means that I like almonds, and that this is a failed product."

That's how I feel about this. I like the parts that remind me of the games, but the original content begins to lose me. This is a frankenstein's monster of random beats from the video game, stripped of their context and plopped into this movie just to make Silent Hill fans go "Hey, it's just like the game!"

Which is something I've done watching this. Especially the use of the game's soundtrack. But disembodied motifs does not make a movie. And this movie, without those motifs, is a bit of a mess. The pacing is completely off, conversations rush like they're two actors reading off lines in their first ever take. Characters experience one hardship and are suddenly wisened fighters used to this hell and ready to strike back.

Silent Hill, the game franchise, has a lot of meaning to it. Each monster is a walking metaphor, each one a complex and nuanced idea that relies heavily on the character witnessing it. To take these monsters and make them manifest to just anybody makes no sense. Pyramid Head is a manifestation of James' guilt surrounding his wife's death, his sexual repression, and his desire to be punished. How on Earth does our protagonist embody that enough to have her own pyramid head stalk her? Her own nurses and straight jackets too? That's only one example. There's nothing deeper down in this movie adaption of a deep and philosophical game.

It felt indecisive. There's a new character, so you'd think it's a new adventure, but as said it's just a blend of the first few games. It most closely resembles SH1, but... This isn't Harry. If it's not Harry, why is this playing out Harry's experience? Why not abandon all the strings of needing to adapt the games and just make a new story? If not that, why not just adapt the first game itself, changing less?

Oh yeah, props for showing that handcuff trick. Always frustrates me when a character is handcuffed and they don't know to just loop their arms past their feet to get their hands in front of them.

But in the end, for a video game movie, this could certainly be worse. It kept me entertained and there was actually some of the game still there, stripped of it's context and meaning but still there.

★★☆☆☆