Silent Hill
People who don’t learn from their history are doomed to repeat it. Sure, it’s an old chestnut, but, man, is it true. As a general rule, movies based on video games, to use the vernacular, totally blow. Dear Lord, why oh why didn’t we learn from Super Mario Brothers? Unfortunately, we didn’t and after that we have Double Dragon, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat. You’d think that we would have learned something at this point, but no. Seriously, though, combat is spelled with a “K”. Seriously? Then comes such modern classics as Wing Commander, Doom, Resident Evil and its sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which is so bad it barely even classifies as filmmaking. Well it does, but in the same way that sleeping with your mouth open is filmmaking.
Now we have Silent Hill, which is just a pointless mess that offers nothing in the way of scares. Let me go ahead and warn you that there is going to be all sorts of spoilers ahead, but they are there for your benefit. Here’s basically what you need to know about the “plot”: Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell) is troubled because adopted daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) says the words “silent hill” when she sleepwalks. This is especially frustrating since for some reason they have chosen to live next door to an enormous cliff. Instead of investing in, let’s say, locks or even moving, Rose decides the best course of action would be to essentially kidnap her daughter and go to the ghost town Silent Hill where some horrible tragedy has occurred.
Once she gets there she looses her daughter in a town that is laid out like a multi-level dungeon and arbitrarily changes from normal to freaky. The only problem is that “freaky” isn’t that freaky and is too much like something out of a video game. Yes, I know, it is based on one, but where’s the originality? Not to mention the fact that since there’s a limited number of characters there is no real sense of danger since someone has to survive to hear the explanation for all this garbage.
What’s the explanation? Well apparently the townsfolk are religious zealots who blame everything bad on witches. When a young girl is born out of wedlock they decide that instead of punishing the mother the best course of action is to burn the little girl. OK, so while this little girl is intensive care a demon offers to help her take revenge, she agrees and the demon then embodies all that is evil within the girl. Got it? There’s more. So, this demon then takes the embodiment of all that was good in the girl (Sharon) to an orphanage, where she is eventually adopted by Rose. That doesn’t sound ridiculous at all, does it?
This movie is a shame because Radha Mitchell is pretty talented and did a great job in Melinda and Melinda. However, I really feel bad for Sean Bean. Originally, the screenplay didn’t have any male characters so at the studio’s behest his character was added in. The fact that he is completely and totally superfluous really speaks to this. Most of his scenes are either him alone on a phone or with the only other male in the film. What’s the point? Either add him in as a real character or leave him out. I would imagine that the target audience of teenage boys would probably not complain about an all female cast.
Look, if I have convinced just one person to not see this film, then I have done my job. On the other hand, if you’ve already seen Silent Hill and you like it, you need to see a doctor. There is something seriously wrong with you and I would suggest a full work up; maybe a CAT scan, possibly a MRI, but definitely some serious counseling. If you have a friend that needs help with Silent Hill, there are resources on the Web on how to perform an intervention. Seek help.
The Grade
- Story: F
- Acting: D+
- Visuals: C-
- Originality: D
- Enjoyability: F
- Overall: F
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