Film: Silent Hill
Genre: Video Game Adaption/Horror
Release Date: April 21, 2006
Distributor: Sony
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hrs. 0 minutes.
Review by Dack

Starring:
Radha Mitchell
Sean Bean
Laurie Holden
Deborah Kara Unger
Kim Coates

Silent Hill is the latest Video Game Adaption to hit theatres, and is the Best Video Game adaption to date.

Rose's and Christopher's daughter Sharon is having nightmares in which she sleep walks and yells "Silent Hill". Rose researches Silent Hill and finds out it is a closed ghost town that had a fire 30 years ago, that is still burning underneath the city. Sharon's sleep walking is getting worse, and the doctors says she needs to take pills. Rose doesn't want to put Sharon on pills, and thinks if she takes her to Silent Hill, it may help Sharon remember why she is having nightmares about Silent Hill. After a car crash Rose wakes up to find her daughter missing, and goes looking for Sharon in the empty ash filled town that is Silent Hill.

The sets they used for scenes in Silent Hill are perfect. It is all has a gray tint and the only noise is Rose and a eerie warning siren that comes on that really sets the mood. Radha Mitchell does a great job at playing rose, you can feel the fear she has for loosing her daughter and for being in a place filled with fear. Silent Hill has an orchestrated soundtrack that is perfect for all the scenes, such as using ambient music when rose was exploring Silent Hill.

Silent Hill is meant to be a horror movie, but there are no jump out of your seat parts, it has more of a horror that sticks with you days after you see the movie. It is gory however, there is more then one "That is sick" scene, but it is done to benefit the script, and not just there to gross you out.

Silent Hill did a great job imitating the popular Konami video game series with the same name, which has never really been done in a Video Game Adaption flick before. So yes, gamers rejoice, there still is hope for video games in Hollywood, and this is proof being the best Video Game Adaption to date.

Dack's Rating: 4/5 Stars

Second Opinion by Kiwi:

This movie rocked. That's all there is to it. A great blend of mystery and exploration in the daytime hours of the ghastly Silent Hill and pure Hell for poor Rose and Cybill in the nighttime. Great special effects, a solid storyline, and my only complaints are on the very confusing ending (which Dack and I have been discussing in detail right now as we write this review, with no real progress on one solid theory that works) and perhaps too little horror at times. I don't like horror, and there are a few "Oh... wow..." scenes, such as one with this girl's clothes and flesh ripped off in two swift strokes by Pyramid Head which made me cringe a bit, but most of it gives a slight shock and... that's it.

I also liked the parallel storyline with Sean Bean as the husband trying to find Rose and daughter Sharon. It gives good insight to what happened in the town thirty years ago during the great fire, and the contrast between the looks of the two realities of Silent Hill really shines when you see the other world: Rose's Silent Hill has a faded look to it, and it's always snowing ashes, while Christopher's (Bean) shows sharp, solid colors. All in all, a very well done movie, if not exactly a classic. Best movie adaptation of a video game to date.

Kiwi's score: 4/5 stars.

Final score: 4/5 stars