French director Christophe Gans’s adaptation of the Silent Hill computer game is visually inspired and thematically ambitious, yet ultimately uninvolving.
Silent Hill (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:82
Fresh:25
Rotten:57
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: Silent Hill is visually impressive, but as with many video game adaptations, it’s plagued by inane dialogue, a muddled plot, and an overlong runtime.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, and some language
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Apr 21, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $46,982,632
Synopsis: It's always been said that a video game cannot be successfully adapted into a film. With SILENT HILL, director Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and screenwriter Roger Avary (KILLING ZOE)... It's always been said that a video game cannot be successfully adapted into a film. With SILENT HILL, director Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and screenwriter Roger Avary (KILLING ZOE) have the benefit of the atmospheric and often terrifying game series of the same name. With a budget reportedly in excess of $50 million, they wisely eschew dense plot in favor of a kaleidoscopic nightmare--culled from several volumes of the game series--designed to give horror fans what they crave. Radha Mitchell (PITCH BLACK) stars as Rose Da Silva, a young mother whose adopted daughter Sharon speaks of the eponymous West Virginia mining town as she sleepwalks. Rose decides to take Sharon there in an attempt to discover why it haunts her dreams--but Silent Hill has been a ghost town since a series of underground coal fires in 1974, and the residents who stayed behind are the stuff of nightmares. SILENT HILL is notable for having a largely female cast (the male characters were reportedly added at the studio's behest), with Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, Alice Krige, and Laurie Holden in the principal roles. But the film's real star is production designer Carol Spier (known for her frequent work with David Cronenberg), whose work makes the deserted town into a true vision of hell. Utilizing an effective combination of CGI and latex makeup effects, several of the creatures on display may upset more sensitive viewers, as will some of the carnage, which is strong for an R rating. On the other hand, seasoned horror fans and gamers who have been waiting to see a joystick-free version of SILENT HILL are likely to come away feeling like they've just taken a nightmare vacation to the spookiest town in America. [More]
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Sean Bean, Deborah Unger
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Sean Bean, Deborah Unger, Tanya Allen, Kim Coates, Alice Krige, Jodelle Ferland
Director: Christophe Gans
Director: Christophe Gans
Producer: Roger Avary, Samuel Hadida, Don Carmody
Composer: Jeff Danna
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
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Release:
Aug 22, 2006
Reviews for Silent Hill
The truly scary thing about Silent Hill is that it's 127 minutes long, which means it's a good 20 to 30 minutes longer than most of the other similarly awful films inspired by video games.
No matter how you interpret the film, it's nearly impossible to deny what a beautiful work of art it is.
Suggests the surreal, almost post-narrative horror movies of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and other directors who favor the emotional impact of bold, grotesque imagery over story logic.
Stuffed with cheap effects and devoid of tension, this French-Japanese-U.S. co-production contributes exactly zilch to the rich film history of those three nations.
SILENT HILL leaves a lot up to you to figure out, but gamers used to conventions like phasing in and out of alternate worlds should have no problem going along for the ride. Middle-aged critics are another story.
A video game alone is not sufficient source material for a whole movie.
Without gristle on it, and disturbance behind it, there's little to invest in.
The film's peculiar rhythms%u2014action, exposition, action, exposition%u2014betray its video-game roots, but audiences unfamiliar with the Silent Hill series can be forgiven for thinking that the game asks players to run from place to place, shouting a l
Not scary, not interesting, not much of anything except visually stylish.
It's refreshing to see a full-blown, straight-faced, supernatural horror movie in this age of grubby torture flicks being mistaken for the coin of the realm.
Structured around a series of blackouts and gross-outs, Silent Hill is one long free fall through icky surrealism and underlighted nightmares.
'A lot of what gets called entertainment today is actually dumpster-diving for the mind' applies to this incomprehensible, incoherent supernatural thriller.
This is an average movie, and not what Slient Hill, a standout, resonant game series, deserves.
the filmmakers may be hedging too many bets, trying to make the film both acceptable to fans and accessible to newcomers. But while SILENT HILL is far from perfect, it is at the very least a valiant effort
Latest News for Silent Hill
September 15, 2009:
Silent Hill Sequel in the Works ![]()
The studio that produced the original hasn't confirmed involvement, but the producer and screenwriter of "Silent Hill" are reuniting for a sequel. More...
August 03, 2007:
Hadida, Avary Set to Storm Castle Wolfenstein
It's been around since 1981 -- making it older than a number of our readers -- but the Wolfenstein series of games is still going strong, and after over five years in... More...
July 20, 2007:
Silent Hill 2 Loses Director and Writer
If (like me) you were actually a fan of Christophe Gans' "Silent Hill," then this might come as disappointing news: Not only does it look like the director's no longer... More...
June 01, 2007:
The Weekly Ketchup: Possible New "Terminator," "AVP 2" Update, "Iron Man" Tidbits, And More!
In this week's Ketchup, another European has surfaced as a possibile star for the third "Terminator" sequel, "Alien vs. Predator 2" gets a 'horrific'... More...
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