SILENT HILL MOVIE REVIEW
Never have I been a fan of the horror movie genre. Lately, its been peppered with low budget, raunchy, teen-slasher flicks offering cheap thrills and immediately forgettable movie experiences. So it was a big surprise to me that I found myself watching this movie in theatre. Thinking back I know why. There were three simple reasons that encouraged me to watch this film. Reason No.1 was a friend named Zoheb, a big horror movie fan, to whom I hardly say no. Reason No.2 was the fact that there was no other movie to watch (No! I did not intend to see RV. Actually my friends and I sneaked into another screen and saw the first 10 mins before Silent hill started. Man! was it horrible.) Reason No.3 is that I am a big gaming enthusiast and any movie adapted from a video game is always welcome ( Silent Hill is one such). Not because video game based movies are good (they are usually bad, sometimes even down-right horrible. Think Bloodrayne ), it's because they offer cheap thrills and immediately forgettable movie experiences...err, on a bigger budget. Just to raise my expectations I even tried my hand at Silent Hill 4 - The Room. After an hour of play I was dissapointed with every aspect of the game - the gameplay, the controls, even the scares.
It even slightly managed to hamper my decision to see the movie, but only slightly. If anyone shared these thoughts that I had, it is obvious one wouldnt expect much out of a movie like Silent hill and neither did I. But this movie proved me wrong. It's been almost two months since I have seen this movie and I still manage to recollect every scene.Silent Hill opens with a young girl, a sleepwalking Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) being pursued by her mother, Rose (Radha Mitchell) and father, Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean). Constantly uttering, dreaming and drawing about Silent Hill (a small ghost town in West Virginia), Rose is forced to drive the disillusioned Sharon to the very place that fuels her nightmares. Seems like the correct thing to do, right? Against the will of her husband, Rose drives down to Silent Hill only to be pursued by a suspecting police officer, Cybil Bennet (Laurie Holden), on a bike. Not pulling over for the officer, hot pursuit soon ensues only to be suddenly interupted by the ghostly figure of small girl walking in the middle of the road. A scenario like this in horror movies can only mean one thing - Slamming hard on the brakes equals an accident and as a result Rose soon loses consiousness.
After waking up she soon finds herself on the outskirts of silent hill and to add to her already existing trauma, her daughter is nowhere to be found. Stepping out of her SUV, Rose is greeted by a town covered with fog and falling ash, painting a surreal look the likes of which can be compared with the scene where Tom Cruise is woken from the footpath by Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky. The atmosphere alone gives away a lot of clues to movie watchers who pay attention to trivial details. Rose soon rushes into the town hoping to find her daughter and starts pursuing an ever evasive young girl who resembles her daughter. Following her down a stairwell, the sound of a siren falls on her ears soon followed by a thick viel of darkness. The darkness changes the whole outlook of Silent Hill from the gloomy and foggy town to one filled with blood and rust, reflecting the visions that Sharon had about Silent Hill. Out of the darkness emerges disfigured, charred children like figures with banshee like wails. After being swarmed by hundreds of them, Rose manages to fight them off long enough to survive the darkness. After losing consiousness once again (who wouldnt, in a scenario like that), Rose wakes up in the foggy, ash laden town once again. 
Coming across a huge chasm that detaches Silent Hill from the rest of the world, Rose meets the towns first resident, a craggy old lady who reeks the appearance of a person who might have been the towns only resident for years. Unable to get any answers from the old lady about the whereabouts of her daughter, Rose calls her husband only to pick up static at both ends. But thank god her husband is intelligent enough to assume that something has gone wrong, taking it upon his shoulders to go look for Rose. Rose then runs back to her SUV only to be arrested by Cybil, whose bike too has crashed into the girders during the previous night. Soon after the arrest, the siren sounds once again followed by the familiar darkness. Out of the ashen depths emerge new figures that slowly start advancing toward them...
Intrigued? So was I after this point. It's rather hard to explain the plot behind Silent Hill without possibly retelling the whole movie. In short the film is actually the tragic story of a young girl named Alessa who is wrongly accused by the citizens of her own town, Silent Hill, as a witch. But while burning poor Alessa at the stake the fire spreads destroying the whole town before dying out. Barely rescued at the very last minute by a local police officer and suffering from severe burns, an almost lifeless Alessa is rushed to a hospital where she longs for unleashing her vengeance upon those who wronged her. Her prayers are soon answered by someone who grants Alessa enough powers to vent out her anger in destructive ways. Thirty years later Alessa uses Sharon and Rose as instruments in her grand plan of retribution.
Not being a fan of the video game franchise its hard for me to decide whether Silent Hill remained faithful to its source. But I do know that it borrows heavily from the first two games and most of the soundtracks used in the film are directly lifted from the games themselves. And what do you know the music fits every frame of the film like a glove. But two aspects of the movie that have to be commended are the visuals and production design. The ambience that every scene is painted with couldnt be presented on a better scale. In this era ruled by CGI, it is actually quite hard to believe that most of what you see actually existed in flesh on the set. It seems they used dancers to perform complex, grotesque moves that were necessary to portray the monsters that roam Silent Hill. Some of the visuals along with the lighting were so well done anyone is bound to be spellbound while looking at it. The scene where Cybil is being lowered while tied to a ladder is still vividly etched in my mind after a period of two months. The movie does possess its fair share of blood and violence but the gore is never felt. Giving the audience a sense of creepiness instead of fear, Silent Hill feels more like an M.Night Shyamalan film than anything else. When it comes to performances not much can be said- it's just that the story is so convoluted it doesnt allow room for any of the actors to enact their characters.
The Story of Silent Hill explores a lot of debatable subjects like Metaphysics and religion. Comprehension is often conflicted with questioning when one faces subjects dealing with space-time continuities, parallel dimensions/realities, concept of heaven and hell or even the existence of an anti-god. But it is best if we do not question the various scenarios that Silent Hill throws at us and assume that the possibilities are endless. Questioning every aspect would probably lead to a very pointless movie experience. Even after this, at the end of the movie the viewer cant help but leave with a lot of questions unanswered. A few may find it frustrating because of the bad aftertaste but if you followed the events closely, you might probably understand everything that just transpired onscreen. If you ask me I would ask you to see Silent Hill for this very reason- just to know your interpretation of this movie. - {BATMAN^V^EXILED}
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posted by Tomas Creo at 3:05 PM
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