Silent Hill

[onionhead]

Anyone looking forward to this?  Apparently it opens today, and has gotten some pretty favorable nods from IMDB.  Critics tend to trash stuff like this, but what does Roger Ebert know?  I am packng plenty o' popcorn.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Onion,

I'm looking forward to this one.  I'm a huge fan of the game, and of Chritophe Gans' "Brotherhood Of The Wolf".  Most of the reviews are calling it a nighmare film in the same vein as Suspiria, and that's enough to get me creaming myself.

Can't wait to see this one!

[Jim H]

Roger Ebert at least said it had great visuals.  He seemed to be put off by its confusing storyline.

[dean]

Although I haven't played much of the Silent Hill games, I really like the concepts for them [Number 4, I think, about the guy stuck in his apartment seemed really cool] plus the graphic novels were gruesome fun.

So yes, after this and watching the trailer, I'm looking foward to this one: not enough Japanese survival horror in films these days!

[peter johnson]

I don't know this as a game at all, but as a comic book from 10(?) years ago or so -- Seems to be the same thing.
Anyone know if the game was based on the comic or vice versa?
peter johnson/denny crane

[Dunners]

Bleh, movie was boring pretentious crap. it wasnt even Silent Hill really, it was 'Aliens' meets 'the Crucible'. Even as a bad movie fan this as a waste of time.

[Jim H]

"it wasnt even Silent Hill really, it was 'Aliens' meets 'the Crucible'"

Have you played the games much?  It had many things that played on stuff with the games.  The layout of the town, some characters, names, almost all the music, the creature design, numerous other things.  It had more in common with the game than any other Hollywood adaptation thus far.  They can't really do a literal adaptation of the way the games play out, as it would make for a very boring overlong movie.  Which one could argue Silent Hill is anyway...  But....

I saw the movie.  I enjoyed it, I suppose.  Not a whole lot, though.  It was kind of uninvolving in a way.  I can't really write a paragraph about the movie as a whole because of this, so I'll just say what I liked and what I didn't.

I liked:

A lot of the visuals.  The look of the town, the look of the creatures, some of the cinematography.  This was my favorite aspect of the movie actually.

The buildup in the first half hour.

The gore.  It did have a decent amount of it.

Pyramidhead.  What's not to like?

The performances were mostly good.  Alice Krige does the best, though her role isn't particularly challenging.  

What I didn't like:

Nearly all of Sean Bean's part could have been deleted without much change.

Some of the character decisions.  Two of these make the characters in the Friday the 13th series look clever.  Like the whole running from the police bit.  WTF?

The way the plot is revealed towards the end.  Pretty lame.

It was fairly uninvolving, as I mentioned.  This is probably the most damning aspect of the film.  Nothing here really got my blood flowing, so to speak.  I didn't really care about too many of the characters.  It probably says something that I cared more about the police officer lady (whose name I can't even remember) than about any of the more major characters.

[Dunners]

Silent Hill, self purgatory brought upon the town after the cultists mess up the summoning of the forgotten god in an attempt to bring it into our world.

I'll get more into detail laters, but yes I've played the games, when I say it isn't Silent Hill, I dont mean ti doesn't look like Silent Hill or have the monsters from the games, I mean it isn't silent Hill as it's not what SIlent Hill is.