SILENT HILL is about as much fun as watching someone else play a videogame. There hasn't been a good movie based on a game yet, and there never will be unless someone realizes that the engine that drives a videogame is not the same as a feature film. We need characters we care about in situations where we want to see them succeed. Getting past the next "level" is not as rewarding when we're spectators and not participants. The film thrusts us into the action right off the bat.
Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell, MELINDA AND MELINDA) desperately runs from her house looking for her daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland, TIDELAND), whose sleepwalking is getting dangerous. Rose's husband Christopher (Sean Bean, FLIGHTPLAN) wants to take Sharon to a doctor, but Rose decides to steal their daughter and take her to the ghost town Silent Hill, West Virginia, which her young girl seems to be obsessed with. When Rose and Sharon get close to Silent Hill, which was abandoned due to a coal mine fire burning under the town, they arouse the suspicions of police officer Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden, THE MAJESTIC). When Rose is pulled over, she runs from the cops and ends up crashing her car right outside Silent Hill. When she wakes up her daughter is gone and she seems trapped in the strange town where ash rains from the sky and demons and monsters (both human and non-human) inhabit the town.
At first, I thought thrusting the viewer into the story was a bold move, keeping us on edge and guessing. But before too long one realizes it’s the lack of development in the beginning that undermines the entire production. It turns out the filmmakers are just rushing to Silent Hill so they can slavishly recreate the videogame for the big screen. There is some story involved in the town, but it's presented confusingly and convolutedly. There is so much plot that if you stop paying attention for a second while the characters ramble exposition then you won't understand why or how they know what they are supposed to do next.
As for our main character, Rose is unsympathetic. She endangers her daughter and then loses her. This is where jumping right into the action and never showing us the characters' situation before arriving at Silent Hill really hurts. I never cared if Rose got her kid back because she frankly didn't deserve to get her back. Just like a videogame Rose moves from one obstacle to the next with little logic or reason. She just needs to make it past the next monster so that we can get another piece of the Silent Hill mystery. Because we don't care about Rose and because there is never a real tangible connection created between Rose and Sharon and what happened in Silent Hill, we don't care about anything that happens. Cop Cybil is a total cog of the plot and her ridiculous tight police outfit and short blonde hair make her look like a reject from an all-lesbian Village People cover band.
The promise of PULP FICTION writer Roger Avary penning this screenplay seemed great, but either he's too much of a fan of the videogame or didn't care. Because the central story doesn't seem to be enough to fill the running time, we are given a subplot of Christopher looking for his wife and daughter, which serves no purpose and goes nowhere. Director Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) captures a great look for the film. The ash-filled skies of Silent Hill are a brilliant element for a horror film. Some of the monsters are creepy, especially a group of faceless, mechanical-moving nurses with scalpels. But none of these wonderful atmospherics create any real dread, because we don't care about the people encountering them and never feel like they are in any real danger. Two times early on Rose survives a monster attack by falling down and blanking out. Deus ex mechanica is the lamest of all dramatic devices. It's totally a writer's cop out. But I guess Gans and Avary don't care, so we don't care.
Any person that really knows games, knows that gameplay is the most important thing and story is just the cherry on the top. Traditionally, games put you the player into a simple situation and you have to successfully complete task after task to accomplish the overall goal. For SILENT HILL the game, it's you finding you're daughter. After each successful level one is rewarded with a piece of the Silent Hill story; it's like a bonus. Game writers have to come up with enough elements to end each level. Arbitrary twists are not uncommon because they are just there to make the next level harder. This all works when you are actively participating in the action. The emotional pull for the player is winning. Humans are selfish creatures — it doesn't take much for us to want to win ourselves, but we have to care to root for someone else to win. Sometimes it doesn't take much for us to care, but where SILENT HILL the movie fails is that it not only doesn't give us reasons to care about its characters, it actually gives us reasons not to care about them.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
