Silent Hill (2006)
Posted on May 6, 2006
Filed Under Creepy stuff, Ghosts, Monsters, Movies, Weird
Computer games have something of a chequered history when it comes to big screen adaptations. Actually I suppose that’s not quite true as their heritage is quite consistent; basically, they’re usually very bad indeed. I’d still like to know who decided that Bob Hoskins would make a good Super Mario, or that Kylie Minogue’s heart-warming portrayal of quintessential Australian suburb-dweller could only be followed by a part in Street Fighter. More recently we’ve had the slightly more accomplished Resident Evil series which wasn’t as bad (no really) as a lot of people feared.
How does Silent Hill fit into this spectrum? I was hindered from the off by the fact that I am completely unfamiliar with the original games, though a cursory trawl through Wikipedia tells me that they’re onto their fifth instalment so must be doing something right. In some ways this could have been an advantage as I was able to judge the film squarely on its own merits rather than constantly spotting the differences between it and the games that spawned it.
This worked out fine to begin with, as the film gently builds in to a naturally engaging plot despite the best efforts of its uniformly average dialogue to induce collective insomnia. Rose’s interactions with her daughter quickly become overly sincere to the point of irritation. It’s not that you want Sharon to be gobbled up by the demons but you ask yourself if you’d really care if she was. By the time we get to the ‘burn the witch!’ towards the finale the tedium is irreversibly established.
This is where the poor job of translating the plot from a computer game to the big screen really shines through. Not enough is made of the fact that Silent Hill periodically reverts into Hell on earth until the final 15 minutes, which probably ties in with how the adventure develops on the game. That’s fine where the gamer has hours worth of interaction with which to frame their experience but it doesn’t hold together in a film of this length. What results is an effort that feels like a botched rush job and an overly drawn out melodrama at the same time. The hesitant feel of the tale also has the original game written all over it. There is some attempt to weave a narrative thread through it by having Sean Bean as an external character who puts the pieces into place but this never really takes off and he seems to be completely forgotten for lengthy periods (which is just as well given his awful American accent). This does little to help the fact that absolutely NOTHING happens for most of the film. There is minimal plot development, almost no engagement with any of the characters and a complete lack of momentum which completely undercuts the attempt at a dramatic finale.
It’s a real shame because the storyline is one that should work on film. The reversion scenes are the undoubted highlights of the film, watching as an already sinister town is unexpectedly punctuated by air-raid sirens and suddenly and inexplicably turns into Hell. You come to look forward to the fleeting moments of engagement they bring in punctuating the vapid and seemingly interminable hunt for Sharon. Even they lose some of their magic when the answers are finally revealed, again in an astonishingly inept way which eradicates what little suspense there is remaining. The mixed morality tale is left far too late in the day to develop any roots and ends up looking like a bad adaptation of The Ring.
With a little bit more thought Silent Hill might have finally broken the mould of poor computer game-to-film adaptations but instead it coasts through expecting its core fans to be content with seeing the characters and places they are familiar with being presented in real life action. To the uninitiated it ends up feeling like a stunted horror version of Groundhog Day, only with none of its positive qualities.
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