Yea I live in a cave. Not only am I over a decade late to the Silent Hill party, but I had no idea that it is an adaptation of the famous 1999 PlayStation game Silent Hill. If this describes you as well then read on because it might help you enjoy this flick more.

Silent Hill the movie has a distinctly cold, brooding vibe similar to the classic supernatural mindbenders like The Others, The Sixth Sense, or even going way back to The Shining. That is, it immediately puts us in a surreal state of mind, cut off from reality (in this case an abandoned ghost town) where anything can & usually does happen.

Where it gets crazy and possibly disorienting to newbies is when it incorporates some of the videogame elements which are never really explained. The terrifying monster Pyramid Head just sort of appears without any context, and similarly the famous Nurses From Hell scene happens almost randomly. These are excellent scenes, but still a bit disorienting if you're trying to relate everything to the narrative that's unfolding.

The story itself is about a woman searching for a child in the creepy ghost town of Silent Hill, and it becomes a sort of dysfunctional Alice in Wonderland type tale with random gruesome episodes and good scares, but underneath it is a consistent plot which slowly reveals itself. One unique angle worth mentioning is that this movie is almost entirely a female cast. I thought that was a really interesting diversion from the standard horror flick where men dominate the story as both heroes and villians. Here our protagonist is a strong female lead--not quite Sarah Connor Terminator 2 strong, but definitely not a squeaking damsel in distress. The antagonist is a female as well, a very creepy matriarchal character whom you totally wouldn't want to meet at Sunday brunch.

Just be prepared that not everything ties neatly into the story (due to the videogame elements),and that's my only real criticism. However, if I watch it a 2nd time I'll be better prepared, as I hope you are after reading this! Silent Hill is a great flick with some terrifying moments, nice creative gore (ever see someone get their entire skin ripped off? tune in) and a satisfying story with a really interesting twist. Definitely worth checking out.

I remember I sat down to play Silent Hill a couple of years ago because the mystery genre intrigued me and the game had an interesting look to it, so I started running through the abandoned town of 'Silent Hill' as the main player. I stopped playing very soon because, in truth, not a whole lot was happening. It was mostly an uncomfortable experience, eerily lit and hauntingly scored. I could feel an intense build-up in that foggy place but I never reached the culmination, so I gave up. OK, fine - I was scared.

Years later this film adaptation is bravely made by Christophe Gans and, even though I'd played less than ten minutes of the game, I immediately recognised the haunting visuals of the abandoned city. So 'well done' here is an understatement. It is superbly breathed new life into.

The plot has been glossed over slightly in a Hollywood fashion, but captures the essence of its characters and storyline - which is: as a last resort, a mother takes her ill daughter to a place she often mentions in her sleep - a place near where she was adopted from. But the hope the mother has for her daughter's recovery quickly shatters and turns into despair when the little girl vanishes in the misty mysterious old town.

I truly cannot credit the atmosphere of this film enough. Christophe Gans has successfully captured the eerie mood of Silent Hill and it is a nightmarish place - a fog-enshrouded hell that shifts between two modes: barren ashen daylight and a gruesome decaying state with fiery ember, demons and enhanced by chilling (and very sudden) sound effects. It's strangely fascinating, surreal and above all frightening.

The problems of Silent Hill (2006) are that there are not nearly enough build-ups. They should have been used not only to stay faithful to the video game upon which it was based but to wield tension in the right way and shock us when the build-up finally culminates. But here we are introduced to horrid creatures early on and often without much foreshadowing devices. Because they are presented to us so generously and clear-viewed, they are not that scary. At all. Some even manage a raised eyebrow, like the crawly CGI cripples.

In the end, I think this is quality horror entertainment and probably one of the better game-to-film adaptations, abut it is much too chaotic - too many monsters and too often and too clearly to be frightening. The mood and atmosphere are what is frightening and so it should have been used even more in Silent Hill, but instead the director feels pressured to introduce creatures to satisfy mainstream audiences' need for bloody gorefest and kinetic action.

7 out of 10

Video game adaptations never really work well when transferred to film, with the RESIDENT EVIL films being distinctly average. Happily, SILENT HILL has a great director in Christophe Gans – who wowed us with his excellent BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF back in 2001. Gans brings his trademark atmosphere and suspense to a movie which marks a milestone in terms of set design – there's never been a creepier ghost town than the one seen here, complete with ash raining down and nasty beasties lurking underneath the streets. Sadly, the power of Gans' directing is countered by an appalling script from Roger Avary (whose directorial debut, KILLING ZOE, wasn't much cop either, come to think of it). Cheesy dialogue and endless exposition combine to ultimately ruin this movie effectiveness and make things pretty dreary as the story progresses.

Another major issue the film has is the heroine: she's totally unlikable and unsympathetic, right from the moment we see her fleeing from a good-natured cop, putting her kid in danger by speeding, and then crashing her car into the bargain. It doesn't help that the actress playing her is Radha Mitchell, whom I've never liked much; she convinces us that she's powerful and resourceful, and terrified in places, but she never engages for one moment with the audience. Sean Bean is also lurking about, playing Mitchell's husband, and he's fantastic, except he doesn't actually interact with any other cast members, and his scenes don't gel with the rest of the story at all.

The first half of the movie is genuinely creepy, excellent in fact. The brooding atmosphere is powerfully built and punctuated by some fine scare sequences which manage to be both terrifying and disturbing – I'm thinking of the burning babies and the weird mutant think that spits acid from a festering chest wound. Also on hand is a brilliant movie villain, called Pyramid Head, who wields an absolutely massive machete and who features in two of the film's best shock sequences. Unfortunately, the film's second half, which attempts to explain the garbled back story, is much less impressive. Things slow down to snail-like speed as we get endless "flashback" sequences which are uniformly dull, and you'll cry in frustration as Gans fades out once more, bringing things to a halt with a black (or white) screen.

The introduction of a bunch of fanatical Christians, who turn out to be the bad guys, is a mistake, and detracts from the demonic horror so carefully portrayed in the film's earlier scenes; we're back to the clichéd "burn the witch" mob mentality here, seen on films a million times before, and it's just boring. Things liven up for a last-reel massacre, in which Alice Krige, playing a typically creepy villain here - she's a great actress - has an unpleasant run in with some sentient barbed wire, and various others are burned alive, have their skin stripped off, or are just torn to pieces. Special effects are excellent, by the way, but it takes more than that to make a movie.

In the end, the film suffers from the lack of likable people. Sean Bean is fine, but he's nothing to do with the film, really, and he feels like a tacked-on afterthought. Laurie Holden, whose heroic cop plays second-fiddle to Mitchell's tough mum, is boring and weirdly masculine, reminding me of Brigitte Nielsen. The only 'nice' character is Deborah Kara Unger, hidden under a load of old-age makeup, who plays the town's misunderstood psycho, and even she's not that nice. The only other surprise in the cast is an excellent Kim Coates, who has gone from B-movie fare (I'm thinking DIE HARD rip-off LETHAL TENDER) to Hollywood blockbusters.