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Silent Hill (2006)
Directed
by Christophe Gans
The
Silent Hill movie is based on a video game and, from what I have read
in other reviews, the movie is more likely to be appreciated by people
who are already familiar with the game. I am not a gamer though, and so
spent a lot of time wondering what was happening, why it was happening,
and if I even cared it was happening.
One of the movie's redeeming features has got to be the special
effects. They are very good. Unfortunately, the story itself
is not so special and a lot of the Silent
Hill movie script seems to be just ideas that have been
thrown together—with very little thought—as a means of getting the
characters into the scenarios that the producers needed them to be in.
The movie starts with Rose and Christopher (Sean Bean & Radha
Mitchell) rushing out of their house in the middle of the
night to look for their adopted daughter, Sharon, who is a sleepwalker.
Sharon, who we learn has an ongoing problem when it comes to taking
unscheduled hikes in the middle of the night, has either managed to
traverse an extremely dangerous and busy road, without either causing
an accident or killing herself in the process, or she has managed to
follow the same route underneath the road that the river takes, before
it dives over a cliff and becomes a waterfall. Obviously having some
form of nocturnal death-wish, that is foiled only by her unnatural
levels of good luck, the still-sleeping Sharon is now standing at the
edge of the cliff. Rose reaches her and pulls her to safety just as
Sharon is going over the edge. Sharon, still asleep, mentions Silent
Hill and we are lead to believe that this is not the first time that
the name has come up.
Both parents are very worried about Sharon, and Rose decides to take
her daughter to Silent Hill. Christopher seems to have very little say
in the matter. I suppose he might have had a little more say if he had
been given any warning, but Rose is a decisive woman. She has made a
unilateral decision and by God she stands by it. By the time her
husband finds out what is happening his family is gone. Would a wife
and mother behave like this? I doubt it, but this is the storyline that
takes Rose and Sharon to the town of Silent Hill.
Silent Hill, we learn, is a ghost town. The town was destroyed in a
fire, a few years prior to the present story, and apparently the fire
is still raging underground. En-route to Silent Hill, Rose arouses the
suspicions of a lady police officer who gives chase on her motorcycle.
What Rose has done to warrant the officer's unwanted attention is a
mystery. There is no evident reason for the pursuit, but at least it
gets the police woman to Silent Hill as well.
The road up to Silent Hill has been barred by double gates and, still
trying to outrun the cop, Rose keeps her foot down and rams her way
through. Then things—other than Rose's behaviour—start to get weird.
First the radio goes haywire and then an apparition appears in the
road, causing Rose to swerve. The car crashes and she is knocked
unconscious.
When Rose awakes there is no sign of the motorcycle cop, or of Sharon.
It also seems to be snowing, but the snow turns out to be ash and this
is where the real story begins.
Rose walks the rest of the way to the town and
searches for her daughter. There are no people in Silent Hill, but
there are other creatures and everything starts to get rather
confusing.
- If
the town was burnt down why is so much of it intact?
- Why
do the monsters come out when the siren sounds?
- Why
does reality seem to twist and take on a new shape when the siren
sounds?
-
Who sounds the siren?
- What
is the siren and has Rose slipped into another dimension?
A reason for all of these things is given later on
in the movie but, once again, it seems to have just been tossed into
the mix as an afterthought.
The cop shows up again later on and proves to be one of the best
characters in the movie, and no, I'm not just saying that because she
is wearing leather. She actually has to loose her jacket after an
encounter with a tar-spitting monster, and she looks all the better
without it.
I didn't like the way Silent
Hill ended, it made everything that had already happened
in the movie seem pointless and stupid.
Scariest monster? The guy with a pyramid on his
head, a big sword in his hand, and a chip on his shoulder. He (it?) was
like a killing machine wearing novelty headgear.
Silent Hill
is rated certificate 15. It has 5:1 surround sound and runtime of
around 2 hours. English is the only choice of subtitles and special
features included interviews with cast and crew, trailers, and a photo
gallery.
CAST
Radha
Mitchell .... Rose Da
Silva
Sean
Bean
.... Christopher Da Silva
Laurie Holden
.... Cybil Bennett
Deborah Kara Unger .... Dahlia Gillespie
Kim
Coates
.... Officer Thomas Gucci
Tanya
Allen
.... Anna
Alice
Krige
.... Christabella
Jodelle Ferland .... Sharon Da
Silva/Alessa Gillespie
Colleen Williams .... Archivist
Ron
Gabriel
.... Old Mechanic
Derek Ritschel ....
Young Police Officer
Amanda Hiebert ....
Gas Attendant
Nicky Guadagni ....
Elinor
Maxine Dumont
.... Christabella's Aide
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