Silent Hill
Seen Saturday, April 29; AMC Boston Common #1
* * (out of 5)
I wanted this to be good. Knowing that director Christophe Gans was behind the project, combined with some of the real messed-up images that were coming out on the Web, I had some hope that this would be the project that would break the video game adaptation slum. It’s not.
“Blame” is a hard thing to throw around in this case – it seems like when a film is good, you can pinpoint who was particularly good within it. When a film is bad, you can sometimes sort out who was really bad, who did the best they could with what they were given, and who actually manages to shine through. Here, we have all three.
Silent Hill focuses on Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell), the adopted mother of Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). For as long as she has been with the Da Silva’s, Sharon has had periodic fits of sleepwalking and talking, screaming the words “Silent Hill” in her frenzy. Desperate to solve this problem, Rose takes Sharon to the ghost town of Silent Hill, where fires burning in abandoned underground coal mines have left the town empty. In her haste to get there, Rose attracts the attention of badass-cop-in-leather Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), who follows her into town. Both vehicles get in accidents, rendering the people involved unconscious. When they awake, they find themselves in a world enveloped by fog and ash, and they quickly discover that any route or connection to the rest of the world has been severed. To top it all off, Sharon has vanished into the destruction that is the ruins of Silent Hill. Naturally, Rose goes after her, with Cybil in pursuit, and hilarity ensues.
Well, not really. The primary thing that Silent Hill does do very well is disturb you. There are some true moments where you’ll look at the screen and say, “Damn… that’s fucked up. I probably would have been happier never seeing that.” These come in the form of monster design and execution, as well as putting vulnerable characters in situations that you as a viewer will not want to see them in – keep an eye out for the line, “Look at me – I’m burning.” Some of the visuals are truly astounding and fantastically implemented. I also like that he doesn’t shoot for horror moments here by having something terrible pop onscreen out of no where. He starts it with some foreboding music to build the tension, shows some reactions, and then plainly and easily shows what the hell they’re looking at. It works really well. You’re not scared and compelled to look away; you’re mildly disturbed and wondering how the in the hell something could get to look like that. Gans has crafted some beautiful carnage.
The problem with this sort of carnage is that there’s really nothing holding it together...
Read the rest over at HBS!
* * (out of 5)
I wanted this to be good. Knowing that director Christophe Gans was behind the project, combined with some of the real messed-up images that were coming out on the Web, I had some hope that this would be the project that would break the video game adaptation slum. It’s not.
“Blame” is a hard thing to throw around in this case – it seems like when a film is good, you can pinpoint who was particularly good within it. When a film is bad, you can sometimes sort out who was really bad, who did the best they could with what they were given, and who actually manages to shine through. Here, we have all three.
Silent Hill focuses on Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell), the adopted mother of Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). For as long as she has been with the Da Silva’s, Sharon has had periodic fits of sleepwalking and talking, screaming the words “Silent Hill” in her frenzy. Desperate to solve this problem, Rose takes Sharon to the ghost town of Silent Hill, where fires burning in abandoned underground coal mines have left the town empty. In her haste to get there, Rose attracts the attention of badass-cop-in-leather Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), who follows her into town. Both vehicles get in accidents, rendering the people involved unconscious. When they awake, they find themselves in a world enveloped by fog and ash, and they quickly discover that any route or connection to the rest of the world has been severed. To top it all off, Sharon has vanished into the destruction that is the ruins of Silent Hill. Naturally, Rose goes after her, with Cybil in pursuit, and hilarity ensues.
Well, not really. The primary thing that Silent Hill does do very well is disturb you. There are some true moments where you’ll look at the screen and say, “Damn… that’s fucked up. I probably would have been happier never seeing that.” These come in the form of monster design and execution, as well as putting vulnerable characters in situations that you as a viewer will not want to see them in – keep an eye out for the line, “Look at me – I’m burning.” Some of the visuals are truly astounding and fantastically implemented. I also like that he doesn’t shoot for horror moments here by having something terrible pop onscreen out of no where. He starts it with some foreboding music to build the tension, shows some reactions, and then plainly and easily shows what the hell they’re looking at. It works really well. You’re not scared and compelled to look away; you’re mildly disturbed and wondering how the in the hell something could get to look like that. Gans has crafted some beautiful carnage.
The problem with this sort of carnage is that there’s really nothing holding it together...
Read the rest over at HBS!
posted by Matt S. at
3:54 PM
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