Are they zombies? Are they vampires? What the hell are they? The adaptation of the survival horror videogame "Silent Hill" fails to answer these questions despite its tragic 40-minute segment that tries to explain the back-story.
Director Christophe Gans ("The Brotherhood of the Wolf") shapes, for the most part, a visually impressive film with a laughable script accompanied by horrendous acting.
In "Silent Hill," Radha Mitchell ("Man on Fire," "Finding Neverland") portrays lead heroine Rose Da Silva, whose daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland of "Kingdom Hospital") has recurring sleepwalking nightmares in which she screams "Silent Hill!" repeatedly at the top of her lungs.
Instead of taking the obvious logical action, Rose does what most would. She foregoes professional help and elects to take her ill daughter to Silent Hill herself. This idiotic decision, apparent in every horror movie, is only the tip of the film's iceberg of senselessness.
The undernourished work of the script loaded with sappy and redundant lines, fused with acting that can most likely be found in daytime soap operas, hammer the nail in the coffin with yet another ill-fated attempt to frighten audiences.
The bedraggled script will have the audience laughing at times when they should be on the edge of their cushioned seats. As Rose and policewoman Cybil Bennet (Laurie Holden of "The Majestic") relentlessly search the disaster area, Rose begins to drop inadmissible lines with an unparalleled caliber of redundancy, for example, "Something terrible happened here!"
These remarks would be appropriate near the beginning, not after an hour of roaming the ghost town. As they proceed through the town, they arrive at some torched buildings leaving, Captain Obvious herself to say the line, "Looks like there was a fire here."
To give credit where credit is due, the film crew deserves commendation for staying as close as possible to the videogame. However, the movie itself fails by clouding the action with lines that are only suited for videogame dialogue. In similar games such as "Resident Evil," which tend to state the obvious like "Looks like a typewriter," or, "The door is locked." Those work for games, but not for a movie that calls for an actual script.
One scene in particular that will have audiences laughing hysterically is when Rose gets acquainted with a crowd of un-dead creatures, each resembling a nurse (the uniforms and cleavage being dead giveaways), who react only to light and sound. As they hear her they collectively creep towards her in a way that almost comes across as a choreographed dance. During this scene someone in the audience felt provoked to scream in a Michael Jackson voice, "It's Thriller!"
In addition to the flimsy script and poor acting, the plot is suspect as well. The story had potential, but even the special effects were substandard.
The film plays itself out in videogame fashion, exploring buildings while trying to dig into the reasons why this is happening. Instead of engaging the audience in this exploration, it drags them, tossing them into confusion adequate to befuddle even the best film analysts.
Other horror movies leave ridiculous cliffhangers in hopes of scraping together enough cash to produce a sequel. "Silent Hill," does just that. But horror movies need to be compact, intricately written and well acted to give the audience nightmares. The film just drags on, running over two hours, and makes one realize why most scary movies are short.
Photo: Courtesy of Mitchell Kish
