Silent Hill

Silent Hill is a visually captivating horror flick, particularly in the first half. It draws all of its power from its impressive sets, sound and solid acting. However, the more it reveals what’s hidden, the more predictable it becomes in terms of content, which is constructed only for effect. That said, it is the clear winner among game adaptations such as Resident Evil and Doom. It is, after all, a solid top-tier production. (20/10/2006)

For a die-hard fan of the game, it will most likely be a captivating atmospheric spectacle full of familiar heroes (or heroines). But for a viewer experiencing the theme of a town shrouded in eternal mist for the first time, it will be confusing and I dare say quite overwhelmingly so. It requires a great deal of attention, especially considering the packed visuals, which will make you forget about everything else around you, quite effectively. The editing and sound are masterful, the director primarily builds the atmosphere on these two elements. Distant clanging of iron, various rustling and whimpering – that's what you will take with you from the cinema. The ingenious atmosphere is supported by excellent roaring music, which works here as well as, for example, in Underworld. The visual effects are incredibly good and the action scenes are gripping. Occasionally, the excessive brutality and blood may be a problem for some people, but the biggest issue will be the aforementioned story for the lay viewer, which can cause quite a mess in your head with its multiple layers. It certainly requires more than one viewing. However, the question is: Do you want to see it again? (28/06/2006)

I'm not a fan of computer games, I didn't like Resident Evil, and I couldn't even adapt in the two hours after passing the Welcome to Silent Hill sign. It’s obvious that the film has been handled by the most competent people in the field and its technical aspect in particular is great and scary, not to mention the oppressive atmosphere brought by the dead city covered with falling ashes. But nothing about this film as horror can make up for a bunch of holes in the story (which I still wouldn't have minded) or my purely personal problem, namely that I couldn't find my way to it and even dozed off slightly at one point (although it might have been because I was fresh out of a graduation party). Either way, this, which in many people's opinion is the best adaptation of a computer game, didn't impress me much and I don't see any reason to revisit it. (23/01/2013)

I hadn't played the video game, but I had high expectations before the movie, followed by somewhat conflicting reactions, so I was appropriately excited. The result was pleasantly surprising. In horror movies, the atmosphere is extremely important and Silent Hill is an example of a film that stands or falls with a well-established atmosphere. The depressive environment of a destroyed city, where ash constantly falls to the ground and black smoke rolls, accompanied by the wailing sound of a siren, dark shadows appearing, and people's faces covered with gas masks all serve to evoke a feeling of claustrophobia, and dark premonition. As it is well known, people are most afraid of the unknown, and the film is logically strongest in its first third when evil still has an abstract form. If the director didn't try to explain anything, my final impression could be 100%. The twist itself didn't impress me, but fortunately, it was not decisive for the result. In its category, Silent Hill has had no competition in the past two years. Overall impression: 75%. (01/12/2006)

The cruelly long runtime unnecessarily dilutes the atmosphere of the film to the limits of the current horror standard, which could have been, with the excision of about twenty minutes of scenes (and not only the ones with Sean Bean searching), the clear king of video game adaptations. Christophe Gans provides some damn fine visuals, and particularly the ones from Silent Hill itself are delicacies that can be savored endlessly. The motion and music tracks are also very enjoyable. In contrast, he utterly fails in the dramatic construction of the story, which is stacked together with overly verbose dialogue, causing the film to degrade into B-movie waters at times. Fortunately, the falling ash, the marching undead, the alarm siren, and Radha Mitchell's performance are so evocative and suggestive and haunting that it is actually possible to forget all the negatives and state with equanimity: "Messieur Gans, le Pacte des loups, est-il pardonner." (23/08/2006)