Silent Hill

Visually, it's absolutely amazing and whether it's Pyramid Head, Alessa, or any other appearance, I just envy what Gans presents to the viewer with a stunning piano accompaniment. Unfortunately, as someone who didn't play the video game source, I got quite lost and ended up completely lost at the end. If I hadn't looked up a lot of things, I probably still wouldn't know if I liked Silent Hill or not. After understanding the main connections, it's a bit far-fetched, but I give it four stars considering the atmosphere. It should have continued immediately the following year in this atmosphere and not turned the suspicious town of fog into a cheap horror brand. (07/12/2006)

Another proof that the world of PC games and the world of film are not yet very compatible. Gans brilliantly portrays the oppressive atmosphere of the game, but you can sense the leaning towards the mainstream and the resulting somewhat sterile portrayal of the horrors of darkness. The few digital boogeymen and the very decent gore didn't save it (but Pyramid Head was impressive despite the small space). They should have pushed the envelope more, throw out the boring storyline with the completely useless Sean Bean, which diluted the dense atmosphere of the film unnecessarily and did not solve anything, and above all to make the unraveling of the mystery more clear. It was too overcomplicated and chatty at the end. But Radha Mitchell was great. (31/07/2006)

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)

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)

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)