Silent Hill (2006)

 

Director: Christophe Gans

Screenplay: Roger Avary

Based on the videogame franchise

Cast: Radha Mitchell as Rose Da Silva; Sean Bean as Christopher Da Silva; Laurie Holden as Bennett; Deborah Kara Unger as Dahlia Gillespie; Kim Coates as Officer Thomas Gucci; Tanya Allen as Anna; Alice Krige as Christabella; Jodelle Ferland as Sharon

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #226

 

Truthfully, this is going to be a very negative review. I will preface this in saying that, coming to the film with no experience of the horror videogame franchise, this is not a slight on that property, but entirely about the film adaptation. Historical context, what I know, is worth however bringing up. Meant directly as a title to rival Resident Evil (1996), a Capcom produced "survival horror" game which spawned an ongoing franchise including a long running film franchise, Silent Hill (1999) on the original PlayStation was a creation which became a success, on a games console which innovated as a CD based machine with three dimensional graphics, and with a lot of companies throwing the kitchen sink in for curious experimentation. Interestingly, and the curious detail I am however fully aware of, this film and its 2012 sequel are directly based on the narrative thread of that original game and Silent Hill 3 (2003), both following an elaborate narrative about a cult and demon summoning, surrounding the titular location, which will be elaborated on later when discussion the film. Ironically, the game in the franchise which became its magnum opus was Silent Hill 2 (2001), which on the following console the Playstation 2 has a legacy of a work that, whether technical and artistic has aged well or not, took video gamers by surprise through a very adult and surprising narrative seperate the original plot, without demon summoning cults, and followed a psycho dramatic drama of a man dealing with the past of a wife who died of a terminal illness. Among other characters tormented by horrifying entities which channelled his sins and even repressed sexual and moral shades, it is talked with high regards for a work still.

That is to note as, whilst not coming to this with any context of the original videogames, I am fully aware Silent Hill 2 was arguably the game which cemented the franchise and still does. The series has had a complex history. Produced by the company Komani, the original four games were developed in Japan through a team within them called Team Silent. The games after those first four would be developed by Western companies after the 2006 film, starting with Silent Hill: Origins (2007) up to Silent Hill: Downpour (2012), the game which came out the same year as the film's sequel, for that timeline and all not gaining as strong a reputation¹. Infamously, after a playable demo called P.T. (2014) became a thing of incredible lasting memory for gamers, to the point it itself became the other watershed moment for the franchise, Konami cancelled that game as part of a falling out with one of their key members Hideo Kojima, a highly regarded video game auteur who was in the director's seat for that project.  Alongside collaboration from director Guillermo del Toro, actor Norman Reedus and horror manga author Junji Ito, this project that was to become "Silent Hills" never came to be, ending up in a very dramatic breakup which painted Konami as villains and would be a compelling story for a video game related blog to tell. Rumours in late 2020 talked of Konami patching things up², to create the unmade "Silent Hills", but contextually if one was to talk of Silent Hill in one movement, the franchise which existed until its violent end at that Silent Hills cancellation in its first arch, this was a franchise whose later Western made sequels were not as well regarded at all, with arguably the 2006 Silent Hill film hitting the time when it was at its highest in recognition.

And the fact my review is going to be so negative is miserable as I am open to its creator, French filmmaker Christophe Gans. Gans is fascinating, as a man who cut his teeth with producer/filmmaker Brian Yuzna for the H.P. Lovecraft anthology Necronomicon: Book of Dead (1993), as a man who attaches himself to distinct ideas, exiting titles or his one unique film Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), and completely commits to their concepts. Crying Freeman (1995) for example, adapting manga author Kazuo Koike's breakthrough work, is a very faithful adaptation of the first few chapters. Gans however has not as large as a filmography as you would think. After Silent Hill, Gans would not direct again until 2014, with an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

Silent Hill the film is sadly a very dull film. After the set-up - a mother (Radha Mitchell), learning of Silent Hill through her adoptive daughter through her moments of split personality and sleep walking, travelling to the location only to be involved in a car crash and then have to look for her daughter in a strange nightmarish world - the problem is entirely that a very predictable and not very interesting narrative takes place. This is one of the problems, but it is one of the biggest, as for a film based on a franchise highly regarded for its premise, you are having a game franchise flaws and virtues being pared down to the least interest tone.

The one thing that succeeds in stepping into the titular Silent Hill is some of its atmosphere. Based on the real abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania - a near ghost town in the United States where the populous had to flee due to underground coal fires in 1983 that were said to have started in 1962³ - the version of Silent Hill as initially depicted in this film is exceptional. A barren abandoned town raining in white and grey ash. An air raid siren, from the games, blares at the moment the world will turn into its alternative form, a place of hellish creatures, but even in the world as is, monsters are occasionally found and you are stuck within an atmospheric place where a breathing mask is still needed in the real world outside due to the fume from down below the ground. Helped considerably is that, whilst composer Jeff Danna is involved, the film uses choice musical cues from the games by Akira Yamaoka. These pieces of soundtrack are frankly, out of context, better than a lot of horror film soundtracks I have heard, be it between the industrial noises to the more ethereal pieces, Yamaoka's music out of context is immersive and unique.

The problem immediately is shown in how, to depict the nightmarish hell world of Silent Hill once the siren goes off, we are treated to a large cavalcade of CGI which has dated significantly. Without context of the videogames, it is difficult to make complete judgements, but one thing to state is that the flexibility and type of work you can make in a videogame, with polygons/sprites/etc., is difficult to cinema where, unless animated, you have to work around the physical reality, of how CGI has never really worked for me as a viewer unless in certain circumstances. As much of this is contrasting real actors, rather than digital characters, to prominently digital effects to depict the growing decay of the nightmare world when witnessed, the human faced giant bugs or blood coming from the walls. Honestly, using more real (if still artificial) practical effects would have helped considerably.

It does not help with the fact of how perfunctory the adaptation is. Whilst it feels as if following the progression of a videogame in pace - some exposition, some exploration, even acquiring tools like a knife to cut through a painting as if a game puzzle - eventually for a narrative which does not really capitalise on a franchise, reading of it, capable of strange and completely nightmarish content. The whole narrative involves a cult as well, but a very hackneyed Christian fanatical cult, which causes me to roll my eyes, particularly as Silent Hill's greatest issue is one that plagues so many films and sticks out more for someone increasingly disconnecting from conventions of cinema. Namely that whenever a film is entirely focused on a narrative and telling it, if said narrative is a conventional one it is now becoming torture, more so as truthfully in art, it is not the narrative which is of concern, as it repeats tropes even in new ways from the dawn of human storytelling, but how. Silent Hill intrigues me as a video game franchise both for what it gets right, what is morbid and dark and surreal (like a giant head in a hospital room starting at you), what is accidental, and what is even irrelevant or intentionally silly like the UFO endings or the one with the town being controlled by a small dog.

Silent Hill the film has references to the games, and whilst I cannot tell the legitimacy of the adaptation, it feels wary to take a risk. Even I as well can spot, within in this context, the problems with the film can be shown in metaphor with how the figure of Pyramid Head is used. The franchise's mascot, a horrifying human-like figure with a giant blade and a painful metal pyramid helmet which it drags along, I am aware too of is how this character was originally created for Silent Hill 2, with a significance to every part of its iconography symbolically. This also means the character can unfortunately be pulled out for any follow up as the most iconic figure but losing his (their?) point outside that game. Even without that, you have a creature, a hulking form, with a giant blade and a strange atypical headgear designed to be as much to cause self harm, a potential horror film icon, and what you get is effectively fan cameos even if they strip the flesh from a person at one point. A lot of the iconography and content feels the same way, even that original to the film, or that which is adapted with an inspired idea, such as the figures of ghoulish yet eroticised female nurses, again from Silent Hill 2 with loaded symbolism, being portrayed by dancers in how they move or even stand still like statues for one scene.

Everything is without bite, even in a film fixated on dirty locations, dirty razor wire (including going into one area of the human body that is pretty grotesque even for a film deemed suitable for fifteen year olds in the United Kingdom), but feeling sanitised. I have not really described the plot because, alongside Sean Bean attempting an American accent as the husband trying to find his missing wife and adoptive daughter, a lot of clichés are here and, in mind to what I said earlier, they are not told in an interesting way, meaning there is not a lot of difference to Silent Hill from other run-of-the-mill horror films I saw from this period. Everything from witch burnings to a ghostly curse feel trite, and this is in mind that Silent Hill originated from Japanese video game developers wanting to recreate American horror films, only to touch something idiosyncratic to itself that compelled people in the West to adore this franchise. The production design and some of its other aesthetics are worthy of praise, the proof of the quality of any film if you have creative figures on staff, but this was definitely a disappointment to witness.

 

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1) One exception, on the list of entries in the franchise worth investigating, is Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009), which brought in a complex psychological and emotional narrative entirely as much based on giving the player a psychological profile depending on their choices and answers.

2) One reference to this rumour can be read HERE.

3) HERE