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4/5/2006
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Silent Hill (2006)
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I had not heard of Christophe Gans before I saw this film, the only other film of note that he has so far directed is the Brotherhood of the Wolf from 2001. He is in fact a small known French Director but he grabs the Hollywood bull by the horns here to create a thrilling film. The fact that it is only thrilling and not scary is this films only problem, I do not think that Silent Hill can be credited as being a horror film and if it is then it is as weak as The Haunting (1999). But this is also where it triumphs; the horror of the film comes from what the characters are experiencing with the monster with a ten foot sword ready to give you nightmares. Oddly for a horror film you never jump and it is rarely gory (except maybe in the climax) but it works, you are always shown what is around the next corner things don’t just creep up behind you. I think this is a brave move by the director and one that works nicely as it was when The Hills Have Eyes stopped trying to scare you that it turned into a proper film in my mind. Jumps are great if you have a scared little date sitting beside you but if you are in the cinema watching a film on your own you want narrative and this film have it in bunches.
I am not sure if Silent Hill follows the storyline of the game as I have not played it. I am pretty sure however that most of the monsters are lifted straight out of the game and this is a good thing as they are all brilliantly scary. The premise of the film is that the Brilliant Radha Mitchells Rose takes her adopted daughter to a town called Silent Hill where she subsequently disappears, Rose now must find her daughter as the world around her crumbles and mutilates. Basically when the sirens go off you run!
The style that Gans uses in this film is brilliant, I’m not sure how best to describe it, he keeps the shots quite loose so we can see what is happening around Rose at all times and this works when she is alone as we can see just how desperately alone she actually is in this world of Silent Hill. When the action starts the shots get a bit tighter and jumpier as the horror comes.
I went into the cinema wanting to love this film after anticipating its release for about two months, some reviews elsewhere have stated that it is like watching someone else playing the game. By this I presume that they mean the lack of jumps but this doesn’t bother me because for a horror film it has a pretty darn good narrative. I would heartily recommend this to anyone unless who doesn’t mind a wee bit of blood or Sean Bean trying to do an American Accent (he does a pretty good job actually and this is one of the only situation where he doesn’t look like he’s there just because he’s Sean Bean). I love this film!
Review by Jonathan Little
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