Terry's Reviews
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Silent Hill Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – 2006 Directed by Christopher Gans Written by Roger Avary Starring |
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| Movies are made for
different reasons, each having their own purpose. Some are made to cash in on a previous
successful film or the types of film we’ve seen far to much over the past couple
years; remakes, sequels or TV shows brought to the big screen. Comic books and video games
have also been converted into feature films with varying degrees of success. It’s been a long time since I played a video game and Silent Hill certainly wasn’t one of the games I played. So for me, I came into watching this DVD with no real expectations or preconceived notions on what the film should be like. SILENT HILL was designed to be a cinematic experience and it delivers big time! Christopher Gans incredible vision crackles with creepy, dark imagery and sounds that will crawl down your spine. The audio of this movie is nothing short of awesome. As you watch the DVD you will become immersed in the morbid, slippery, eerie world of SILENT HILL. For a film to be able to do this, I think is rare and special and automatically puts it in the small selection of the best DVDs of the year. A young girl named Sharon Da Silva (Jodelle Ferland) is having trouble sleepwalking and having dreams about a place called Silent Hill. The mother Rose (Radha Mitchell) decides the only way to help her daughter would be to take her to Silent Hill to see what the place is really like. The father Christopher (Sean Bean) doesn’t like the idea and is against it. This disagreement leads to the mother taking her daughter anyway. On the way to Silent Hill the mother & daughter get into a high-speed chase with a police officer, which results in a car crash. When Rose becomes conscious, her daughter is gone which forces her to go look for her. This is where the nightmare of SILENT HILL begins to creep into Rose’s space and our home entertainment system. The town is definitely mysterious as it is shrouded in fog and has never ending ash falling from the sky. There is definitely a reason for this imagery, which we learn over the course of the rest of the film. One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is the dual dimension between what happens to the mother and daughter in SILENT HILL and what the father sees when he goes there with a police detective. The same place looks vastly different and you’ll probably come to your own decision why this is so. This is one of the strongest points to why I like the film so much. Christopher Gans and writer Roger Avary do not hit you over the head with tons of exposition or heavy-handed explanation to what is happening during the telling of this story. Instead they try to show you before tell you, which is the trait of a truly good director. For those who don’t like to use their imagination, you may be frustrated. Sony Home Entertainment does a real nice job of putting together about 1 hour of behind the scenes chapters that cover the making of SILENT HILL. "Path of Darkness" is a six-part Production Diary. In Part One: Origins of Silent Hill Christopher Gans explains that he started playing the game and admits that it’s one of the few things that actually scared him. Because of this he know it would make a good movie so with the help of his producer they contacted the game company to obtain the movie rights. The only reason the game company agreed to it was because of Christopher Gans vision. Part Two: Casting the film Gans states that he didn’t want too recognizable actors in the roles because he wanted the audience to experience the movie without expectations of who was in it. David Cronenberg regular Carol Spier does an amazing job of production design, which is focused in, Part Three: Building Silent Hill (the town). The physical action in the film is dissected in Part Four: Stars and Stunts. Movement coordinator Roberto Campanella explains his work in Part Five: Creature Choreography. His contribution is key in making the busty nurses creepy and other monstrosities actually work. Heck, Campanella even played the ultra nasty Pyramid Head who for my money is one of the fiercest creatures to be seen in a film. Part Six: Constructing the Creepy Creatures from the film gives Patrick Tatopoulos and the other make-up effects artists the opportunity to reveal who they vividly brought to life the creatures from the video game. I don’t know why people expect to see some deep overly intellectual story when going to see a movie like SILENT HILL. That’s not the purpose or design of the film. SILENT HILL is meant to creep you out and startle your senses. It does a damn good job at that. www.SonyPictures.com |
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