Admittedly, I did smile I little when I realized that it was indeed Deborah Kara Unger almost unrecognizable in the role of Dahlia Gillespie (the bag lady, you can't miss her). Unger continues to show a knack for popping up with supporting roles in some of my favorite films.
Jeff Danna took heavy influence from Akira Yamaoka, who designed the original game's score. The result was an incredibly appropriate music that opted for purely instrumental sounds 9 times out of 10. The soundtrack is laced with some of the creepiest music I've heard in the theater in a very long time. Since the town of Silent Hill is usually, well, silent, I can't help but think a score heavy on vocals would have distracted from the mood.
The most powerful aspect of Silent Hill however, is entirely visual. The town of Silent Hill consists of some of the creepiest set design, starkest palettes, and best use of CGI that I've seen. The Silent Hill of fog was absolutely stunning with entire sets washed out and ranging only from gray to even more gray. The Silent Hill of darkness is equally impressive. Fantastic CGI burning/smoldering effects are coupled with several moments of absolute darkness. I mean to say that the screen would go absolutely black for a few tense seconds before the image would return being lit only by natural sources such as a flashlight or a Zippo. It was also a pleasant change of pace to see most of Silent Hill's 'monsters' being played by real people instead of computer graphics. The realism provided by them made the entire experience that much creepier.
One final mention goes to the ending: no worries, I'm not going to spoil anything for you. I simply feel the need to point out that Silent Hill's climax has a different feel than the bulk of the film.
Think of 100 minutes at a slow jazz concert ending with 10 minutes of pulse-pounding ROCK and you'll get the basic idea. Some viewers may find the climax a bit odd, disconcerting, unwarranted, or just out of place. On the other hand, the rest (myself included) will find the end to be the welcomed release of 100 minutes of slowly and expertly built tension.
If you haven't already figured it out, I liked Silent Hill quite a bit. I'm a big fan of horror movies and this one has been instantly added to my Top 10 Horror list. Though the gross-out is used at the end of the film, psychological horror is used to incredible effect throughout the rest of it.
Article comments
1 - GH Morgan
This is a good review. Silent Hill was quality. I watched the film on the day of release and I still find myself thinking about it - which is a rare thing with the amount of dross that is released these days.
2 - NG
Just recently watched this movie again, and I love it, those cretics dont have any idea what they are talking about, if they are too dumb to even understand the movie, then may be they should go and work for McDonalds, I was grabed from the very start, till the very end and completely understood what was going on, most game movies sucked big time, like resident evil, doom, tombraider, Final Fantasy++++ this is the best game movie ever. I have played most of their games 1-3, infact I like the movie much better than the game.
So all you so called critics out there sign up for MC Donalds youll be better at serving burgers.