With four sequels and counting, the Silent
Hill
video-game series remains a model of the horror genre, renowned for its foggy
atmospherics and the unusual sophistication of cinematic elements like plot and
character development. Could this be the raw material for the first passable
game-to-movie adaptation? The beginning of the film version holds promise, if
only for the stunning first look at an otherworldly ghost town nestled in West
Virginia mining country, where a perpetual flurry of gray ash coats the
abandoned shops and buildings on Main Street. On occasion, evil forces within
the town will conjure an alternate reality called the Darkness, which peels off
an already grim façade to reveal a Matrix-y underworld crawling with deformed,
light-sensitive beasts. How did it get that way? Get comfortable, because it takes
a lot of explaining. And still more explaining. Then, more than two hours
later, after many monologues and flashbacks and obscure archival discoveries,
it's still pretty damned confusing.
This much is clear: Radha Mitchell and Sean
Bean have an adopted daughter (Jodelle Ferland) who looks like spooky,
raven-haired Samara from The Ring. She's a sweet kid during waking hours, but after
falling asleep, she suffers psychotic episodes that revolve around a town
called Silent Hill. Over Bean's objections, Mitchell Googles the place and
whisks her daughter off to West Virginia, having no real plan other than to
peel into town at top speed and see what happens. Knocked unconscious after
crashing her car on the outskirts, Mitchell awakes to find the kid missing, so
she follows the proverbial trail of breadcrumbs to The School, The Hotel, The
Hospital, and other places where the cutscenes direct her. Accompanied by an
intrepid local officer (Laurie Holden), Mitchell travels between worlds, caught
in a battle centering on a witch-hunting religious cult.
The film's peculiar rhythms–action,
exposition, action, exposition–betray its video-game roots, but audiences
unfamiliar with the Silent Hill series can be forgiven for thinking that the game
asks players to run from place to place, shouting a little girl's name at the
top of their lungs. Granted, there are occasional obstacles, like the guy in
beakish metal headgear wielding a comically oversized knife, or the undead
female dancers from the "Addicted To Love" video. But mostly, the film is about
getting to new locations where the Darkness manifests through CGI magic, and
creepy Puritan types haplessly try to explain what's going on. Recommended to
those who feel The Crucible doesn't feature enough bodies ripped in half
vertically. Others are duly warned.