Silent Hill (2006)
Enjoy your stay.
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Alice Krige, Jodelle Ferland, Colleen Williams, Ron Gabriel, Derek Ritschel, Amanda Hiebert, Nicky Guadagni, Maxine Dumont, Christopher Britton
Director: Christophe Gans
Running Time: 127 minutes
US MPAA rating: RUK BBFC rating: 15
Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
This is a movie based on a video game, that being said, Silent Hill is an eerie, disturbing film that is actually lifted in places by creepy sound effects (air raid sirens) and startling scenes of a hellscape that the town of Silent Hill occupies in a limbo between one world and the next.
A mother, Rose, (Radha Mitchell) is desperate to find a cure for her daughter's condition and refuses to accept that she needs to be institutionalized in a psychiatric facility. The child's name is Sharon and she dreams of a place called Silent Hill. In desperation bordering on madness, the mother flees with her child to find this mysterious town leaving her husband, played by Sean Bean in a very odd role for him, to pursue both.
When Rose's car swerves and crashes on the way into Silent Hill, she is left unconscious. When she wakes, her daughter is missing and thus begins the next stage to this bizarre quest as she ventures into the terrifying destination that is Silent Hill. Ravaged by coal fires, it is smothered in a dense smoky and seems haunted by strange and terrifying being.
The puritanical, violent past of Silent Hill is only one of the discoveries that Rose makes as she searches desperately for Sharon. The other is almost cliché as it becomes apparent that Sharon's fate and destiny are tied up in the mysterious hellscape that the town occupies between our reality and the dark underworld. The filmmaking in the dark, hellish town is to be admired and as mentioned above - the air raid sirens are creepier than most effects you will find in a horror film. It's a grotesque and dark world in Silent Hill and horror film buffs should enjoy paying it a call.
Silent Hill stars Radha Mitchell (Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland, Man on Fire), Sean Bean (North Country, National Treasure, Lord of the Rings), Laurie Holden (Fantastic Four, The Majestic), Deborah Kara Unger (White Noise, The Game, Crash), Kim Coates (Assault on Precinct 13, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down), Tanya Allen (Starhunter), with Alice Krige (Star Trek: First Contact, Reign of Fire) and Jodelle Ferland (Tideland).
It's Got: Crazy Mother, Crazy Daughter, Crazy Town, a Vicious History and a Dark Destiny
Summary: An eerie, disturbing film, not for fans of the game
Review Date: 6th September 2006
External Links
Official Web Site
Silent Hill at the IMDB
