Review of Silent Hill
this entry brought to you by queens of the stone age, "burn the witch"
What Hollywood thinks of as "horror" has most definitely changed over the years. It used to be that "horror" movies-- and there were a bunch back in the 60's and 70's, such as Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and of course The Excorcist and Alien-- were directed by auteurs and eccentric geniuses, with long, slow-burning plots, and would often end up being nominated for Oscars-- all the above mentioned movies hovered around the 2 hour mark (Rosemary's Baby going the distance with a 2 hour, 15 minute running time), and all were Oscar nominated. Obviously there were bad horror movies back then, but there was also a string of horror movies that Hollywood took very seriously. This isn't so true nowadays. It's been years since Hollywood released a genuine horror movie that wasn't a slasher film or a goofy monster movie, that wasn't filled with hip, up-and-coming actors and buxom, half-naked women, with a hip tie-in movie soundtrack. Nowadays horror movies are seen as an extremely cheap and effective way of getting teenagers to line up and spend their money for an hour and a half of empty, gorey thrills.
For all of its mistakes, one thing that can be said about Silent Hill: Hollywood doesn't make horror movies like this anymore, and it's almost a miracle it got made at all. It's long as hell, going just past the 2 hour mark. It doesn't star any hip, up-and-coming actors; in fact, the biggest name on the bill, Sean Bean, is perhaps best known for his roll in the Lord of the Rings movies, but didn't even make it past the first movie. The average age between the four main adult characters is 38 years, and none of them are ever half naked. There is no hip soundtrack tie-in. It's an adaptation from Japan, yet it's Rated R and very, very firmly deserves it, unlike the rash of post The Ring horror movies earning a wimpy PG-13 rating. Yet despite all these ideas that Hollywood has been leaning against when it comes to the horror movies its released in years, Hill also extremely expensive: at 55 million dollars, it cost even more than the last horror movie that got huge, The Ring, and cost a whole lot more than the last major movie based on a video game, Resident Evil. Despite recent trends in Hollywood horror movie making, somebody believed enough in Silent Hill that they were willing to put a lot of money in a long, slow-burning horror movie that evokes the mentality of the greats of the late 60's and 70's without also ruining it with big names and a hip cast. No, it's not going to win an Oscar. But some producer out there decided to give bank on a talented, promising director (Chrisophe Gans, who wrote and directed French cult film Brotherhood of the Wolves, which was reviewed very well), decided to seek out the talent of an Oscar winning writer, and decided to let them do what they wanted and needed to do.
The reason I mention this is because Silent Hill is, when compared to what has been passing as "horror" for the past five to eight years, completely unique. It has a dauntingly thick, and, for some people, difficult to comprehend plot and an ending that makes no sense even to people that are intimately familair with the source material. The monsters, which are a fantastic blend of CGI and human-with-prosthetics, are the kind of twisted, sometimes indescribable horrors that we haven't seen since Clive Barker was still involved in movie making. The environments are gorgeously and intrinsically detailed, bringing the industrial hell that is the dark world to life, so that even when nothing in particular is going on, there is this incredible sense of dread. It is also, as so many critics whined, long, but the extra half hour of the movie is dedicated to adding to the mythos and complexity of the storyline, putting a few ripples in the original story, so that Christophe Gans, who very clearly understands the source material and spends the first hour completely obsessed with pleasing fans, can add his own touch to the story.
Silent Hill is not perfect, either as a movie and especially not as an adaptation. The dialogue, despite being written by Roger Avary, who won an Oscar with his pal Quentin Tarantino for writing a movie called Pulp Fiction, is filled with dialogue that goes between "pedestrian" and "awful"-- there are characters who are meant to be seen as crazy and diluded, but watching any scenes with them in it is a chore because of the stock character cliche that the crazies must talk in bible-quoting riddles and religious-sounding non sequitors. Furthermore, it also falls victim to the horror movie cliche of otherwise reasonably intelligent people doing completely idiotic, nonsensical things. Why, for example, after a long, horrible trip in the darkness that could very well have ended in her death, does Rose choose to sit and try and get answers to her questions from a character that's established as being crazy and nonsensical, when dozens of people around her are screaming for her to get inside sanctuary because the darkness is coming back? It's difficult to sympathize with a main character who can't seem to act smartly on her own behalf, especially when someone else's horrible death happens immediately after because of it. It's obnoxious gaffs like this that will frustrate movie goers-- the acting has been described between being "uninspired" and "shit", but to the actors' credit, it's difficult to be seen doing your craft at your best when the characters do things that make no sense and speak dialogue that makes no sense.
The movie itself is strangely paced. The first hour, which is, in several examples, shot-for-shot a direct adaptation of the source material, is frenetic, gorgeous, and, more than anything, horrifying. When Gans completely takes over what's going on, when there's minimal dialogue and the scenes run on pure terror, the movie exceeds wonderfully. There just hasn't been anything like the first hour of Silent Hill in cinema in years, and Gans has a very good feel for balancing the quiet tension of the foggy, ash-snowing Silent Hill; the rainy, ghost town Silent Hill; and the horribly oppressive dark Silent Hill, where the walls bleed with rust and random, mutilated corpses are strung up to the walls. But in the second hour, the movie begins to lose its steam, with overloads of the aforementioned bad dialogue, the plot becomes unfocused, and, most importantly, it ceases to be scary whatsoever. Tellingly, this is the exact point where the movie stops following the source material and goes off in its own territory, which isn't exactly a cardinal sin, but seeing as how the movie does lose its grip on you in the second half, fans can't help but wonder if the movie would have been better off sticking as obsessively close to the original as the first half throughout the entire movie. What is a cardinal sin, however, is when a movie with an intentionally deep, confusing plot has a moment where the movie comes right out and, in plain English, explains the entire plot. This moment is even told via a flashback-like sequence, in a completely different film stock, with a white-washed style like an old 1950's reel-to-reel, just to make sure you pay attention. Confusingly, the most complained-about aspect of the movie after a quick glance of the reviews at Rottentomatoes is that Silent Hill made no sense-- did they see the same movie I did? With the 4 minute long, detailed explanation? Furthermore, several themes and ideas are expressed two and three times-- if anything, the movie could possibly be accused of overexplanation.
Still, despite the deviations from the game, despite the excessively gorey climax that is completely uncharacteristic of the source, and despite the sometimes tortuous dialogue, Silent Hill still manages to be an incredibly watchable movie, mostly because the source material is kept recognizably in tact, and the source material, though oppressively horrifying, has a deep, fragile, harrowing underlying story with which to wrap your brain around. Gans, though working with a script that deviates significantly, has a deep, base understanding with what's going on, and when he's on a hot streak, his storytelling keeps you on the edge of your seat; it's too bad that the movie loses its momentum in the second half. It's not perfect, and in fact, in much the same way novel readers always prefer the book to the movie in a traditional adaptation, I much prefer the game. But even if you don't understand the plot at all, you've got to appreciate Silent Hill, because it's a damned good thing someone in Hollywood wanted to give a shot a deeper form of horror for the first time in years.
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with love from CRS @ 7:53 PM
Thursday, April 27, 2006
What Hollywood thinks of as "horror" has most definitely changed over the years. It used to be that "horror" movies-- and there were a bunch back in the 60's and 70's, such as Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and of course The Excorcist and Alien-- were directed by auteurs and eccentric geniuses, with long, slow-burning plots, and would often end up being nominated for Oscars-- all the above mentioned movies hovered around the 2 hour mark (Rosemary's Baby going the distance with a 2 hour, 15 minute running time), and all were Oscar nominated. Obviously there were bad horror movies back then, but there was also a string of horror movies that Hollywood took very seriously. This isn't so true nowadays. It's been years since Hollywood released a genuine horror movie that wasn't a slasher film or a goofy monster movie, that wasn't filled with hip, up-and-coming actors and buxom, half-naked women, with a hip tie-in movie soundtrack. Nowadays horror movies are seen as an extremely cheap and effective way of getting teenagers to line up and spend their money for an hour and a half of empty, gorey thrills.
For all of its mistakes, one thing that can be said about Silent Hill: Hollywood doesn't make horror movies like this anymore, and it's almost a miracle it got made at all. It's long as hell, going just past the 2 hour mark. It doesn't star any hip, up-and-coming actors; in fact, the biggest name on the bill, Sean Bean, is perhaps best known for his roll in the Lord of the Rings movies, but didn't even make it past the first movie. The average age between the four main adult characters is 38 years, and none of them are ever half naked. There is no hip soundtrack tie-in. It's an adaptation from Japan, yet it's Rated R and very, very firmly deserves it, unlike the rash of post The Ring horror movies earning a wimpy PG-13 rating. Yet despite all these ideas that Hollywood has been leaning against when it comes to the horror movies its released in years, Hill also extremely expensive: at 55 million dollars, it cost even more than the last horror movie that got huge, The Ring, and cost a whole lot more than the last major movie based on a video game, Resident Evil. Despite recent trends in Hollywood horror movie making, somebody believed enough in Silent Hill that they were willing to put a lot of money in a long, slow-burning horror movie that evokes the mentality of the greats of the late 60's and 70's without also ruining it with big names and a hip cast. No, it's not going to win an Oscar. But some producer out there decided to give bank on a talented, promising director (Chrisophe Gans, who wrote and directed French cult film Brotherhood of the Wolves, which was reviewed very well), decided to seek out the talent of an Oscar winning writer, and decided to let them do what they wanted and needed to do.
The reason I mention this is because Silent Hill is, when compared to what has been passing as "horror" for the past five to eight years, completely unique. It has a dauntingly thick, and, for some people, difficult to comprehend plot and an ending that makes no sense even to people that are intimately familair with the source material. The monsters, which are a fantastic blend of CGI and human-with-prosthetics, are the kind of twisted, sometimes indescribable horrors that we haven't seen since Clive Barker was still involved in movie making. The environments are gorgeously and intrinsically detailed, bringing the industrial hell that is the dark world to life, so that even when nothing in particular is going on, there is this incredible sense of dread. It is also, as so many critics whined, long, but the extra half hour of the movie is dedicated to adding to the mythos and complexity of the storyline, putting a few ripples in the original story, so that Christophe Gans, who very clearly understands the source material and spends the first hour completely obsessed with pleasing fans, can add his own touch to the story.
Silent Hill is not perfect, either as a movie and especially not as an adaptation. The dialogue, despite being written by Roger Avary, who won an Oscar with his pal Quentin Tarantino for writing a movie called Pulp Fiction, is filled with dialogue that goes between "pedestrian" and "awful"-- there are characters who are meant to be seen as crazy and diluded, but watching any scenes with them in it is a chore because of the stock character cliche that the crazies must talk in bible-quoting riddles and religious-sounding non sequitors. Furthermore, it also falls victim to the horror movie cliche of otherwise reasonably intelligent people doing completely idiotic, nonsensical things. Why, for example, after a long, horrible trip in the darkness that could very well have ended in her death, does Rose choose to sit and try and get answers to her questions from a character that's established as being crazy and nonsensical, when dozens of people around her are screaming for her to get inside sanctuary because the darkness is coming back? It's difficult to sympathize with a main character who can't seem to act smartly on her own behalf, especially when someone else's horrible death happens immediately after because of it. It's obnoxious gaffs like this that will frustrate movie goers-- the acting has been described between being "uninspired" and "shit", but to the actors' credit, it's difficult to be seen doing your craft at your best when the characters do things that make no sense and speak dialogue that makes no sense.
The movie itself is strangely paced. The first hour, which is, in several examples, shot-for-shot a direct adaptation of the source material, is frenetic, gorgeous, and, more than anything, horrifying. When Gans completely takes over what's going on, when there's minimal dialogue and the scenes run on pure terror, the movie exceeds wonderfully. There just hasn't been anything like the first hour of Silent Hill in cinema in years, and Gans has a very good feel for balancing the quiet tension of the foggy, ash-snowing Silent Hill; the rainy, ghost town Silent Hill; and the horribly oppressive dark Silent Hill, where the walls bleed with rust and random, mutilated corpses are strung up to the walls. But in the second hour, the movie begins to lose its steam, with overloads of the aforementioned bad dialogue, the plot becomes unfocused, and, most importantly, it ceases to be scary whatsoever. Tellingly, this is the exact point where the movie stops following the source material and goes off in its own territory, which isn't exactly a cardinal sin, but seeing as how the movie does lose its grip on you in the second half, fans can't help but wonder if the movie would have been better off sticking as obsessively close to the original as the first half throughout the entire movie. What is a cardinal sin, however, is when a movie with an intentionally deep, confusing plot has a moment where the movie comes right out and, in plain English, explains the entire plot. This moment is even told via a flashback-like sequence, in a completely different film stock, with a white-washed style like an old 1950's reel-to-reel, just to make sure you pay attention. Confusingly, the most complained-about aspect of the movie after a quick glance of the reviews at Rottentomatoes is that Silent Hill made no sense-- did they see the same movie I did? With the 4 minute long, detailed explanation? Furthermore, several themes and ideas are expressed two and three times-- if anything, the movie could possibly be accused of overexplanation.
Still, despite the deviations from the game, despite the excessively gorey climax that is completely uncharacteristic of the source, and despite the sometimes tortuous dialogue, Silent Hill still manages to be an incredibly watchable movie, mostly because the source material is kept recognizably in tact, and the source material, though oppressively horrifying, has a deep, fragile, harrowing underlying story with which to wrap your brain around. Gans, though working with a script that deviates significantly, has a deep, base understanding with what's going on, and when he's on a hot streak, his storytelling keeps you on the edge of your seat; it's too bad that the movie loses its momentum in the second half. It's not perfect, and in fact, in much the same way novel readers always prefer the book to the movie in a traditional adaptation, I much prefer the game. But even if you don't understand the plot at all, you've got to appreciate Silent Hill, because it's a damned good thing someone in Hollywood wanted to give a shot a deeper form of horror for the first time in years.
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