Silent Hill (Widescreen Edition)

"I heard that movie's fucked up," a friend said when I told her I was reviewing Silent Hill. Even though she hadn't seen the movie, I should have clarified what that meant. Did it explore themes that were so disturbing that it was shocking? Was it just unrelentingly gory? Or was it just so avant-garde and abstract that even the writing of this review is somewhat impossible to put together?

I tried to like it, I really did. The lead actors were appealing, the basic plot (a woman tries to take her adoptive daughter to the ghost town of Silent Hill, West Virginia to cure her of her constant sleepwalking) sounded reasonable, if not a bit clich?. Upon seeing previews of the film earlier this year, I was unaware the flick was based on a video game until a nerd in a class I was taking told me it was. Horror films have a hard enough time being adapted from the novel form, much less a Playstation game. Remember how good Resident Evil was? 'Cuz I don't.

I guess I should have known better.

Radha Mitchell ("Man on Fire") seems a bit out of place in a flick like this. She stars as Rose, whose ten-year old cherubic daughter, Sharon, keeps sleepwalking and mentioning the town of Silent Hill in her sleep spells. Well duh, of course the town is a ghost town destroyed by a fire that somehow manages to keep burning underground. And of course there is no way to get to the town by interstate or state road. Veering off road to avoid hitting the ghost of a girl who resembles little Sharon gets Rose and her SUV into Silent Hill, where it never seems to stop raining ash. Are you still with me? I had to ask because I was starting to confuse even myself. My bad.

What is important to know is that Sharon is missing and Rose must find her. Got that?

That being said, welcome to Silent Hill. Where armless monsters and geometric ghouls straight out of a Braque painting are there to greet you. Bodies are literally ripped apart by piano wire with teeth. And where the ghost town's literal ghosts burn visitors like witches. Why? Couldn't tell ya. Maybe I should have played the game a few times before watching.

The casting here is great. It's an instance where a mainstream cast is totally unnecessary. The always-reliable Alice Krige plays a creepy character that instructs townspeople to burn heretics; both her speech and her wardrobe mimic that of Piper Laurie in "Carrie." Throw in a pedophilic janitor and perfectly choreographed zombie nurses (I'll explain later), and you've got the formula for a totally whacked and nonsensical horror flick.

Laurie Holden (that's Marita Covarrubias, for you X-Files geeks) is a hoot as Cybil, a local policewoman who likes to dress like a dominatrix. She should watch out though: Bravo's Jackie Warner may sue her for copyright infringement based on her haircut. Sean Bean, who plays Rose's husband, is wasted in a supporting role that finds him searching for his wife and daughter. Interesting that after producers whined about a lack of male characters in the film, his was written into the script last minute. Also interesting that the latest horror flick I reviewed (The Descent) had no male characters (minus one who was impaled five minutes in), but worked really, really well.

I struggled through the film, whining that there wasn't a solid plot. I guess that's what you get when you are a film based on a video game. Surprisingly enough, the film's "surprise" ending, which would have made me angry if it were any other movie, didn't bother me. In fact, it sort of brought closure to the bizarre series of images I had seen for the past two hours.

As for the DVD, a making-of featurette makes up the special features portion. Surprisingly bare for a DVD of a new release, I guess an audio commentary of an incomprehensible movie would be somewhat threadbare. Path of Darkness: Making 'Silent Hill, is divided into six-parts: Origins, Casting, Set Design, Stars and Stunts, Creatures Unleashed, and Creature Choreography. Director Christophe Gans wanted creatures to be "disturbing, not disgusting," according to the makeup department. Okay, that makes sense. The most comical portion of the featurette comes towards the end when Gans explains how all the monsters (ghouls? Creatures? Etc.) were "perfectly choreographed." Almost like Michael Jackson's Thriller revamped. While the monster nurses were attacking Mitchell's Rose, I couldn't help but think of Britney Spears' debut video Baby One More Time and chuckling at the resemblance.

But what sums up my review is a line said by a technical worker on the film: "The [video] game was like the Bible" when they were translating Silent Hill to the screen. I did feel like I was watching my freshman year roommate play the videogame in front of me. Perhaps it would have been better to secularize a bit more.