Silent Hill Kicked ASS!

enhanced cgi is fine by me. they looked amazing in this movie. but i prefer it when they start with the basis of live action, otherwise we're stuck with that horrible multi-smith fight in matrix reloaded...

Note, I haven't seen the movie (yet). Or finished any of the games (yet). But the whole thing with horror is that it's *always* scarier to hint than to reveal. The scariest movie I have yet seen was the original Ju-On. Why? Because these ghosts show up for no really explicable reason, and sooner or later, lead to the horrible death of pretty much every character in the movie. No explanations, no "this is how you stop it". Just spooky shit happening and people dying.

So inevitably any ending that attempts to explain Silent Hill will reduce the effect of the bizarre and horrific atmosphere. Even if it weren't trite bullshit. (And for what it's worth, I hear the game endings are too.)

The effects were cool, but I was pretty bored all the way through. It seemed like it moved so slowly, and when they did finally get to the plot, it was so cheesy and sped through it so quickly that I rolled my eyes.

It was almost like the entire movie was, "And now we're going to show you another scary building while she looks for her daughter. And here's another scary thing. And here's another scary thing. No, no explanation yet. Just scary things." If I thought about it like a video game, it worked, but you know how exciting it is to watch someone play a video game? That's what this felt like.

I did, however, like that I'd think, "Oh shit..." whenever the warning siren went off. Talk about conditioning...

The female cop? HOT.

I liked the nurses.

The ending pissed me off something fierce.

Well, I saw it. It was pretty stupid, and filled with bad acting across the board. The whole "real world" subplot was completely pointless (and unrelated to any of the games, I might add).

However. When that siren went off. And the darkness fell. And the scenery flaked away like ash to reveal something altogether worse underneath....THAT was damn cool. If I could just trim away everything else, I'd have liked the movie.

my favorite part:

I wasn't too thrilled with it- the scariest thing was how much we paid to see it

that was one of the parts I liked - along with the guy in the beginning with the gas mask on and that's all I'm going to say before I ruin it for those who have yet to see it

I don't watch horror movies expecting "good" acting, "excellent" plot and a "decent" ending. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, an over the top horror movie, very much like the games to me.

I allowed myself to sink into the consciousness of a 10 year old who takes a movie like this very seriously, and was able to block out the reasonable part of my mind that wanted to critique it to death. With most movies, I attempt to just go with it and get what I can out of it. This movie did make me scared, and it did a very good job of it. If I think about it in retrospect, it is completely ludicrous, but it isn't worthwhile for me to think too hard about a movie like this, that ruins the fun.

I would like to see a part 2....

Well, that's just it. I don't expect good acting from horror movies, but if you're not going to have good acting, you should have a lot more horror. All the real world sequences and silly five-minute-plot-expose at the end and all that could easily have been dumped in favor of more creepy ghost town locations and go-rounds with the darkness. And it would have felt more like the games to boot. (I mean, that's way more exposition, even at the beginning, than I've ever encountered in a Silent Hill game, where a substantial portion of the mood comes from the "what the hell is going on?" factor.)

(And while the games set me on edge within minutes and drive me away from play in minutes more, too creeped out to continue, the movie never really even got me on edge. I dunno why not, it had most of the elements..)

At least you have it over there...it hasn't been realsed in australia yet.