5th Anniversary

[Silent Evil]

Reception...

Rotten Tomatoes rates SILENT HILL at a whopping 29%, while metacric similarly has it at 30/100.

Chicago Sun-Times: (38/100)
The New York Times: (10/100)
San Francisco Chronicle: (0/100)

OUCH!

[Fevered Dream]

^ Poo to those haters. They wouldn't know a decent movie if it punched them in the throat.

[SPRINGS02]

^I agree with them, i wouldn't consider the silent hill movie a good movie.

[Shadow]

It's a good video game adaptation, but would it really be able to stand on its own two feet if it had nothing to do whatsoever with the Silent Hill franchise? Probably not. It seems good since Hollywood likes to shovel out crap and rename it a video game adaptation before adding as much crap as possible for sequels which go further and further away from the source material.

[Hydra666]

I was 13 at this time, the movie scared the shit outta me but I liked it.

[NanayaShiki]

Reception...

Rotten Tomatoes rates SILENT HILL at a whopping 29%, while metacric similarly has it at 30/100.

Chicago Sun-Times: (38/100)
The New York Times: (10/100)
San Francisco Chronicle: (0/100)

OUCH!

I think it deserves it. I had two problems with the Silent Hill movie. I didn't think it was a good adaptation of what Silent Hill is. No, I don't just mean plot-wise. I don't think it felt like Silent Hill at all. It's type of horror, it's themes, it's general ideas, it's action, and so on. I didn't like it as a Silent Hill product. But my other problem is that I also don't think it works good as a horror movie either. It's plot was "wut"-worthy, it's acting was not up to par, and it wasn't scary, just unpleasant at times.

I probably could have liked the movie if it had gotten one of those two things right, but getting them both wrong just makes it fail as an overall movie. To me, of course. I know some people, both SH game fans and non-game fans, liked it. But it seems the general public feels the same way as me. Which is kinda shocking, actually. For some reason I was under the impression that the movie was more well liked by the general public than that. Huh. Go figure.

[alone in the town]

Tycho of Penny Arcade summed up my feelings on the movie perfectly.

You might have seen people say that this was a good movie, or a faithful representation of the game, and I would urge you to disregard anything those people say in the future about movies or, indeed, any other subject. Silent Hill: The Movie evokes the games without accurately expressing them - to the extent that the movie succeeds at all, it is because director Christophe Gans has mastered the series' visual lexicon. It was weighed down by a faulty script, a terrible kind of smudge across the sheet, but brilliantly directed. It is in this way that it most closely mirrors electronic gaming in a general sense, though (ironically) not Silent Hill, in that it is the sterling execution of a poor narrative.

It's alright if a person wants to enjoy it, so long as they do not lie to themselves and others about the film in aggregate. One can exert their will and emerge from the film with whatever nutrients exist in that barren place. In the same way that a telescope cannot be made to examine itself, I believe that writing in a way can't be used to examine the dialogue of this movie. There is something foul about language after what this writer has done with it. Roger Avary, who PR flacks were quick to establish as one of our own, should go to prison. Not forever now, just for a couple hours, so that he can feel what it was like to languish in that dark theater.

The story for the first Silent Hill is what I would call "complex." It is not ready-made for the mass market. It is ambiguous in some ways. In short, it is the sort of story that a person like Roger Ebert might assume doesn't exist anywhere in gaming. This movie won't change his mind, because much of the subtlety and perhaps even the core ideas have either been stripped out or "seasoned" to appeal to the idiots they imagine will watch this thing. I say "idiots, etc." because this is a movie that feels the need to repeat two and three times what is really the most basic Goddamn information. There is no trust whatsoever in the viewing audience, which is to say you, aside from he absolute assurance that you will be snared by the carefully created mythology that this is "the faithful videogame translation."

The concepts communicated by the second game are far more digestible, and would require no idiot scribe to chew every detail to a paste and then spit it in my mouth. If Silent Hill must, must be a Box Office Entity, there are ways to manage it that do less violence to what it represents.

(CW)TB out.

Also, it's funny vis-a-vis Roger Avary and prison.

[lain of the wired]

Apparently I fucking loved it at the time... with hesitance. Also, it appears that I didn't understand how averaging worked back then.

I was so enamored by the prosthetics and the use of practical effects, I think I may have been too biased to really have an objective opinion. All I wanted was to see the monsters and hear the music. I'd have been happy with 90 minutes of nurses and lying figures dancing nonstop to "You're Not Here." I probably still would be. It was a video game-to-movie adaptation, in the same sense that Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat were video game-to-movie adaptation. The references were there, yeah...

I still bought the DVD specifically to see the making of stuff, and the bonus material I so desperately wanted to see (disappointment there), and then my BF bought me another copy knowing how much I loved it, not knowing I'd already bought one. So for whatever reason, I still have two copies. *shrug*

Funny story, though:

Yeah, I know what you mean... One lady walked past me as the credits were rolling muttering about it being "stupid-ass movie...waste mah money...". I agree the original plot would have been cool, though. Just too difficult to translate for time allotment.

[Yuki]

Whoa, it did that well? That's surprising! (There's a Blu-Ray? I wonder if it has any extra features not on the DVD in America.)

No miss, it does not.

Slight correction: I'm a mister, not a miss.
(That sucks, though, that it's not much different.)


That being said... I felt that the movie could have been much better with better dialogue. It wasn't outright bad, but... it could have been better.

[Silent Evil]

Slight correction: I'm a mister, not a miss.
(That sucks, though, that it's not much different.)

Sorry. My humblest of apologies, good sir.

This is where those 'pink' and 'blue' bunny icons in our avatar profile to the side would come in really handy. Or, am I thinking of a different forum...

If it's 'Extras' you seek, your best bet is the 3-Disc Japanese Edition DVD release.

[Yuki]

Slight correction: I'm a mister, not a miss.
(That sucks, though, that it's not much different.)

Sorry. My humblest of apologies, good sir.

This is where those 'pink' and 'blue' bunny icons in our avatar profile to the side would come in really handy. Or, am I thinking of a different forum...

If it's 'Extras' you seek, your best bet is the 3-Disc Japanese Edition DVD release.

I honestly don't pay too much attention to icons, so I'm not sure if we've ever had them. (It's no problem. I'm often mistaken for a girl online, anyway. xD)


What sort of extras come on that, anyway...?

[Rhodey]

^ Poo to those haters. They wouldn't know a decent movie if it punched them in the throat.

So they're "haters" for having legitimate complaints with an incredibly flawed, atrociously written film?

[Silent Evil]

I honestly don't pay too much attention to icons, so I'm not sure if we've ever had them.

I think they were on here with the old board theme, before this new one was implemented in the last year or so.

What sort of extras come on that, anyway...?

Scroll down to the Japanese listings:

http://www.silenthillmemories.net/shm/versions_en.htm

The 4-Disc 'Ultimate Box' is pretty much just the 3-Disc 'Premium Edition'. The extra fourth disc is just a Blu-ray copy of the movie.

[alone in the town]

We used to have a pink or blue icon next to our names which identified our gender.

[Yuki]

I honestly don't pay too much attention to icons, so I'm not sure if we've ever had them.

I think they were on here with the old board theme, before this new one was implemented in the last year or so.

What sort of extras come on that, anyway...?

Scroll down to the Japanese listings:

http://www.silenthillmemories.net/shm/versions_en.htm

The 4-Disc 'Ultimate Box' is pretty much just the 3-Disc 'Premium Edition'. The extra fourth disc is just a Blu-ray copy of the movie.

I have to say, I really like the Premium Edition's cover. That, and the comparison video as well as the interview with Yamaoka. I'd love to buy it someday.

I hope the Revelations DVD comes with plenty of great extras.

We used to have a pink or blue icon next to our names which identified our gender.

It would be kinda nice to have those back.

[Skele]

Overall i enjoyed the first film, but a few of the changes made me frown when i saw it opening day.

My main complaints were the changes to the story, and characters. I would've preferred to have Harry over Rose, but i got over that pretty quickly. to this day i still don't care for the "burn the witch" cult, and i would've preferred Dahlia as she was in the game.

[Fevered Dream]

So they're "haters" for having legitimate complaints with an incredibly flawed, atrociously written film?

Yes indeed

[The Adversary]

When I take shots, I always say cheers "to the haters." They generally have a point.

[Kenji]

Y'know, I almost forgot, but I basically used this movie as an excuse to go out on two dates with two girls, back-to-back (and somehow not consciously realize that this was exactly what I was doing). Both of them enjoyed it, for what it was worth, and I fangasmed for the first half of the movie.

It wasn't a great movie, but I had fun, and that's probably all that matters.

[Magnolia]

I remember it very vividly. I was confused. Then I was saddened. Then I was confused again. Then I rode my bicycle 15 miles home in the dark and was nearly struck by a number of motor vehicles. Then I consumed a number of ice cream cones and stayed awake all night, moderately confused and saddened until I passed out some time the next morning. Then I had nightmares. Then I woke up. Then I was angry and confused.