Why did you like it? (or not)

Discuss the original 2006 movie.

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xibalba22
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Post by xibalba22 »

alessas angel wrote:I really liked it and a major reason was the atmosphere. The shooting was beautiful. All the grays meshing together made for a wonderful shoot.
I totally agree. The atmosphere made it more spooky!
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Post by Larson »

I loved everything except for what they did with the story and Silent Hill-universe altogether (completely changing the role of the cult etc). I liked how they didn't fully rely on CGI, I liked the characters, the atmosphere and what they did with the ending. Sean Bean doing completely irrelevant stuff was fun and in general the whole movie is fun to compare with the "real" Silent Hill-universe.
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Post by JKristine35 »

xibalba22 wrote:I LOVED the movie. I've almost got it memorized I've seen it so many times. I used to pop it into the DVD player every night. What I liked about it was Pyramid Head being in it. I'm a huge Pyramid Head fan. I loved the end of it. With them being stuck in purgatory but thinking they were really 'home'. I heard that a part 2 of the movie is coming out. Anyone know how true that is? If it's true, I hope they make it more like the game part 2, and keep making movies that go with the flows of each game. Anyway they do it, I know it will be awesome and I'm so excited to see it.
This makes me want to watch Silent Hill as well. :)
1.) They're not in purgatory, they're in an alternate dimension created and controlled by Alessa.
2.) Here's a link to the thread directly below this one that talks about the second movie http://silenthillforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=17475
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Post by ShadowBaby »

I feel that Christophe did an excellent directing job. The atmopshere and mood were about sopt on, though it could have been a little darker. The costumes and effects were beautiful and I love that they used practical creatures rather than full CG.
The story was fairly crap, though. Unless the events lead into the sequel which makes it all better womehow, I was disappointed. The end got a little preachy and felt rushed. The coreographed nurse line-dancing was just weird, but I admit it was creepy. The hospital was such a major part of the game and yet it comprised, what 10 minutes of the movie? I kind of wish they had made it just a little bit longer in order to develop the story a little better.
It seems to me that the film fell victim to the "mainstream syndrome." That's what I call when a company sacrifices substance to please the masses. Silent Hill is such a niche franchise that apparently some changes had to be made to attract a wider audience.
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Post by Shattered »

I either hated the movie or STRONGLY disliked it. Firstly, it was really insulting that the writer changed the loving/protecting/nurturing father to a mother because he thought that that would be more realistic. Second, the plot of that movie completely failed at capturing the aching-limbo-lost-confused feel of the Silent Hill games. Thirdly, like any other second rate horror movie they compensated for their lack of talent and plot by adding tons of violence. I was super excited and saw the movie when it came out in theaters... but after watching it let down for about 2 weeks. The movie just isn't very good - you have to be a fanatical SH fan to enjoy it all, and even so it is only because it has that brand on it.
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Post by Sergiy »

I dont like the fact that they changed the characters, put in Sh 2 monsters, added wierd post-apocaliptic looking "cult" members.. "the barbwier monster" and the ending? come on!!

Though i must say, the nurse scene was brilliant.
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Post by ShadowBaby »

You'll notice that most of the locations are from SH2 as well.
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Post by JKristine35 »

you have to be a fanatical SH fan to like it all, and even then it is only because it has that brand on it.
That's shit.
You'll notice that most of the locations are from SH2 as well.
Actually, that's not true. Two locations (the bowling alley and the hospital) are from SH2, one location (the school) is from SH1, and three locations (the church, the hidden church, and the hotel) are specific to the movie. So most of the locations are actually new places.
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Post by paladin181 »

LanceS133 wrote:I liked how it pretty much stuck to the SH1 story line
No, It didn't. It's about as close to the SH1 story as the new game Dante's Inferno is to the story of the poem, Dante's Inferno.
LanceS133 wrote:PH was badass,
To what purpose though? I'm no purist by any means, but the inclusion here in the role it played was a stretch to say the least.
LanceS133 wrote:Alessa's dialog was kinda cheesy but she looked incredible at the end with the barbed wire scene. But mostly I loved the scenery and the music compositions, especially since alot of them came from the game.

....i kinda wanna watch it now.
This movie seemed to be nothing more than a pile of fan services packed into one neatly wrapped package, even moreso than some other game-to-movie transitions. It was painful to watch and the disjointed editing often broke what little momentum the movie had when the scenes switched. I liked using Chris to set up the exposition of the story and the back drop, but their timing in revealing these plot elements was very poor. It didn't leave me feeling like I couldn't wait to see what's next, more like, "WTH? Now we've got to follow HIM too?"

Don't get me wrong. This movie isn't the worst one I've ever seen. But without the Silent Hill name it goes straight to DVD with no one to really watch it whatsoever. And that's REALLY most of what Silent Hill really lends this film: the name, and the fanservice characters like the nurses and the Red Pyramid Thing..
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JKristine35
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Post by JKristine35 »

But without the Silent Hill name, it goes straight to DVD with no one to really watch it whatsoever.
I strongly disagree. 2/3 of people who saw the movie didn't even know it was based on a game, and Silent Hill has a slightly higher than average fan rating on most user sites. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean that's a fact to everyone else, including the studios and producers who decide what goes straight to DVD and what goes to theater.
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Post by Sergiy »

Another thing i wanna critisize is that the movie wasnt scary at all.. It was more unpleasant at a few moments, such as the part where she takes the note out of the thing's mouth, and the part with the barbwire monster.. but that's it.
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Post by Mephisto »

^The "barbwire monster" is called The Janitor lol

And yeah, I liked the movie (as I said earlier) because of the characters (main and secondary), the songs and the environment (the effects, etc) but the story was lame, they should've made the story from SH1. Or something. The story is the only thing that makes me dislike the movie. Apart from that nothing, I guess.
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Post by Shattered »

JRamirez35 wrote:
But without the Silent Hill name, it goes straight to DVD with no one to really watch it whatsoever.
I strongly disagree. 2/3 of people who saw the movie didn't even know it was based on a game, and Silent Hill has a slightly higher than average fan rating on most user sites. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean that's a fact to everyone else, including the studios and producers who decide what goes straight to DVD and what goes to theater.
It's one thing to make-up facts that can't be checked (like that 2/3 people who saw the movie didn't even know it was based on a game.) I can't really do anything about such claims. But Ebert gave it 1.5 stars, IMDb has it at 6.5 out of 10, and it's at 30% on rotten tomatoes. I'm no expert on reviews, but those are the only three I ever even check. I thought the movie was absolute rubbish, and as a fanatical SH fan (despite being poor I bought a Wii in anticipation of Shattered Memories... since there was a time when it was going to be exclusive for Wii) I'm pretty peeved about it. I'm not any less a fan of Silent Hill for thinking that the movie is crap.
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Post by JKristine35 »

It's one thing to make-up facts that can't be checked (like that 2/3 people who saw the movie didn't even know it was based on a game.) I can't really do anything about such claims.
Ok, maybe I should have said 2/3 of people who post about Silent Hill on internet forums never played the games beforehand. And in that case, yes, that is correct. I've been on IMDb since before the movie even came out, and 2/3 is actually a conservative number. Even looking at the number of games sold for any of the games in the series vs. the amount of sales that the movie made, even saying half the audience had bought a Silent Hill game is a bit of a stretch.
But Ebert gave it 1.5 stars, IMDb has it at 6.5 out of 10, and it's at 30% on rotten tomatoes. I'm no expert on reviews, but those are the only three I ever even check.
You appear to have misread my statement. I wrote:
Silent Hill has a slightly higher than average fan rating on most user sites. I don't really care what reviewers have to say, since they don't represent the whole population. The user ratings for Silent Hill were 6.5/10 on IMDb, 58% on RT, and 41/2 out of 5 on Bloody Disgusting. All of these scores are slightly higher than the average horror film. The whole point of that was that Paladin attempted to claim that, because he didn't like the movie, there was no way a studio would pick it up. Even slightly higher than average ratings are a big deal to studios, as is the $100,000,000 intake, which means he's not necessarily correct in believing that everybody automatically shares his opinion.
I thought the movie was absolute rubbish, and as a fanatical SH fan (despite being poor I bought a Wii in anticipation of Shattered Memories... since there was a time when it was going to be exclusive for Wii) I'm pretty peeved about it. I'm not any less a fan of Silent Hill for thinking that the movie is crap.
I'd like to see where I even so much as implied that. In fact, you're the one who attempted to lump everybody who liked the movie into one category and suggested that no one could ever like the film except for its "brand name" because you don't like it:
you have to be a fanatical SH fan to like it all, and even then it is only because it has that brand on it.
I don't have a problem with opinions, but it annoys the shit out of me when people try to state their opinions as fact.
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Post by NeoAquarius12 »

I thought the movie was really interesting. It was a great relative to the Silent Hill base, but I wish the story was a lot different. It didn't come together as well as SH1, and it wasn't different enough to exclude that SH1 was the basis for the movie. The special effecs and costumes were amazing though.
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Post by paladin181 »

JRamirez35 wrote:
It's one thing to make-up facts that can't be checked (like that 2/3 people who saw the movie didn't even know it was based on a game.) I can't really do anything about such claims.
Ok, maybe I should have said 2/3 of people who post about Silent Hill on internet forums never played the games beforehand. And in that case, yes, that is correct. I've been on IMDb since before the movie even came out, and 2/3 is actually a conservative number. Even looking at the number of games sold for any of the games in the series vs. the amount of sales that the movie made, even saying half the audience had bought a Silent Hill game is a bit of a stretch.
But Ebert gave it 1.5 stars, IMDb has it at 6.5 out of 10, and it's at 30% on rotten tomatoes. I'm no expert on reviews, but those are the only three I ever even check.
You appear to have misread my statement. I wrote:
Silent Hill has a slightly higher than average fan rating on most user sites. I don't really care what reviewers have to say, since they don't represent the whole population. The user ratings for Silent Hill were 6.5/10 on IMDb, 58% on RT, and 41/2 out of 5 on Bloody Disgusting. All of these scores are slightly higher than the average horror film. The whole point of that was that Paladin attempted to claim that, because he didn't like the movie, there was no way a studio would pick it up. Even slightly higher than average ratings are a big deal to studios, as is the $100,000,000 intake, which means he's not necessarily correct in believing that everybody automatically shares his opinion.
I thought the movie was absolute rubbish, and as a fanatical SH fan (despite being poor I bought a Wii in anticipation of Shattered Memories... since there was a time when it was going to be exclusive for Wii) I'm pretty peeved about it. I'm not any less a fan of Silent Hill for thinking that the movie is crap.
I'd like to see where I even so much as implied that. In fact, you're the one who attempted to lump everybody who liked the movie into one category and suggested that no one could ever like the film except for its "brand name" because you don't like it:
you have to be a fanatical SH fan to like it all, and even then it is only because it has that brand on it.
I don't have a problem with opinions, but it annoys the shit out of me when people try to state their opinions as fact.
You make a lot of assumptions, and not the least of which being that I know nothing about the movie industry. The movie was hyped as being based on the game. In truth, you can't honestly tell me that the movie would ever have seen the light of day without a preinstalled fanbase to sell it to. A movie like Silent Hill is a risk that most studios wouldn't attempt to make. It would not have received as large of a budget, and not expected anywhere near the number of sales they did get. Just because they sold more than to owners of the game doesn't mean they weren't counting on the SH fans already there, and in fact they were LARGELY dependent on the preinstalled fanbase to sell their movie. I'll stand by my statement. It would have gone straight to DVD on any merit beyond having the Silent Hill name attached to it, because it would not have the ability to sell without that audience to start.

It is not my opinion that because I didn't like the movie that it was inherently bad. I actually rather dislike a lot of good movies, and I equally like some notably bad ones. It's not exactly difficult to comprehend. This movie had poorly installed horror elements that failed to get under the skin in ways that good psychological thrilllers do (such as the first SAW or 1408), and failed to deliver the cheap scares as well. The best parts of the movie were under utilized (The creepers with the human faces, and the cult's single minded mentality) or almost completely left on the cutting room floor (just LOOK at the deleted scenes on the DVD).

So the movie wasn't horrible, but it didn't do anything new or different, and actually had a weak story telling setup to encompass a weak story that vaguely resembled something familiar to the fans of the series, and in fact was JUST different enough to piss off or turn away a significant portion of the SH fan base.

So yes, I dislike this movie, and not unfairly so. It is poorly put together on even a basic level. I dislike the way the Silent Hill name and characters were bundled together with this garbage to sell something undeserving of the name, and I disliked the OBVIOUS fanservice of the lying figure and a modified Red Pyramid Thing showing up just for the lulz.
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Post by ShadowBaby »

JRamirez35 wrote:I don't have a problem with opinions, but it annoys the shit out of me when people try to state their opinions as fact.
Yeah, you're pretty notorious for that. :P
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Post by JKristine35 »

You make a lot of assumptions, and not the least of which being that I know nothing about the movie industry.
I wouldn't know one way or the another, and I've made no assumptions.
The movie was hyped as being based on the game.
No, it wasn't. As far as I know, none of the trailers mentioned it was based on a game, and neither did the internet or magazine ads, or any of the posters. The only way someone who knew nothing about it would know it was based on a game would be to run a search on the plot synopsis, and even then, 4 synopses were released, and only two of them mentioned it was based on a game.
In truth, you can't honestly tell me that the movie would ever have seen the light of day without a preinstalled fanbase to sell it to.
Yes, I can. I thought it had a good story, one that could easily sell to a major studio.
A movie like Silent Hill is a risk that most studios wouldn't attempt to make.
Do you have any kind of proof of that from an official source, or are you just making unverifiable claims based on your own bias?
It would not have received as large of a budget, and not expected anywhere near the number of sales they did get. Just because they sold more than to owners of the game doesn't mean they weren't counting on the SH fans already there, and in fact they were LARGELY dependent on the preinstalled fanbase to sell their movie.
The largest sales numbers for any of the SH game is slightly over 1,000,000 for the first game. Times that by $10 a ticket, and you're looking at a piddling $10,000,000. That's pocket change for major films, and even then, that's running under the assumption that all 1,000,000 people who bought the SH game will see the movie. There's no way such a small amount would have any kind of major impact on the budget or whether it was released to theaters or straight to DVD.
I'll stand by my statement. It would have gone straight to DVD on any merit beyond having the Silent Hill name attached to it, because it would not have the ability to sell without that audience to start.
It made $100,000,000. The SH fanbase (according to the game numbers) would account for, at most, 1/10 of that. That's still $90,000,000, even without the gamers.
So yes, I dislike this movie, and not unfairly so. It is poorly put together on even a basic level. I dislike the way the Silent Hill name and characters were bundled together with this garbage to sell something undeserving of the name, and I disliked the OBVIOUS fanservice of the lying figure and a modified Red Pyramid Thing showing up just for the lulz.
That's your right to dislike it, and I never said otherwise. But I dislike that you seem to be speaking for the people in the movie industry and assuming that everyone in the movie business agrees with you.

Yeah, you're pretty notorious for that. :P
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Post by ShadowBaby »

Enough with all the positing.

Here's a question, since it has already been suggested.

Outside the Silent Hill franchise, what is your opinion of the film as a standalone story?
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Post by paladin181 »

Decent enough. Despite my lack of interest in the movie, it exhibits many traits of good horror in the story:
PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:
an antagonist from an unexpected source, the loss of a close friend, and an ambiguous deus ex machina that comes in the form of dark Alessa simply wanting revenge for those who unleashed her in the first place, but needing the protagonist to sponsor her. The fact that Rose makes the decision she does (even if it's possible Alessa duped her; we don't know for sure the people were literally already dead, after all) says some pretty unsavory things about her character as well, that she was willing to chance the slaughter of every survivor of a nightmare town to appease a demon taking the form of her tortured adopted daughter's soul. Nice balance, just poor execution over all, IMO.
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