--Dahlia Gillespie, Silent Hill
Silent Hill manages to be the overlapping rare examples of a film where Sean Bean does not die and a video game adaptation is actually handled very well in cinematic form mostly because of its aesthetic and effects. The franchise of Silent Hill has also lent itself in general to examining metaphysics and epistemology with a special focus on morality and psychology, which of course helps deepen the themes of any film. Not everything is perfect despite this. Some of the minor side characters do not have the same performances behind them as Rose and Chris Da Silva. Sometimes a longer runtime would have avoided rushing some plot points. The dialogue is very weak at its worst. This next part has to do with things beyond the movie and not the movie itself, but though the movie is somewhat groundbreaking in its portrayal of female leads in a 2006 video game film, the absolute stupidity of the director in both believing in gender stereotypes at all and only not picking a male lead because men are allegedly not supposed to be "vulnerable" means Silent Hill is yet another movie with idiocy that shaped its development behind the camera. The quality of the movie itself is unaffected by this since this has to do with the philosophical mistakes of the director and not the execution or production values, but it does taint the man who helmed this project. The majority of the film still stands as a monument to how to translate the atmosphere of a game to a film and how to utilize visual uniqueness.
Production Values
A very strong visual atmosphere, great creature design, and competent cinematography are the defining traits of the movie. Less than 20 minutes in, the sirens of Silent Hill are already blaring after Rose Da Silva has entered the town, and some of the bizarre entities of the Otherworld begin to make appearances. The ashes and fog of the Fog World, as it is called online, have already been seen before this transformation into the more desolate dimension first comes. When the Fog World gives way to the Otherworld, additional beings like Pyramid Head can manifest, and parts with these two dimensions are often the best of the film due to the superb visual representation of Silent Hill. There are few horror movies that reach this level of success in the aesthetic tone. With some exceptions, unfortunately, the cast and dialogue largely does not live up to the quality of the atmosphere and effects. Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean are by far the best performers here as Mrs. and Mr. Da Silva, though the latter only has smaller, scattered scenes. Bean and Mitchell out-act almost everyone else in the move but are followed by Deborah Kara Unger as Dahlia Gillespie with her limited screentime. Laurie Holden also does alright with her character Cybil Bennett, the police officer transplanted from the first video game, but she does not give as strong a performance as the Da Silvas receive.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Rose and Chris Da Silva do not have the easier parenting roles. Their daughter Sharon has had repeated sleepwalking incidents where she talks about a place called Silent Hill, and in the most recent case, she almost killed herself. The child's mother Rose decides to take Sharon to visit the West Virginia town of Silent Hill without even letting Chris know, but a bizarre car accident leaves her unconscious long enough for Sharon to go missing. Upon waking, Rose observes an unexpected location. Ashes fall from the sky; sudden siren blasts usher in a metaphysical transformation of the townscape. Rose thus begins her exploration of a town that is diseased by traumatic abuse and its aftermath.
Intellectual Content
The metaphysical abnormalities of the Otherworld as compared to the normal world are ultimately the result of strife between a young girl hated because she was born outside of marriage and a religious cult whose leader is named Christabella. The cult at times quotes the Bible and at times says or does things so utterly opposed to Christian theology that even a cursory examination of Biblical ethics and general metaphysics would reveal how incompetent they are at Biblical analysis. Among the multiple Bible verses that are seem in writing or spoken aloud is a passage from Revelation that Christabella and her followers likely cite because of their beliefs that they have averted an apocalypse, with the "demon" at the heart of the troubles for the congregation being the same girl named Alessa they victimized years before. While the cult heinously misunderstood Biblical ideas to treat Alessa as they did, it is not as if Alessa's ultimate reaction is one of justice, but there are other things Christabella errs in as well.
Hating or in any way punitively treating a child for its parents' actions is completely idiotic because the actions of a person are theirs alone, unless they are literally having their consciousness hijacked by another conscious being. Christabella holds to errors beyond this such as that expressed when she says "Faith is the only truth." Faith is not even a truth itself, but a type of basis for belief--or a commitment better referred to by the word faithfulness than faith. In the sense of belief, faith is inherently irrational (and not at all what the Bible refers to when it prescribes faith, as that is the faithfulness of commitment) because it is just assumptions: regardless of what the object of faith is, be it something true or false, be it science, religious theology, or anything else, epistemological faith is irrational. This is what makes faith in reason impossible for rationalists. The laws of logic are necessary truths that could not be false, cannot change, and could not have been different, making them absolutely certain and more central than anything else to reality. There is no faith in rationalism.
There is also nothing rational about Alessa's emotionalistic rampage at the end of the film. There is even a specifically sexual connotation to her torturous killing of Christabella when the cultist asks God to keep her pure before Alessa telekinetically shoves razor wires into her vagina. Alessa is not anything more than an emotionalistic, cruel imbecile; even aside from things like the intentionally sexual aspect to her torture of Christabella, she would not be a being of justice as the ending scene tries to portray her as simply because her aim is to satisfy her emotional longing for revenge, not to avoid over-punishing people. Alessa is at least as much a villain as the cultists she despises and in some ways even moreso. Conscience and emotionalism, as I love to dwell on due to how inescapably foundational this truth is, are not only epistemologically invalid for revealing moral obligations, but they also very easily drive people who thinks themselves "kind" or "just" to commit acts of extreme degradation and torture if they feel a strong enough inclination. Of course, it is always their own meaningless, subjective feelings they think are epistemological beacons, not those of the other people they target! In this way, basing moralism on conscience results so often, when people are given the chance to truly act on it, in the greatest cruelties, things that rival the deeds of those who started out sadistic and apathetic towards moral concepts.
Conclusion
There have been few video game movies I have seen that were not affronts to serious art. In spite of its dialogue needing to be bolstered, Silent Hill rises far above this trend because of its incredible visual style alone and ascends higher because it does tackle some significant themes even if, as is almost always the case, the characters are idiots and hypocrites who are far from rationalism, self-awareness, and justice. It helps that its cast for the Da Silva spouses is genuinely good. If only every other cast member was this excellent! The core strength of Silent Hill is not the cast, though. Very rarely is the atmosphere/tone of entertainment so strong on its own that it lifts the overall work up even though there are glaring flaws in other aspects. Had it offered nothing else of quality like the performances of Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean, this part of Silent Hill would still hold up the film thanks to an atmosphere superior to that of all but a few horror movies from its decade.
Content:
1. Violence: Mutilations, corpses, and acts of torture and killing are shown. A scene near the very end with barbed wire has many people get pulled apart, penetrated, or entangled in the wire.
2. Profanity: "Fuck," "shit," and "damn" are used a handful of times.
3. Nudity: Exposed genitalia on a male corpse hanging upside down can be very briefly seen in a shot. Later, Pyramid Head pulls off a woman's clothing before pulling off her skin in the same manner right after.
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