Welcome To Silent Hill
31 January 2007
As you may have guessed by the title and the attached picture this post will be about Silent Hill. In case you didn't know Silent Hill is a series of games which started on the PSOne. At the time it was a pivotal game for the survival horror genre in which Resident Evil was king. This newcomer on the block however, changed all that. It brought with it a different flavour of scariness by focusing less on the blood and gore and instead using suspense to shock the player. Gone were the days of monsters jumping out at you in random places. Now they merely lurked in the shadows waiting for the right moment to slowly crawl out into your path. That's not to say there weren't any shock moments, there were plenty, it's just that you thought they'd be jumping out in a different place. The designs of the monsters were also very unique as they were incredibly disturbing in appearance. From the iconic faceless nurses, to the knife wielding babies (which were in the production demo but banned upon the final release of the UK version, sods), they all served to not only disgust but also to intrigue. All of these features gained the game a cult following around the world and also redefined survival horror games.
It has taken many years for this film adaptation to be made so when I first heard about it I couldn't wait to see it. Upon its release however, the reviews were not very favourable and the reaction was generally of disappointment, both by die-hard fans and critics alike. Despite those misgivings I was still determined to make my own decision about the film. Having just watched it I can safely say that I don't agree with what people say. It's very faithful to the original source material in its appearance and plot. The one major difference is that the main character of Harry Mason has been changed to a female lead in Rose. I would guess that this was because it's perhaps easier to get the audience to feel empathetic to a woman as opposed to a middle aged man. In any case I believe the actress for Rose (Radha Mitchell) did a splendid job. At first I didn't like her character, believing she was the typical moronic lead in a horror film, who despite the completely obvious signs of imminent death, would haplessly walk into a monster infested room or something. However, further on in the film she would develop into a strong lead worthy of the Silent Hill pedigree.
Overall I enjoyed the film a lot. Although I did find it very unnecessarily gory at times, like the scene near the end in the church. Still, everything else was in keeping with the game right up to the ambiguous ending famous in Silent Hill series. If you haven't played any of the games I guess you may not like it very much. But for a fan like me (not fanatical in support though) it's a very fine film which I would recommend.
Posted byHocchan at 10:00 pm
Isn't it always that way with movies based on videogames? (with the exception of such films made from the actual creators of the videogame) but especially hollywood adaptions like Doom, Tomb Raider, Motal Kombat (the 1st one was pretty good though) super mario brothers, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy: Spirits within, to name a few. Many adaptions are slated to come out this year and 2008: Onimusha, Max Payne, & Halo which should all be interesting adaptions but I suspect they will suck (although I'm very curious about Onimusha.) Interesting choice of a topic...me likey!
I agree. It will always be a losing battle in most cases of game-to-film adaptations (also applies to film-to-game actually) since the material is catered for such a niche sector of the audience. The producers have to decide between pleasing the die hard fans by keeping everything exactly the same, or risk upsetting them in favour of a more mainstream production more suitable for mass market. The biggest problem is though you invariably end up disappointing both sides. I highly doubt I'll ever see a super successful film of a game because of those reasons. That isn't to say I don't hope it happens.
On the subject of games that were made into films, I agree the first Mortal Kombat film was pretty good. I also liked Resident Evil to a certain degree but it lacked the magic of the games. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is an interesting one. From my understanding it was entirely produced by Squaresoft (as they were known at the time) in their Hawaiian studios. It was an example of how trying to compromise between audiences ends up alienating everyone. Personally I didn't find it all that bad, but I did like Advent Children a hundred thousand times better. And that was probably down to the fact it was made for the hardcore FFVII fans and no one else. It wasn't designed to be a mass market film and because of that it could be considered a success.
It's funny you should mention Onimusha, I'm looking forward to that film as well. If I remember correctly it's directed by the same guy who did Silent Hill so it should be interesting to see how similar they turn out. I was a massive fan of the games, although my interest waned a little bit on the final game. My favourite on of the series has to be Onimusha 2. It was Samurai slashing action to perfection!
I got hooked on Onimusha by watching Zansho play...although, I did start to play one myself. Can't remember if it was the 2nd or the 3rd...it's the one where after you finish you can go back and play all the locations all over again but this time he wears this silly cowboy outfit. It was a riot holding a bear that collects spirits in his butt rather than the bracelet with the spirit catcher ball. I also think the Onimusha series lends itself pretty well to a movie script as the plot is pretty basic with room to expand on things the game didn't so I'm excited to see the movie, but I'm afraid they'll just go overboard on the digital animation and special effects (a big reason I'm very disappointed with the adaption of one of my childhood favorite novels Bridge to Tarabithia). I understand the use of digital graphics is a very big improvement both for gaming and for film, but sometimes they overdo it forgetting to actually build a story and develop the characters. You mentioned that movie-to-game adaptions suck but I think those are already doomed to suck as they are only gimmicks to help promote the movie and not really designed to take into consideration serious gamers. I agree with you, I actually liked Spirits Within but that was before I knew about the games. I thought the movie was okay as a stand-alone and some people say that had they not called it Final Fantasy, they probably would have gotten better reviews for it. I didn't realize that it was done by squaresoft. After watching Advent Children I really think they could pull of a sucessful movie (not necessarily adapted from games). I thought Advent Children was very well done and the animation was beautiful. Also, after playing FFXII, they do such a beautiful job wih the story and building characters, I think they could pull of simply creating an animated feature film. I'd certainly buy it.