10 Critically Reviled Horror Movies (That Weren't Actually That Bad)

10. Silent Hill

Big ups to French fantasy/horror visionary Christophe Gans, deservedly adored in his home country for his ambitious historical fantasies which fuse impressively ambitious stunt work and choreography with lush CGI and beautiful practical effects seamlessly—check out 2014’s Beauty and the Beast for an adaptation which batters Disney’s recent attempts to reimagine the classic fairy tale.

The director’s sole Hollywood effort, 2006’s long-awaited video game Silent Hill, was never going to fare well with critics on account of… well, of being a video game adaptation.

Upon reappraisal, it’s clear that a lot of the issues critics had with the film are actually arguably amongst its strong suits—the stilted dialogue wouldn’t be out of place in a Lynchian nightmare and the lengthy runtime makes the film’s upsetting atmosphere more immersive and overwhelming, whilst the incomprehensible plot serves to further deepen the film’s fear of the unknown.

It’s a story which should be difficult to navigate, with no easy answers and frequent misdirects and frustrating near-misses, and we can’t help but wonder whether the director’s difficult-to-decipher nightmare would have been more positively received if it weren’t inspired by something so plebeian and critically-disapproved as a video game.