6. Silent Hill
Most of the time, most game-to-film adaptations are complete pieces of shit. Sorry I didnt mince my words on that one, but it really is true. Between Uwe Boll and the Resident Evil franchise that just wont die, the moniker adapted from a hit videogame has really taken a pounding down the years. So when
Silent Hill was announced, I was understandably apprehensive. After all, Silent Hill takes pride of place in the gaming pantheon as something made excellent entirely by setting the right mood one of dread, horror, fear and suspense. Also, it managed this only fleetingly; since the fourth incarnation the series took a nosedive, unable to re-capture its former glories. So what-the-hell chance did a film have of doing the same? Indeed, this was the question on everybodys lips, and to most, it didnt pull off this feat. They labelled it a confused, jumbled mess, with a nonsensical plot and constant overacting. You could see where these people were coming from most of them hadnt played the games or were only dimly aware of its existence. Much like a
Harry Potter film, I think you really needed to come into this one with prior knowledge for it to work. But if you did come in with some prior information, by god, did this film get it right. It was an arthouse film in all the right, unpretentious ways; while there was a plot, this film was more about mood an overbearing sense of the horror and macabre constantly lingering in the background, informed by a series of disturbing events that either happen outright or are hinted at. Through clever use of sound (the noise the nurses make is creepy as all hell) and visuals the monsters, even though some (Pyramid Head) were clearly used as fan service, were terrifyingly well realised the film attained levels of atmospheric creepiness which the earlier games had in spades. Couple this with some disturbing adult themes such as cults and child-sacrifice and youve got a film which ably conveys the ideas of waking nightmare. This clearly wasnt a 15, even though it was labelled as such the child-burning sequence alone was disturbing enough to guarantee an 18, but because this film was so very subtle with how it scared you, I dont think the censoring board knew how to take it. The whole thing was amorphous, and put you ill-at-ease, chilling you rather than scaring you outright. But this subtlety as well as an admittedly bonkers ending also cost it some outsider viewers who werent well-versed in the canon and therefore didnt quite know what was going on. They dismissed the film instead, and thats a shame.