Silent Hill

I love horror movies, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Very rarely will I have harsh words to say about a scary movie, unless it was “One Missed Call” because that one was REALLY bad. One of my favorites (a long list by the way) is “Silent Hill”.

Silent Hill is based on Konami’s survival horror video game franchise. Each game hosts a new main character who is searching for something or someone in the eerie town of Silent Hill. Having played the video games, I was familiar with the setting, soundtrack and cast of evil characters.

The movie revolves around Rose, a young mother who’s adopted daughter is sleepwalking and calling out the name “Silent Hill”. Rose learns that Silent Hill is a small town in West Virginia where an underground coal fire has been slowly burning for several decades. Believing that the answers must lay in this mysterious town, Rose takes her daughter and makes the journey to Silent Hill. When they near the town, which has been closed off due to the health risk involved with the fires, Rose stops at a gas station for directions. It is here that we gain a new victim for Silent Hill, a Motorcycle cop that believes there is something shifty going on with the mother/daughter duo and decides to follow them. The cop pulls them over a few miles away from the station, but having seen a road sign for Silent Hill, Rose hits the gas and a midnight car chase begins. When a mysterious and dark figure crosses into the street, Rose loses control of her vehicle and crashes. She awakens to find her daughter is missing and goes into the town to find her and finds that the town has a past so tragic, that it has become a frightful alternate reality that our characters find themselves trapped in.

I don’t know if it is my obsession for horror, or the mood that this movie takes, or if it because I nearly peed myself playing the video games, that drew me into the dark realm of Silent Hill. Maybe I have no taste at all. I would especially recommend this to fans of the survival horror game genre, as this movie stayed true to the feel of the games and offered us a bit of history behind the mysterious town that has been scaring me for 10 years.