Re: HTF REVIEW: Silent Hill
For those that care about such things, the film has nothing to do with SH2 (the game). Pyramid Head does appear twice, but isn't a manifestation of anyone's internal guilt. he's just a pointless baddie. (Which he pulls off quite well
). No other SH2 story arcs, side plots, or characters are represented in the movie.
As for the DVD.....
*Looked nice. Some poor CGI monsters (ghost babies, roaches), some very good CGI monsters (Pyramid, nurses, Shakey). Very good fog & snow. None of that jittery "noise" some DVDs have with fog, at least none I could see. I do agree about the soft blacks: Its real hard not to notice when the scene says 'pitch black', but the aspect ratio bars are obviously alot darker. Maybe this is a problem with all photogoraphy in general? I can name 2 dozen films where "black scenes" always turn-out grey, even if the "lit" scenes get the contrast right?
*Sound excellent. Lots of metal-on-metal scraping noises, twitchy things. Awesome score. Plenty of subwoofer. Maybe too much LFE, at a few points you just have to look at your poor subwoofer chugging away and think "Is that really necessary?"
*Film: Stupid. It follows the game almost faithfully for about 45 minutes (which impressed me, I love the game) then breaks off into a bizarre
Wickerman tangent before having a finally that wants to be
Hellraiser and an epilogue that tries to be
The Others. If they just stuck to the story of SH1 or SH2 (this theory is based around game material that does make in on-screen) it would have been the best scary movie since
The Ring, and the best surreal horror film (if you like like to break things into subgenres) ever.
Instead of simply telling the known story the filmmakers tried to shoehorn too many cliche' "focus group testing ideas that have made money in the past" - even though they detract from the story.
Side Rant #2: If the filmmakers totally cut the Father (sean bean) out of the movie, and the entire police story-arc, orphanage, history of coal firs, etc etc etc.... The movie could have been a very nice 90 minutes or so. If you watch it again it adds absolutely nothing to the story and makes the film run too long.
I could be wrong, but those are my opinions and I'm sticking too them.
