Your Favorite Game

I never played Silent Hill 1 or 2.  I bought Silent Hill 3 for the PC some time ago.  Silent Hill 3 really sucked.  It had some pretty nifty cut scenes and I bet the story would have gotten to be pretty interesting had I played more than an hour into it.  But I just couldn’t sit through it... the game sucked too much.  The camera angles and controls were horrible.  You knew a guy was coming because scary music would start playing, so since you knew he was coming it wasn’t quite as scary.  And then you’d just hit the bad guy with your flashlight over and over again and that was pretty much all the gameplay entailed.

Anyway, I saw Silent Hill the movie.  My expectations were really low considering it was a movie based on a game, as well as a horror movie, and in addition to me disliking the game so much.  But to my surprise, it really wasn’t all that bad.

Slasher flicks have lost their appeal and the rare slasher flick that does come out these days is usually there for novelty purposes.  Most of the horror flicks I see tend to revolve around gratuitous shock value.  But after The Sixth Sense came out, I think horror flicks have been trying to include more mystery and suspense.  Silent Hill kind of had a touch of both shock value and mystery and suspense.  

The movie also used all the current horror clichés like a freaky little-possessed girl, a ghost town and old abandoned buildings, bad weather with rain and fog, and a crazy person that ambiguously warns you of danger.

Anyway, I liked the story.  I liked the characters.  I liked the theme.  I liked the ending.  Just as with any other movie, there were elements I wasn’t too keen on, but it wasn’t anything that would ruin the whole movie for me.  I’ll spare you my whole review.

Ultimately, I think Silent Hill was just an okay movie.  But relative to other game movies and horror movies, I think it was above average.  Of course, I never played Silent Hill 1, so I’m not sure if that matters.