Silent Hill (film)
| Silent Hill | |
|---|---|
| File:Silenthilloposter.jpg | |
| Directed by | Christophe Gans |
| Written by | Roger Avary Christophe Gans Nicolas Boukhrief |
| Produced by | Samuel Hadida Don Carmody Konami Team Silent |
| Starring | Radha Mitchell Sean Bean Laurie Holden Jodelle Ferland Deborah Kara Unger Alice Krige Tanya Allen Kim Coates |
| Cinematography | Dan Laustsen |
| Edited by | Sébastien Prangère |
| Music by | Jeff Danna Akira Yamaoka |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures (NA) |
Release dates | April 21st, 2006 |
Running time | 127 mins |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $42 million+ |
Silent Hill (a.k.a. Silent Hill: The Movie and Silent Hill: Centralia or Centralia) is the 2006 film adaptation of Konami's famous survival horror franchise. The story, though primarily based on the first Silent Hill game, includes elements from Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. The film is directed by Christophe Gans, with the screenplay written by Roger Avary based on the story adaptation by Gans and Nicolas Boukhrief.
The film stars Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland and Deborah Kara Unger. It was released on April 21, 2006 in North America and was distributed by TriStar Pictures. The film will be released on DVD, Blu-ray disc, and UMD in North America on August 22, 2006.
Synopsis
A young girl with repeated, unrecallable nightmares, is brought to the town of which she cries in her sleep by her mother, in an attempt to ascertain the cause of the problem. When an automobile accident causes the mother and child to be separated, the mother must set out to find her daughter in a world of fog and ash, unpredictable creatures, faith and hell, all within the town of Silent Hill.
Plot
Rose and Christopher Da Silva (Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean) search for their daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), who has run off during the night in a fit of sleepwalking. After visualizing a pale female child enveloped in a bowl of fire, she attempts to flee off a cliff when Rose grabs her in embrace as she yelps "Silent Hill". The sporadic episode motivates Rose to find and drive Sharon to the place in her drawings and in her cries, even though her husband is against her determination to cure her through actually taking her there.
As day turns into night, they break at a gas station in Brahams, a town not far from Silent Hill's turnoff. Rose finds that Sharon's drawings have been altered to potray disturbing images, and as Sharon cries out that she did not make them, a female officer parked nearby with her motorcycle becomes suspicious and follows them as they leave. After fleeing from being pulled over by the officer and speeding towards Silent Hill, a young girl walks onto the road — and Rose, swerving to avoid her, is knocked unconscious as the car drives out of control.
Waking up to a strange world of fog and falling ash, Rose finds herself alone as her daughter is nowhere to be found. Terrified, she runs into Silent Hill in search for her daughter, only to chase the swift young girl that caused the crash running through the town. As Rose follows her down a stairwell, an air raid siren sounds and the town is plunged into darkness. Here, while exploring, she is assaulted by small disfigured and charred children with immense cries (the Gray Children). After being overwhelmed Rose passes out as everything burns away into dust.
Upon awakening, she leaves the experience behind as she exits onto the streets and approaches the edge of town, which she finds has been cut off by a large chasm that disappears into the fog. After being attacked by a distressed woman when she asks where Sharon is with a picture inside a locket, she escapes to run off to her car to call her husband. Even though he only receives fragments of her message, he hears enough to head off to Silent Hill in search of his family. However, he is stopped by officers who have blockaded the entrance to the town. Thomas Gucci (Kim Coates), the officer in charge, agrees to help Christopher after hearing his situation and heads into town with him to escort him along his search. In doing so he tells him about the coal mine fire that has been burning for far too long underneath the town.
After Rose makes the call, she is arrested by the female officer who had followed her before, named Cybil Bennet (Laurie Holden). As they find out both of their vehicles are not responding, they decide to walk back out of town, only to find the road ends to another chasm. It is here where they are attacked by a creature in a skin straightjacket (the Patient Demon). While Cybil is distracted by it, Rose flees. As she follows a clue in a drawing Sharon made, Rose heads for Midwich Elementary School where she discovers a trio of men in miner suits. Hiding inside a classroom, she finds one desk with fresh handprints on it, along with carved in curses directed at a girl named Alessa Gillespie (Jodelle Ferland}. After a flashback that indicates Sharon looks exactly like Alessa, Rose catches the young girl passing by and chases her once again. She eventually arrives in a restroom where she discovers a mutilated corpse bound in barbed wire, with a name tag giving him the identity Colin. From a clue on the wall, Rose grabs a blue stone that has the word "Hotel" on it that sits in Colin's mouth and heads for the door. But now that the miners have spotted her whereabouts, she immediately closes and locks the door, only to lean and pray against it as the miners slam behind her. Though, after watching a bird nervously chirp inside a cage, the miners quickly flee from the area as another air raid siren sounds, leaving Rose to witness another bizarre shift in reality.
As the corpse reanimates and approaches Rose, she runs out of the restroom to find the miners being attacked by a horde of insects (the Creepers). As Rose runs outside and down an alley, she passes by Christopher, who; even though they are in the same position in the town, are not in the same reality. But somehow, he breathes in her perfume, which surrounds him in acknowledgement that his wife is somewhere to be found. Rose, unable to make sense of everything, collapses as she is approached by The Red Pyramid (Pyramid Head) - a muscular humanoid that derives his name from a large pyramid sat atop his head and weilds a large blade. With the insects following him, Rose makes haste, when Cybil grabs her into a secure room. After a short attempt by The Red Pyramid to enter the room, the darkness recedes and Cybil and Rose are left in a deserted school. Cybil, realizing Rose was not delirious, agrees to head to the hotel where she believes Sharon will be.
Meanwhile, Christopher is told by officer Gucci to go home after a failed attempt to find Sharon and Rose. Eventually, denying a refusal of information, he breaks into Braham's hall of records and finds information on a child who was badly scarred in a fire — Alessa Gillespie. Later, he enters the orphanage where Sharon was adopted, and Gucci, having followed his tracks, arrests him for breaking and entering. Though instead of taking him to the station, he confronts him and reveals his scarred hands, and forces him to leave for home.
Back in the fogged world of Silent Hill, Cybil and Rose arrive at the hotel, where they meet Anna (Tanya Allen), a young girl who is throwing stones at the woman who Rose had met earlier, named Dahlia (Deborah Kara Unger). Dahlia runs off, and Anna then fortells how Dahlia is a blasphemer, a traitor whom not even the darkness wants. Cybil finds a picture in the mailbox for Room 111, and they agree to head up there, in which Anna follows. A large painting depicting a witch burning is found as Anna comments that Room 111 is related to the first burning. Rose, predicting it is Room 111, slashes through it with a knife and leaps over to a room inside the close neighboring building. As they explore, Rose notices the young girl again, and as she catches up with her by crossing over a large burnt out hole in the floor, she hallucinates the girl bursting into flames. As Cybil and Anna catch up with her, a flock of birds erupt from the bowels of the building and fly into the sky. Anna, realizing this, starts to cry out that they must flee to the church, as it is the only sanctuary from the darkness. When they make it to the church, they encounter other people running to the building as well, summoned their by an air raid siren atop the church's bell tower. Before the group enters though, Dahlia appears and warns them not to enter as the townspeople are not what they appear. Anna, in response, starts to throw stones at her. As the darkness extends toward the church, Anna doesn't realize that The Red Pyramid has materialized behind her. All watch in horror as Red Pyramid rips off Anna's dress and then grabs hold of her breasts and with one pull, rips her skin off and hurls it at the church.
Inside the sanctuary, they meet Cristabella (Alice Krige) after dissuading the townspeople they did not murder Anna, and discuss with Christabella how Rose is looking for her child. Christabella in response, proposes that the demon is the only one that can answer her search; who recedes in the hospital, though she does not expect them to survive. Before leaving Christabella finds Rose’s locket and takes it as she, Cybil, Rose, and a handful of miners head for the hospital.
Within the ground floors of the building, Christabella informs that the demon resides in a room in the basement, and reveals a map on the wall in which Rose memorizes the path she will have to take. A flashlight is given to her and is informed that the monsters will be drawn to it, as they are taken to an elevator. As Christabella tries to return Rose’s locket, she notices the picture inside it of her daughter has a strong likeliness to Alessa Gillespie. Declaring witch, she orders the miners to capture Rose, but Cybil defends them off as Rose heads down in the elevator.
As Rose heads for the room after reaching the basement, she discovers the path blocked by a number of frozen nurses holding knifes with towels wrapped around their heads. As she turns on the flashlight given to her, they spring to life, but realizing this expectation, she turns it off, and starts to carefully slip by them. After evading many attacks, she places the flashlight lit up on the floor to distract them, and finally makes it to the room, where white light appears around her.
A young girl’s voice praises her in the white light for following her clues and making it this far, and as a reward, Rose will learn the truth. She explains that Alessa was an innocent child whose mother was Dahlia. One day long ago, Alessa escaped into a bathroom from harassment by her classmates and others by being persecuted as a witch, only to encounter the school janitor Colin, where it is implied that she was sexually abused. Because of the believed sin she held, the church agreed the child needed to be cleansed, to which Dahlia obliged, but could not witness. After being left outside Room 111 that led to the churches congregation, she realized what she had done and fled to the police.
Inside the building where the church held their cleansing ritual, Alessa was chained up above a fire, to which everyone praised cleansing led by Christabella. However, before she was cooked to death, one of the chains broke, causing the fire to burn out of control and lead down into the coal mines of the town. After everyone fled and left Alessa behind, Dahlia returned with the police and fire department, where officer Gucci freed Alessa by risking burning his hands. She was taken to the hospital, where she was taken care of inside an ICU container mainly by a young nurse in red. The voice, now revealed as the young girl Rose has been following and the demon feared by the townspeople, explains this was where she arrived to help Alessa with her growing hate and vengeance. She explains that Sharon is a split of her innocence and good, while she herself is the vengeful, disgusted other, and the decaying, living body the original form.
The while light fades, and Rose finds herself in the hospital room with Alessa’s body inside the decaying ICU container. With the nurse in red whimpering to the side, the demon declares that this world is a personification of Alessa’a nightmares, and that the nightmare would not end until her vengeance is complete. Rose, now accepting and understanding what is going on, gives herself as a transport for the demon to enter the church, because the blind faith of the congregation prevents Alessa’a personalities from standing the light.
Meanwhile, the cultists are hurriedly looking for the child, believing that if they sacrifice her, they will avoid another apocalypse. They discover Sharon hiding with Dahlia and both are brought to the church. Cybil is shown to have survived her prior beating. Unfortunately, the Elders have tied her to the top of a ladder, and are preparing to burn her for aiding “the witches”. Christabella sets fire to the pit, and Cybil's ladder is lowered into the pyre. Cursing the Elders, Cybil proclaims that they all are “already in their own hell” and is consumed by the flames. Before the same can be done to Sharon, however, Rose enters the church.
Rose attempts to reason with them, insisting that Alessa was innocent, that their sacrifice of her was a sin and that it was the blind devotion of the church that brought this Hell upon them. As she advances toward Christabella through the crowd, she continues to argue with them in an attempt to expose the flaws of their faith and force them to accept their fate. Christabella, in response, stabs Rose in the shoulder with what appears to be an athame. Realizing, however, that she has committed murder, she quickly spins the episode, insisting that what did was justified, as Rose was a blasphemer.
As Rose collapses, the demon frees itself from her body through her blood, healing her in the process. Like the rest of Silent Hill, the church falls into ruin as it is drawn into Alessa's nightmare, its most pronounced transformation being the falling away of the floor to reveal a pit of fire from which Alessa rises, supported by lengths of rusted barbed wire, in her hospital bed. Using the barbed wire, she enacts her revenge upon the citizens of Silent Hill, treating each to a painful death involving being ripped to shreds by rusty barbed wire, with Christabella's death being the most gruesome. As this is happening, Rose makes her way to her child, frees her, and cradles her against her chest, insisting that she close her eyes. Sharon, however, looks, and we see the demon staring down at her before the scene ends.
Rose, Sharon, and Dahlia are the only ones to survive the carnage. As Rose and Sharon exit, Dahlia asks why she was spared. Rose, echoing Cybil Bennet's belief, says that “A Mother is God in the eyes of a child."
Rose and Sharon eventually make it out of Silent Hill and to their home. Their world, however, is still in fog. Christopher is shown napping on the living room sofa as it rains outside. As Rose — still within the fog — sits down opposite where Christopher is in the real world, he awakes, sensing his wife's perfume once again, and rushes toward the open front door, hoping to see Rose. This hope proves ill as there is no one there and Christopher stares blankly into the rain as ‘Lost Carol’ rings out in the background. Template:Endspoiler
Response
The film opened in North America on April 21st 2006. The film was one of 2006's films not screened by critics [1]. However, foreign-produced films (Silent Hill being a French-Canadian production) are often not screened for critics in advance [citation needed]. In addition, TriStar Pictures, which distributes only a small number of films, rarely hosts advance screenings for critics or the public [citation needed].
The film has so far received some positive reception from Horror Channel claiming that the film is the “most faithful adaptation of a video game ever made”. [2] It has received an average rating of 3.5/5 from Bloody-Disgusting.com. Harry Knowles from Ain't It Cool News says Silent Hill “is a film made with passion”[3]. Much of the French press has generally been open and accepting of the film saying: “Christophe Gans delivers a monument to us. A audio-visual experiment”[4]; “Gans will be able to be praised to have cooked a good film with the subtle Playstation taste” [5]; “Silent Hill is a good entertainment for a public unused to terror without bloodshed and without the inevitable use of packaged action.”[6]
Most critic reviews have been negative, however. Hollywood Reporter has stated the film is “an overcooked nightmare”. [7]. Rotten Tomatoes has the film listed as 28% fresh (19 out of 68 reviews count fresh) from the critics, and 0% fresh from the “Cream of the Crop” critics.[8] Kevin Carr has stated that “Uwe Boll had nothing to do with this movie, but it has his general feeling of murkiness and poor plot structure.”[9] Metacritic has scored this film at 30 / 100 [10].
However, the film has received a weighted average score of 6.7/10 based on the ratings of over 10,000 community members on IMDb. Users at Rotten Tomatoes give the film a 70 / 100 rating and users at MetaCritic give the film a 8.4 / 10. Box Office Mojo users give Silent Hill an average of B out of 417 users voting. The grade breakdown as of Thursday, May 18th, 2006 is as follows: 264 users (63.3% of all the votes) gave Silent Hill an A, 75 users (18.0%) gave it a B, 34 users (8.2%) gave it a C, 18 users (4.3%) gave it a D, and only 26 users (6.2%) gave Silent Hill an F.[11]
Box office
The film opened in 2,926 theaters and earned $20,200,000 domestically on its opening weekend and opened at number one at the US box office. As of June 18, 2006 the film has grossed $46,982,632 domestically and $74,488,048 total worldwide.[12] The film fell to number four in the box office its second weekend. The film fell to number seven in the box office its third weekend. The film rose to number five in the box office (as of Thursday, May 11th, 2006) as it enters its fourth weekend (Friday, May 12th–Sunday, May 15th, 2006). The film fell to number nine in the box office its fourth weekend. The film rose to number 7 (as of Thursday, May 18th, 2006) as it entered its fifth weekend (Friday May 19th–Sunday, May 21st, 2006). As of Saturday, May 20th, 2006, Silent Hill is in the top 10 video game movie adaptations listing on Box Office Mojo (from 1980 to present), Silent Hill is at #6, between #5, Resident Evil: Apocalypse which grossed domestically $51,201,453 and #7, Pokemon: The Movie 2000 which grossed domestically $43,758,684.
Relationship to the video games
Known not to be a direct adaptation of any one of the games, the film does contain numerous overt and subtle connections to the series. Many of these are purely thematic or aesthetic similarities to the games' distinctive style, but there are also various features which appear to be direct translations of their in-game counterparts.
While many of the film's main characters are original creations, the police officer Cybil Bennett, from the original Silent Hill, appears in the film, albeit in a much different role. She retains much of her same attitiude from the game, but her ultimate fate is different. The character of Christabella appears to be original and does not appear in any of the games, but a little girl of the same name did appear in the Silent Hill graphic novel, Dying Inside. The way Christabella speaks mirrors that of Claudia Wolf from Silent Hill 3. An unnamed nurse appears, whose costuming, including her candy red high heels, is a clear take off of the character Lisa Garland from the first Silent Hill game. Their particular situations are also somewhat similar. Also, the concept of internal guilt, self-righteous murderers, and the overall idea of “private hell” is taken directly from the second game while the themes of loss and lonliness echo that of the first Silent Hill game.
The young Alessa Gillespie and her mother Dahlia also appear in the film, though the relationship between them is quite different from the game. Originally in the game, Dahlia was the leader of the cult, not Christabella, and it is she who burns Alessa in hopes of invoking the child's dark powers and using them to bring forth a God. Another key difference between the film and the game is the cult's beliefs, in the game they were evil demon worshippers while in the film they are witch-burning puritans. It should also be noted that the plot point involving Alessa splitting herself into two halves and hiding the good half by disguising it as a newborn child is better explained in the game as Alessa's way of trying to keep her mother from using the girl's powers for evil. When the game's protagonist brings the good half to Silent Hill, Alessa shrouds the town in thick fog in hopes of keeping Dahlia from finding her.
Many of the creatures in the movie are also taken from the various games in the series, including the towering Red Pyramid (Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2), the ever-present Nurses (based on the Bubble-Head Nurses from Silent Hill 2), the grey children (child-demon Mumblers from Silent Hill), and the creeping Patient Demon (based on the same creature from Silent Hill 2). The Janitor, an original creation of director Christophe Gans is brought to life by special effects supervisor Paul Jones for the film. He has some similarities in appearance and ability to the Victim Ghosts from Silent Hill 4: The Room, but seems ultimately inspired by one of the scenes in the first game in which you find a body in one of the bathroom stalls while in the “Otherworld” version of the school. The body, however, does not come to life in game.
The town itself has been recreated with a striking attention to detail, right down to the names of many of the town's shops (some of which are borderline Engrish). As a result, the street scenes are almost indistinguishable from those of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. The memorable Midwich Elementary School from Silent Hill also appears, along with Brookhaven Hospital (from Silent Hill 2 and 3). When Rose wakes up after the grey children attack, she wakes up in a bowling alley that is very similar to Pete's Bowl-a-Rama from Silent Hill 2.
Two scenes from the beginning of the first Silent Hill have been recreated almost shot-for-shot, one which features Rose and her daughter driving towards Silent Hill, only to crash after swerving to avoid a ghostly figure in the road, and one where Rose is ambushed by grotesque humanoid creatures after discovering a mutilated body crucified on a chain-link fence. At least one scene was also taken from Silent Hill 2. When Rose enters room 111 she finds a hole in the wall leading to another building, which is what happens to the main character in the game. Finally, when Christopher receives calls from Rose but only gets white noise, fans can notice similarities with James's radio when he discovers it the first time and hears a voice that sounds vaguely like Mary's. The same thing happens to Henry in Silent Hill 4: The Room when he first tries to use the phone in his ghost-infested apartment.
Some dialogue from the film mirrors the game. When Rose meets Dark Alessa face to face for the first time, she says "you could be her twin". James says something similar when he meets Maria for the first time in Silent Hill 2, referring to his wife. When Rose sees the Red Pyramid stabbing through the door, she says "It's Him!" This is exactly what James says in Silent Hill 2 when he sees the "Misty Day - Remains of the Judgement" painting (a painting depicting Pyramid Head) in the historical society in Silent Hill 2.
There is also a police officer named Gucci who plays a part in the film — Officer Gucci was mentioned briefly in a note found inside a police station during the first game, stating that Officer Gucci's death appears to be from natural causes, although he had no history of heart disease. Gucci is obviously not dead in the film, so the character is a reference to the Gucci from the first game, not the same person. Officer Gucci does mention that his father is dead in the movie, so while one could say it is possible that his father is the Gucci mentioned in the game, Gucci mentions to Christopher that his father owned a shop, so he wasn't a police officer.
When Rose and Sharon are driving to Silent Hill, "Letter from the Lost Days" plays on the radio, very similar to the scene where Douglas drives Heather to Silent Hill in the 3rd game. The end scene where Alessa comes up through a hole in the church is similar to the way Claudia Wolf falls through the hole in the church at the end of Silent Hill 3. Also, the way bed ridden Alessa looks like mirrors the Mary-boss from Silent Hill 2.
Team Silent, the development team for Silent Hill, was a producer alongside Konami for the movie and the team oversaw the entire production of the movie, from the preproduction all the way to the postproduction stage. Everything that's in the film has been approved by Team Silent.
Trivia
- In the original script, there were only female characters. After submitting the script, it was returned to Gans with a memo saying “there are no men!”. When Sean Bean was added to the cast the script was approved.
- Silent Hill uses little computer-generated imagery, with the most notable exceptions being the fog that drenches the town, the otherworld transitions, and the insects that surround the Red Pyramid. Some of the creatures have been touched-up with CGI in post-production, but, for the most part, what is seen on film existed physically. Most of the creatures were professional actors or dancers covered in latex and makeup.
- Screenwriter Roger Avary has said in interviews that as a boy his father, who is a mining engineer, used to tell him stories about the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, where coal deposits from the local mine caught fire and caused toxic gasses to force the inhabitants to evacuate forever. Avary, it seems, was fascinated since childhood by the idea that fires underneath the town would be burning for a hundred years and the story of Centralia was used as the basis for the township of Silent Hill.
- Parts of Silent Hill were shot in downtown Brantford, Ontario.
- Although the film is supposed to be occurring in West Virginia, during two different occasions, (both while at the gas station in the town of Brahams), you can clearly see the price of the gasoline listed for sale per liter, not the US standard of per gallon (similar to how the speed limit signs in Silent Hill 2 are in km/h instead of MPH), perhaps in reference to the games' often ropey recreation of the small-town America. The mechanic and cashier at Smitty's gas station have noticeably different accents than the characters from Brahams (Sister Margaret, Gucci, Cybil).
- The animated end titles are similar to the titles used in the video game series.
- The imagery of the creatures were influenced by artists Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, and Hans Bellmer.
- One of the films seen listed on the theater's marquee in Silent Hill as Thomas and Chris drive by is The Omega Man, from 1971. The movie has a man survive a biological weapon attack that killed many and left a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves “The Family”. The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believed science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a “user of the wheel”, must die — a clear allusion to the atmosphere of Silent Hill.
- Konami Japan and Team Silent, the development team responsible for the Silent Hill game series, were directly involved with the production of this movie from the pre-production stage all the way to the post-production stage.
- Approximately 100 different copies of Rose's outfits were made for the film, ranging from soft colors, progressing to more greyer then blood red.
- It took Christophe Gans five years to obtain the movie rights to Silent Hill from Konami. He sent in a video interview to Konami explaining how much Silent Hill meant to him and he sent scenes that he apparently filmed on his own dollar with music from the Silent Hill games. Rumor has it that this video will be an extra on the DVD as an extra feature but this is purely a rumor and nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
- Christophe Gans has stated that the film is an adaptation of the first game, with the emotional melancholy of the second, mixed with the dialogue delivery of the third, with some camera movement inspired by the fourth.
Connections with folklore
- The setting of the film is Toluca County, West Virginia, but there is no such county in that state. In the second game in the series, there is a Toluca Lake adjacent to Silent Hill. There is a real lake called Toluca Lake in California. There is also a Toluca, Illinois.
- The series of games have multiple references to a cult which closely follows descriptions found in the Cthulhu Mythos given by H.P. Lovecraft. These references were largely absent from the film, as the fundamentalist sect portrayed there was much more an echo of puritanical Christianity, interested in burning witches to destroy sin, rather than raising old gods.
- The cult displayed in the Silent Hill Movie is loosely based on a similar cult in a Silent Hill 2 and 3 subplot. The cult is puritanical and mimics Christianity. They are afraid of any connected with the cult of Silent Hill that worshiped the fallen god of Samael or Pyramid Head who was an Exacutioner for the Cultists of Samael. Anyone who the puritans believed were involved with the Cult were burned as a witch. Several statues and marks along with history fragments are found in the games giving an insight into the Silent Hill history. The movie gives off the idea that Dahlia stays true to her video game character in that Alessa is created along with the demon of Silent Hill that the cultists worshipped. Because she cannot and will not name the father, Christabella burns the child as sin incarnate knowing the history of the cult before them (the puritans). The movie's main plot hole is an explaination to the demon that conspires with Alessa and Dahlia and hides in the form of an innocent. The mark of Samael, odds are will show up in a near future sequel if one gets put into production.
Dimensions of Silent Hill
In the movie, there are three different dimensions or versions to the town of Silent Hill.
- The first world of Silent Hill is filled with fog and falling ashes. This dimension is characterized by the ever present fog that engulfs the town. This is the main dimension that Rose, Cybil, Sharon, and Alessa are trapped in. This version is a sort of purgatory.
- The second world is modern day Silent Hill. This world is the version where Christopher and Gucci are in. This is also shown with Silent Hill 30-years prior to the current events in the film. This was showcased in Dark Alessa's montage scene.
- The third world of Silent Hill is covered in Alessa's Darkness. The hellish one that's covered in rust and stained in blood.
Notes
All three worlds seem to be impermeable to the other's realities, that is to say, the creatures that lurk in the dark realm disappear when the fog-filled realm reappears and the damage Pyramid Head causes in one world repairs itself in another. However, there is evidence that events in one world will effect the others. For example, Chris is aware of his wife's presence and claims he can smell her perfume. Also, when Rose opens a door, the same door moves in Chris' reality.
Production
The film was greenlit on September 19 2003, and was filmed in both Brantford, Ontario and Hamilton, Ontario as well as on soundstages in Toronto, Ontario. The film originally was a France-Canada-Japan production. Sony bought the rights for the film for $14 million for distribution in the United States and Latin America.
Website
The official website for the film was launched on December 5th, 2005. Heavily Flash-based, it contains a large amount of digital media related to the film, including a trailer, still images, and downloadable screensavers. A unique feature is that if one stays on the site for a short period of time the webpage goes into “Dark Silent Hill”. [13]
Release information
The following is a list of release dates worldwide.
MPAA
The film was rated R by the MPAA for strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, and some language.
BBFC
The film was rated 15+ by the BBFC for containing strong language and bloody horror.
Musical score
In a first for a theatrical film (game adaptation or otherwise), the score to the movie consists almost entirely of music from Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks to the four main games in the series. They were arranged by the film composer Jeff Danna (Resident Evil, The Boondock Saints), with some tracks appearing in almost identical form to their in-game counterparts, while others were recreated entirely.
DVD/Blu-Ray
On June 12, 2006 it was confirmed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and TriStar Pictures that they're releasing the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the film in North America on August 22, 2006. [14].
The discs will be released in both Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1 and full screen versions and both will include a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track [15]. The releases will also include a number of special features such as:
- Available subtitles: English
- Director Christophe Gans commentary.
- A six part making-of Silent Hill documentary.
- Production Diaries: Silent Hill: Origins.
- Casting Silent Hill.
- Building Silent Hill.
- Stars And Stunts.
- Constructing the Creepy Creatures from the film.
- Creature Choreography.
- Deleted scenes / extended scenes.
Universal Media Disc
The film will also be released on UMD for Sony's PlayStation Portable on August 22nd 2006. There are no special features but the disc will include:
- Widescreen - 1.78
- Dolby Digital 2.0 - English, French, Spanish, Italian
- Subtitles - English, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian - Optional
External links
- Sony Pictures' movie website
- Silent Hill at IMDb
- Silent Hill at MovieWorld.ru (Russian)
- Downloadable Trailer
- Trailer @ Yahoo
- Quicktime High Definition Trailer
- Silent Hill Movie Clips and Trailers (AOL Moviefone)
- Silent Hill info @ The Horror Channel
- Silent Hill review on The Horror Channel
- Archived online ad for 'Silent Hill' in the adverlicio.us online movie ad archive
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