Silent Hill is a 2006 horror film directed by Christophe Gans and written by Roger Avary. The story is an adaptation of the Silent Hill series of survival horror games created by Konami. The film, particularly its emotional and aesthetic content as well as its creature design, includes elements from Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. The film also includes some music, such as Wounded Warsong, from the fourth game. A game in the series released after the film, Silent Hill Homecoming, incorporated some elements of the film.[2][3]
The film follows a mother, Rose, who takes her troubled adopted daughter, Sharon, to Silent Hill, the town the girl cries out for while sleepwalking. After being knocked unconscious in a car crash outside the town, Rose awakens to find her daughter missing and the town engulfed in an alternate reality of fog and falling ash. While searching for her daughter, she faces surreal reality shifts and monstrous creatures while uncovering her daughter's connections to the town's dark secrets.
Plot
Rose (Radha Mitchell) and her husband Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean) are concerned about their adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) who has been experiencing nightmares and has begun sleepwalking. Their only clue to the girl's condition is her repetition of the name "Silent Hill." Desperate for answers, Rose takes Sharon to the town of Silent Hill, West Virginia. On her way there, she attracts the suspicions of police officer Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), who gives chase on her motorbike. It is in the midst of this chase that Rose and Sharon arrive at Silent Hill: as they enter, Rose crashes the car in an attempt to avoid a mysterious child in the middle of the road, knocking herself unconscious. When she awakens, Sharon is nowhere to be seen, and strange mist has descended and ash is falling from the sky.
Rose (
Radha Mitchell) chasing a mysterious girl through the streets of Silent Hill.
Rose searches the empty streets of the town for her missing child. Instead, she encounters a series of monstrous creatures and a ragged woman named Dahlia Gillespie (Deborah Kara Unger) who speaks of terrible things done to her own daughter, Alessa, by the townspeople. She claims that Sharon is actually her own daughter, not Rose's. Rose later encounters Cybil, who immediately arrests her. Upon discovering that the road out of the town has mysteriously disappeared, they are attacked by a deformed creature, and Rose escapes handcuffed. As events unfold, Cybil allows her to go free and the two work side-by-side to survive in the hellish town[4].
Scenes of their search are interspersed with scenes of Christopher's seemingly simultaneous search of the town (which is shown to be abandoned but otherwise normal; no mist, no falling ash), with the reluctant assistance of Officer Thomas Gucci (Kim Coates), who admits to have grown up in Silent Hill. Christopher discovers documents showing the town was abandoned after a terrible fire 30 years ago, along with a photo of Dahlia's daughter who bears a remarkable resemblance to Sharon. Christopher is arrested by Officer Gucci when he tries to question the nun at the Toluca County Orphanage about Sharon and Alessa, and is told to stop investigating Silent Hill under threat of incarceration. Additionally, Officer Gucci shows Christopher his hideously scarred hands (hidden by leather gloves), which will later connect him to Alessa's story. Faced with this, Christopher very relunctantly gives up the search and heads home.
Meanwhile, Rose and Cybil find refuge from Silent Hill's many monsters in the town church, where they discover the remaining townspeople, a religious cult, headed by Christabella (Alice Krige). After convincing Christabella that she wants to find "the demon" so feared by the townspeople, Rose (along with Cybil) is taken to a hospital in the town, where they are told the darkness resides. Here, Christabella discovers the likeness between Sharon and Alessa - via the photo of Sharon in Rose's locket - and condemns Rose and Cybil as witches. An attempt is made to catch them: Cybil sacrifices herself to enable Rose to escape and is captured and beaten with pipes by the townspeople while Rose descends into the basement of the hospital. Rose eventually encounters a badly burned figure - Alessa - in a hospital bed and a mysterious little girl who strongly resembles the missing Sharon.
In an extended flashback, Rose discovers the truth: Silent Hill has a long history of ritual witch burnings, stemming from the puritan-like fanaticism of the cult, which has a strong presence within the town. Thirty years before the start of the movie, Alessa, whose mother was a member of said cult, was heavily stigmatized as an incarnation of sin for having been born out of wedlock and having been abandoned by her father: her schoolmates bully and humiliate her, with adults doing no apparent effort to protect Alessa (making no move to help even when, after taking refuge from the jeering in a bathroom, locking herself in with an orderly named Colin, who is implied to have raped/hurt her: Dahlia is later shown trying to coax her out, alone). In her desperation, Dahlia agrees to Christabella's suggestions that she allow them to 'restore the innocence' in her daughter. The cult gathers at Silent Hill's Grand Hotel for this purpose. When not allowed to follow her daughter into the ritual, Dahlia guesses at the cult's ill intentions and runs for the police.
In the meantime, Alessa is subjected to a hideous ritual burning: the conditions of her birth are seen by the cult as marks of sin, for which they must burn her or face the Apocalypse. However, in the midst of the ritual, the cage by which she is suspended directly above the red hot coals swings, dumping the coal and setting fire to the hotel, then the city. When Dahlia returns to the still smoldering hotel with the police, Alessa is burnt beyond recognition but still alive. Notably, Alessa's rescue is performed by Officer Gucci (whose burns are revealed to have been caused by grabbing the still hot iron cage in an effort to open it).
Rose is also told that Sharon is a manifestation of Alessa's remaining innocence and goodness, sent away to the orphanage, where she was subsequently adopted by Rose and Christopher. After the flashback, Rose is told that she must aid Alessa in her revenge by granting her entry to the church (which she cannot enter due to the 'blind faith' within it): she is also told that Christabella will soon find Sharon and attempt to burn her as well. Rose agrees to help Alessa get her revenge.
Alessa (background) rises from the depths of the town to exact her revenge on the cult, while her mother Dahlia (foreground) watches in horror.
Rose re-enters the church soon after Cybil is burned to death by the townspeople, and Sharon is about to suffer a similar fate. She confronts the townspeople and Christabella with what she knows, attempting to convince the cult that they are in denial of their own fate. Angered at what she believes to be heresy, Christabella stabs Rose. Rose's blood drips onto the church floor, opening the way for Alessa. The adult Alessa and her doppelganger rise out of the pit, and proceed to kill Christabella and the townspeople with huge tangles of barbed wire, leaving Dahlia the sole inhabitant of Silent Hill. As the carnage ensues, Rose rescues Sharon and protects her. Sharon looks up to see Alessa's dark double looking down on her. Before Rose and Sharon leave, Dahlia asks why Alessa did not kill her, too. Rose replies with the words that Cybil had told her in the church: "Mother is God in the eyes of a child." Rose and Sharon leave Silent Hill and return home. Nevertheless, although Rose and Sharon are in the same room as Christopher, they cannot see each other - the world inhabited by Rose and Sharon is shrouded in mist.
Cast
Laurie Holden as Cybil Bennett
- Radha Mitchell as Rose Da Silva, the desperate mother who seeks a cure for her daughter Sharon's nightmarish sleepwalking by taking her to the town of Silent Hill. Director Christophe Gans said that casting the lead for the film is "a matter of feeling. If you play Silent Hill you know that each character has a very special poetic quality. They are both twisted and sophisticated. We tried to keep that in mind when we did the casting on this film."
- Sean Bean as Christopher Da Silva, the father of Sharon and husband of Rose who opposes his wife's decision to find answers in Silent Hill. Bean's role in the film was originally kept to the beginning and the end of the movie, but due to studio pressure for a male lead, his role was expanded into a subplot.[5]
- Jodelle Ferland as Sharon Da Silva, the adopted, troubled daughter of Rose and Christopher, and Alessa Gillespie, the tormented daughter of Dahlia who was burned alive by the cult of Silent Hill. Though it's not listed in the cast list, Jodelle also plays a third unnamed character (named Dark Alessa on the official film website). Gans saw Ferland as "the ideal actress" after viewing the television show Kingdom Hospital and her screen test for Terry Gilliam's film Tideland.[6] Lorry Ayers portrays Alessa's older, scarred self.
- Laurie Holden as Cybil Bennett, the motorcycle cop from the city of Brahams who becomes suspicious of Rose and follows her into Silent Hill. Gans cast Holden after seeing her in The Majestic. Gans states, "in [The Majestic], she was beautifully feminine and I cast her so I could show her other side, make her strong and sleek. Laurie on the screen is, for me, a perfect manga image brought to life."[7]
- Deborah Kara Unger as Dahlia Gillespie, the mother of Alessa who walks the foggy dimension of Silent Hill after giving her daughter up for sacrifice.
- Kim Coates as Officer Thomas Gucci, an essentially kind-hearted police officer jaded and hardened by his experiences at Silent Hill.
- Alice Krige as Christabella, the leader of the cult of Silent Hill. To prepare for her role, Krige read the book The End of Days by Erna Paris, a book about tyranny during the Spanish Inquisition.[7]
Production
Gans attempted for five years to obtain the film rights to Silent Hill from Konami. He sent a video interview to them explaining his plans for adapting Silent Hill and how important the games are to him.[8] They were so impressed, he was rewarded with the film rights. Konami Japan and Team Silent, the development team responsible for the Silent Hill game series, became directly involved with the production of the film from the pre-production stage all the way to the post-production stage. In 2004, Gans and Roger Avary began writing the script, which would be the first film in a series of Silent Hill films.[9]
Writer Roger Avary had said that as a boy, his father, who was a mining engineer, used to tell him stories about the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States where coal deposits from the local mine caught fire and released toxic gases into the town, as well as creating sinkholes when the abandoned mineshafts and coal seams began to collapse. This forced the town to evacuate forever. Avary was fascinated since childhood by the idea that fires underneath the town would be burning for such a long time and the story of Centralia was used as the basis for the township of Silent Hill.[6] When the script was finished, a studio memo was sent to Gans and Avary that voiced concerns about the lack of a male presence in the film, since the original story contained a nearly all female cast. Gans and Avary added Christopher's character (named after Gans) and subplot and the script was approved.[5]
The film was greenlit on September 19, 2003, and was filmed in both Brantford, Ontario and Hamilton, Ontario[10] as well as on sound stages in Toronto, Ontario in 2005 and on location in Alma College (St. Thomas)[11] . The film is considered a France-Canada-Japan co-production. Later, American studio Sony bought the distribution rights for $14 million for the United States and Latin America to be released under its TriStar genre film subsidiary.[12]
In order to maintain the feel of the games, Gans had the sound designer of the original Silent Hill, Akira Yamaoka, flown to the set several times.[13] Additionally, Gans had a forty inch television brought onto the set, to which he attached a PlayStation 2; Gans then played the original Silent Hill on the system so that the actors and cinematographers could see how Gans wanted to emulate various camera angles and movements.[13]
The movie was filmed in the Super 35 film format, except the scenes with the darkness, which were filmed in high-definition video,[14] because of its ability to cleanly capture light and digitally manipulate it in post production. The film contains around 107 different sets[15] specifically used to represent the different versions of the town. The bipedal creatures in the film were played by professional actors or dancers covered in latex and makeup. After filming, over 619 visual effects shots were used in the film,[16] with the most prominent uses being the fog that drenches the town, the transitions to darkness, and the insects that surround Red Pyramid. Some of the creatures were also touched up in post-production, with CGI effects such as the burning on the Grey Children, the changes in the dimensions of the Armless creature's legs, the disease that the Janitor spreads, and the barbed wire during Alessa's revenge. However, most of what is seen on film existed physically during production.
Budgetary concerns caused a few scenes in the film to be rewritten. The meeting of Anna in the film had been envisioned differently. It originally featured Anna being attacked by an injured armless creature, where she is saved by Cybil and Rose. Due to budget concerns, the scene was simplified and rewritten.[5] As well, Gans stated that his original vision of the film's finale revolved around six Red Pyramids appearing inside the church, each carrying a different weapon, and slaughtering the cult members in reference to Dante's Inferno.[5] When budgetary constraints prevented this ending from being filmed, he created the new ending that revolved around the barbed wire slaying of the cult by Alessa, which was inspired by the erotic anime Legend of the Overfiend.[5]
Director Christophe Gans describes the concept of the town's connection to the child Alessa and the cult, "It's a town of people trapped in dark dreams, and she inflicts onto the town what those people did to her body. That is, to me, the meaning of the darkness. The appearance of the town is corrupted in the way that her own flesh was wounded."[17] "It's interesting because the town itself mirrors this fractured psychology—different dimensions, different doubles of the same person."
In speaking about the creatures in Silent Hill, Gans states, "these monsters are [damned], with the poetic direction of the term: they are a little like the Japanese phantoms, i.e. residues of forgotten feelings as strong as hatred or [guilt]."[6] "The monsters in the game are not really monsters, but rather a mockery of human beings. The real monsters are the people, the cultists who tortured Alessa. When I approached the film, I knew that it was impossible to represent the monsters as simply beasts that jump on you."[17]
Reception
Advanced screenings of Silent Hill were not given to critics by the distributor, and so no reviews could be printed until after the movie's release.[18] Metacritic's average critic's score is 30 out of 100.[19] Rotten Tomatoes shows a freshness rating of 30 percent (with a zero percent rating from the few 'Cream of the Crop' critic reviews available for Silent Hill),[20].[21] However, as of 7th November 2009, the metacritic user score for the movie is significantly higher than that of the critics.
James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film a mildly positive review, awarding it two and a half stars (out of four). Berardinelli said "the film is overlong, with too many unnecessary scenes" and that "a lot of the movie seems like pointless running around", but added that the film "looks great" and that "it packs in a few scary moments and offers a nicely ambiguous conclusion."[22] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars (out of four), calling it "an incredibly good-looking film", but said that he "did not understand the story" and criticized how "all through the movie, characters are pausing in order to offer arcane back-stories and historical perspectives and metaphysical insights and occult orientations."[23]
Don R. Lewis of Film Threat praised the film's visuals but said "this entire film is downright confusing and not in an intriguing way", calling it "the best-looking bad film I've ever seen."[24] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a score of D+, saying that "a few of the images are startling" but "Silent Hill is mostly paralyzing in its vagueness."[25]
Dennis Harvey of Variety said that "above-average interest is generated for a time by [the] elaborate visual package", but "in the end, Silent Hill degenerates into an overblown replay of all those Twilight Zone and Stephen King stories in which outsiders stumble upon a time-warped location from which there's no escape."[26] Nathan Lee of the New York Times said, "It begins as a quest, develops into a ghost-town mystery, devolves into a preposterous cautionary tale about witchcraft and religious fundamentalism, and wraps up like the outrageously overwrought fantasy of a movie nerd obsessed with horror who has been given obscene amounts of money to adapt a video game."[27]
The film opened in 2,932 theaters and earned $20 million domestically on its opening weekend and opened at number one at the US box office. As of January 3, 2007 the film has grossed $46 million domestically and $97 million total worldwide.[1].
According to The New York Daily News, the film's poster of a mouthless girl was the subject of some vandalism in New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere, with many malefactors drawing cartoon mouths (smiling, screaming, sporting vampire fangs, etc.) or placing stickers where her mouth would be.[28]
Silent Hill is in the top 10 video game film adaptations listing on Box Office Mojo (from 1980 to present). Silent Hill is at #7, behind #6, Resident Evil: Extinction which grossed domestically $50 million.[29]
Release
The film was released to theaters on April 21, 2006 in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Ireland. France, Belgium, Hungary, and Greece also saw April releases. The film was later released in 19 other countries in 2006 which include Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Mexico. The film was rated R by the MPAA for strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, and some language, 15 by the BBFC for containing strong language and bloody horror, and MA 15+ by the OFLC for containing strong horror violence.
DVD
On August 22, 2006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and TriStar Pictures released the DVD, Blu-Ray, and UMD versions of the film in North America. The DVD and Blu-Ray were released in both Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 and Pan and Scan versions and both included a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.[30] The releases also included a number of special features, such as film previews and a six part making-of Silent Hill documentary. The film was also released on UMD for Sony's PlayStation Portable on August 22, 2006. There are no special features but the disc includes a 1.78 widescreen format, Dolby Digital 2.0, and subtitles. An HD DVD was released in Germany by Concorde Home Entertainment on August 22, 2007. It contains the film encoded in the VC-1 video codec and also has the main audio track in DTS-HD. It retains the film aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
Music
The score to the film 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: Apocalypse, The Boondock Saints), with some tracks appearing in almost identical form to their in-game counterparts, while others were recreated entirely.
The Real Silent Hill
Writer Roger Avary states about Silent Hill that
"the base idea was that this is not a haunted house, it's a haunted town, y'know, separate from our reality, but it also exists within our reality. So you effectively become a ghost during your time there. And it's a very terrifying emotion, that you are a ghost of yourself. Frankly I think it's a theme that's followed me."'
In researching the different elements of Silent Hill, screen writer Roger Avary was inspired when he heard of Centralia, Pennsylvania, and decided to base the film on it. The population of the town has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 9 in 2007,[31] as a result of a 47-year-old mine fire burning beneath the borough.
In 1962, an exposed vein of coal ignited, possibly due to the burning of garbage at the borough landfill. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful; the fire is still burning and will continue to do so for the indefinite future. Adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the carbon monoxide produced.
In 1984, Congress allocated more than $42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved. Today a handful of occupied homes remain in Centralia. Most of the buildings have been razed, and at casual glance the area now appears to be a meadow with several paved streets through it, and some areas are being filled with new-growth forest.
Sequel
It is confirmed by director Christophe Gans that a sequel is "officially ordered and well on the way."[5]
On December 24, 2006, in an interview in dvdrama.com, Silent Hill Writer/Director Christophe Gans announced that Sony has officially ordered another installment of Silent Hill. Gans also stated that he'd like to come back to the franchise, if his current commitment to Onimusha doesn't bar him from participating. In the event that Gans isn't available to direct the film personally, he recommended that it be helmed by another European director, preferably a fellow Frenchman. Gans also confirmed that Roger Avary will be back to write the script. An English language translation of Gans' interview can be found on GameSpot.
As of April 2007, Producer Don Carmody has stated that a screenplay is slowly being developed and that "[Gans is] involved pretty heavily in another project right now" and will likely not return as director.[32] Gans has stated that he will stay close to the film's production regardless of his status as director. It is confirmed that the film will retain the visual look of the first film.[5]
In July 2007, Avary said that he would not be returning to collaborate on Silent Hill 2 on the account that Gans would not be returning, either. The sequel will continue in development without Avary or Gans.[33]
On May 12, 2009, Sony Pictures registered the domain name silenthill2.net.[34]
On September 15, 2009, Sony Pictures announced that Roger Avary and Samuel Hadida were officially signed to the project and that Silent Hill 2 would begin filming next year after the filming of the new Resident Evil movie.[35][36].
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Silent Hill (2006)". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=silenthill.htm.
- ^ Haynes, Jeff (2008-05-15). "Silent Hill Homecoming Hands-on". IGN. http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/874/874245p2.html. Retrieved 2008-10-09.
- ^ Sterling, Jim (2008-08-20). "New Silent Hill: Rubbish Pyramid Head confirmed (also, November release)". Does it Suck? (Destructoid.com). http://www.destructoid.com/new-silent-hill-rubbish-pyramid-head-confirmed-also-november-release--100409.phtml. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b c d e f g Prin, Kevin (2006-12-22). "INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHE GANS (SILENT HILL) PARTIE 1 (French)". DVDRama. http://www.dvdrama.com/news.php?18185.
- ^ a b c Ferry, IIan (2006-04-02). "Master Class Silent Hill (French)". Ecranlarge. http://www.ecranlarge.com/interview-282.php.
- ^ a b "Silent Hill - Production Notes". Sony Pictures. http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill/site/html/prodnotes.html.
- ^ Douglas, Edward (2006-04-20). "Exclusive: Director Christophe Gans". ComingSoon. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14165.
- ^ Gans, Christophe (2006-03-10). "Silent Hill - Notes from the director Christophe Gans - "On Preserving and Contributing to the Mythology of the Games, On Interpreting Silent Hill's Monsters"". Sony Pictures. http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill/productiondiary/archives/.
- ^ "Internet Movie Database - List of Films shot in Hamilton, Ontario". http://www.imdb.com/List?endings=on&&locations=Hamilton,+Ontario,+Canada. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
- ^ http://www.almacollege.20m.com/photopages/silentHill.htm
- ^ http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14210
- ^ a b Interview with Akira Yamaoka
- ^ Wilson, Stacy (2005-07-17). ""Silent Hill" Interview with director Christophe Gans". About. http://horror.about.com/od/movierelated/a/int_sh_gans.htm.
- ^ Thorpe, Valarie (2005-07-17). "Really Scary Visits the Set of Silent Hill". Really Scary. http://www.reallyscary.com/setvisit_silenthill.asp.
- ^ Bielik, Alain (2006-04-21). "Silent Hill: Nothing Quiet About These Horrifying VFX". VFXWorld. http://www.vfxworld.com/?sa=adv&code=319b255d&atype=articles&id=2858.
- ^ a b Bettenhausen, Shane (2006-02-23). "Silent Hill Movie Interview: The Director's Cut". 1UP. http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=6605116&publicUserId=1002415.
- ^ :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews:: Silent Hill (xhtml)
- ^ Silent Hill (2006): Reviews
- ^ Silent Hill - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Silent Hill - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Review by ReelViews
- ^ Review by Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times, April 21, 2006
- ^ Review by Don R. Lewis Film Threat, April 24, 2006
- ^ Review by Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly, April 25, 2006
- ^ Review by Dennis Harvey Variety, April 21, 2006
- ^ Review by Nathan Lee New York Times, April, 2006
- ^ Dziemianowicz, Joe (2006-04-12). "Read my lips, a film poster inspires self-expression". New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/408224p-345559c.html.
- ^ Box Office Mojo Video Game Adaptations List
- ^ Woodward, Tom (2006-06-19). "Silent Hill (US R1 DVD)". DVDActive. http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/silent-hill.html.
- ^ Couch, Stephen. Presentation at Eastern Section meeting of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, June 2007
- ^ "Silent Hill 2 News". Shock Til You Drop. 2007-04-22. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=101.
- ^ Ryan Rotten (2007-07-18). "EXCL: Avary Skips Trip to Silent Hill 2". ShockTillYouDrop.com. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=804. Retrieved 2007-07-18.
- ^ WHOIS.net
- ^ [2]
- ^ Silent Hill Sequel Official
External links
