From Game to Movie – Silent Hill
The movie’s attempt to recreate the video game location and moments is quite commendable. The fog – clad town, mutated creatures, transitions to ‘otherworld’ hellish locations – all deserve praise in terms of presentation and atmospheric re-creations. Just like the games, the movie also carries forward quite a lot of its characters; notably Alessa, her mother Dahlia and Cybil. The game’s male protagonist Harry was replaced with a female one in the movie and the daughter’s name also changed from Cheryl to Sharon, though in principle their roles remained unchanged. The movie also stood out on its sound design; it had to, considering director Christoper Gans (Director – Brotherhood of the Wolf, Crying Freeman) had Silent Hill’s original sound designer Akira Yamaoka flown to set several times. He even played the first game in front of this production team and actors to explain camera angles and movements. Most of the movie sets were actually created and major effects like fog, ‘otherworld’ transitions etc were added through CGI.
However, the fundamental element where most movies falter in trying to represent video games adequately is involvement. As a Silent Hill video game player, one gets to control character movement and hence the pace of the game. One can decide which locations to go to (or avoid), which monsters to fight or run away from and has the liberty of being guided by fear and tension – fundamental elements of any horror video game. In short, one can ‘feel’ emotions due to the immersion game-play brings in a video game. This involvement also ensures that even the slow pace of Silent Hill games does not seem pointless or boring. However, it’s a different matter altogether with movies! Rose’s pre-scripted visit to the town’s school, church, hospital etc. does not involve the viewer from a story perspective, and had it not been for the slick presentation and superior creature designs (the janitor moments in the school or Pyramid Head’s appearance for e.g.), the whole endeavour would have seemed utterly pointless and probably detached and stretched. Besides the ending & some select scenes which manage to evoke emotional response, the movie sails through mostly on its presentation elements.
In trying to stay loyal to its true nature, the movie’s story is also confusing. It is difficult for people not familiar with Silent Hill universe to relate to the movie’s happenings as “a manifestation of dark dreams” or “an alternate reality originating from strong feelings of hatred or suffering” (damn! I can’t even imagine “imagining” all such things). While a confusing storyline sails through in a video game if supported optimally with game-play and memorable execution, the margin of safety for a convoluted story presentation in a movie is quite dismal. As a result, many critics considered the Silent Hill movie to be ‘confusing’, ‘non-understandable’ and ‘vague’. The progress of the movie’s story from a ghost-town search to hell-ride to religious fanaticism to spiritual fantasy was something not easy to relate to and consequently, viewers fumbled in understanding the movie. It’s my guess that it is natural human tendency to try and attach logic to everything shown on-screen, and in this case, lack of being able to understand the events and categorize them as ‘spiritual’ or ‘human’ is what may have put off viewers to some extent.
Nevertheless, with a total gross of $ 46 million domestically and $ 97 million worldwide, the movie is rated at number 7 in the top 10 video game film adaptations on Box Office Mojo (from 1980 to present). With such rare accomplishment for a video game film adaptation, the movie can be considered ‘a guidebook’ for many other video game adaptations. Sony Pictures has also confirmed that a sequel is in the works. Since the game series prefers to park itself in some ‘niche’ space of ‘horror’ genre, it is always going to be difficult to do justice to it through a movie.
My advice to the studio – Just retain the top notch presentation and audio values while enhancing the script and viewer attachment, and we shall get the popcorns out in no time!
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