Kevin's Watch

Thnaks Covenant ... now I must convince my daughter to see it with me...

you will have better luck than me convincing julie to see it with me. :)

HeY, Come on up to Toronto! Maybe we can convince them together!

as soon as i win that damned lottery!

Loremaster wrote:Don't tell me you liked the sequel!

Oh God, Resident Evil almost bucked the game-to-movie trend by not actually sucking, but Apocalypse is one of the worst films I've ever seen. I'm not sure how they managed to make something so bad considering what they had to work with from Resident Evil 2.

I'm surprised so many people didn't think Resident Evil was awful. And you're telling me the sequel was significantly worse?

Oh yeah, the first film was kind of bad but there were enough things I liked about it to balance it out a bit. The second was just apalling, it actually made me hate Jill Valentine.

Saw this one last night. I'm not familiar with the game, so everything was new to me. I was expecting zombies and killing.

I was sort of impressed with the lack of blood and gratuitous gore. I liked the idea of a ghost town cut off from reality. I liked the religious zealots who were kooky and ultimately the real source of evil in Silent Hill. I also liked that something as intangible as vengeance (with the aid of a little demon) could sustain a nearly dead girl for so long. I didn't like seeing

Spoiler

the blond cop die, but someone had to go.

The ending went from something esoteric to outright lame, although I was pleased that

Spoiler

the little girl and mother were actually dead/cut off from their real world. No happy ending here.

Before going to see Silent Hill I knew a bit about the game but had never played it. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this one, althouhg my mate totally didn't get it and I had to explain the whole darkness/mist/real world thing at the end.

It was gory yes, but it didn't rely on gore to scare, and that is what makes a great scary movie. The creatures were excellent, and kinda innovative as far as horror creatures go. Especially the grey children. *shudder*

On a side note, I have heard thjat the makers of the games were quite impressed with Colin the Janitor, and plan to use him in Silent Hill 5

It didn't run with the story of the game. Everything was right with the monsters n stuff but the actually from the game wasn't there.

Tulizar wrote:I didn't like seeing

Spoiler

the blond cop die, but someone had to go.

Well...

Spoiler

...in the game, the hero (the father of the little girl, rather than the mother) has to kill Cybill himself, because she becomes possessed. I don't know if I would have preferred it to happen that way in the film too. Worked well in a game, but might be a little predicatble in a film.

CovenantJr wrote:

Tulizar wrote:I didn't like seeing

Spoiler

the blond cop die, but someone had to go.

Well...

Spoiler

...in the game, the hero (the father of the little girl, rather than the mother) has to kill Cybill himself, because she becomes possessed. I don't know if I would have preferred it to happen that way in the film too. Worked well in a game, but might be a little predicatble in a film.

Now that makes sense. Seems odd that the movie didn't follow this scenario--would've been easy to do. Oh well, I'm not a director so what do I know?

variol son wrote: The creatures were excellent, and kinda innovative as far as horror creatures go. Especially the grey children. *shudder*

On a side note, I have heard thjat the makers of the games were quite impressed with Colin the Janitor, and plan to use him in Silent Hill 5

I agree, the creatures were well done. I personally liked the group of nurses. I thought it was pretty cool that the light "activated" them. Their jittery stab-n-jab motion was freakishly delightful! I also thought Colin was particularly well done.

The nurses were perfect.

When I played Silent Hill, I spent a large chunk of the game running around blindly in pitch blackness to avoid hordes of nasty things descending upon my little torch. Fairly alarming, I must say.

It's a shame more wasn't made of the phone / radio. The "Where is it where is it where IS IT?!" moments are fairly creepy.

I liked it... it was pretty, well acted, and made me jump. I was entertained and that's generally all I ask from a movie.

However, I have one (little) gripe:

Silent hill is not merely an action game. It's a story driven game. There is tons of lore, there is a ton of backstory, and, most importantly to me, there is a TON of metaphor in it. Specifically, I am reffering to pyramid head. He's not just a monster. He's very symbolic. He's a metapor for underlying plots in the game. From what I remember, he represented the relationship of the males in the game to the women (hope that makes sense. It's early yet.)
Anyway, to me it just didn't make any sense that he was there. He didn't serve any purpose in a plot where a mother was searching for her child.

I just wanted my damn metaphor

Anyway like I said, it's a small gripe. As a fan of the game I wasn't dissapointed in the movie.

Waddley Hasselhoff wrote: Silent hill is not merely an action game. It's a story driven game. There is tons of lore, there is a ton of backstory, and, most importantly to me, there is a TON of metaphor in it. Specifically, I am reffering to pyramid head. He's not just a monster. He's very symbolic. He's a metapor for underlying plots in the game. From what I remember, he represented the relationship of the males in the game to the women (hope that makes sense. It's early yet.)

Yeah, I assumed that he was nothing more than a kick ass monster in the game (I've never played it.) He was effective as an unstoppable force in the movie, but it sounds like the director missed a great opportunity to elaborate.



.

CovenantJr wrote:

Tulizar wrote:I didn't like seeing

Spoiler

the blond cop die, but someone had to go.

Well...

Spoiler

...in the game, the hero (the father of the little girl, rather than the mother) has to kill Cybill himself, because she becomes possessed. I don't know if I would have preferred it to happen that way in the film too. Worked well in a game, but might be a little predicatble in a film.

Spoiler

Apparently there is a scenario where you don't have to do this and so Cybil survives. However, nothing is mentioned of her in later games so I am guessing that the version where Harry kills her is cannon.

variol son wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:

Tulizar wrote:I didn't like seeing

Spoiler

the blond cop die, but someone had to go.

Well...

Spoiler

...in the game, the hero (the father of the little girl, rather than the mother) has to kill Cybill himself, because she becomes possessed. I don't know if I would have preferred it to happen that way in the film too. Worked well in a game, but might be a little predicatble in a film.

Spoiler

Apparently there is a scenario where you don't have to do this and so Cybil survives. However, nothing is mentioned of her in later games so I am guessing that the version where Harry kills her is cannon.

Yes and no.

Spoiler

There are, as I understand it, four (technically five, but one's a joke) endings to the original Silent Hill game: Bad, Good, Bad + and Good +. The Bad ending results from not finding certain things; Cybil dies, Dr Kaufman dies, the girl dies, everything is a big mess even if you beat the demon fella. The Good ending sees Dr Kaufman surviving. Bad + has you not kill Cybil, while Good + basically has everyone making it out alive (and I'm given to understand there are implications that history changes, but I haven't seen that one myself so I can't say for certain.)

With regard to metaphor and backstory: yes, both those things feature heavily in the Silent Hill games, but more in the sequels than the original. Even in the original, though, the creatures and settings were representative of the mental state of the one creating them. The major ones from SH1 are HERE , under "Themes and Motifs of Silent Hill".

CovenantJr wrote:With regard to metaphor and backstory: yes, both those things feature heavily in the Silent Hill games, but more in the sequels than the original. Even in the original, though, the creatures and settings were representative of the mental state of the one creating them. The major ones from SH1 are HERE , under "Themes and Motifs of Silent Hill".

Thanks, that explains a few things. I've read so much about the game the past few days that I might actually play it!

Here's a link within Cov Jr's link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia%2C_Pennsylvania

I was familiar with the forty year old burning coal mines in Centralia PA--that's one of the reasons I was intrigued by the movie. However, I had no idea that there were nearly 40 such burning mines in the state. Seems hard to imagine.

Just saw this film. Not much of a horror film fan but I have to tell you this film was interesting. Really held my attention, which is difficult these days.