SILENT HILL (FILM)

'''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''.^[2]
The film follows a mother who takes her troubled daughter to Silent Hill, the town the girl cries out for while sleepwalking. After being knocked unconscious in a car crash outside the town, she awakens to find her daughter missing and the town engulfed in a parallel reality of fog and falling ash. While searching for her daughter, she faces surreal reality shifts and suffering creatures while uncovering her daughter's connections to the town's dark secrets.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

Reception

Relationship to the video games

Characters

Creatures

Scenes

Release

DVD

Music

Sequel

Notes

See also

References

External links

Plot

The film starts with Rose and husband Christopher Da Silva (Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean) rescuing their troubled, adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) from sleepwalking near a cliff. Sharon repeatedly cries out, "Silent Hill." Desperate for answers, Rose takes Sharon to the town of Silent Hill, despite Christopher's opposition. At a rest stop, Rose finds that Sharon's drawings have been disturbingly altered. Sharon's cries raise the suspicions of a police officer. As they leave, the officer attempts to pull Rose over. Spotting the turnoff to Silent Hill, Rose evades the officer, swerves to avoid a young girl walking in the street, and is knocked unconscious.
Rose awakens in a limbo world of fog and falling ash.^[3] With Sharon nowhere to be found, Rose enters nearby Silent Hill, where she chases the girl that she swerved to avoid, who resembles Sharon. A civil defense siren (mine collapse alarm) blares, and Rose is plunged into darkness. She is soon assaulted by disfigured, smoldering children (the Gray Children) that burn up as she passes out. She awakens back in the fog and runs back to her car, only to find a large chasm bisecting the road. She meets a ragged woman named Dahlia (Deborah Kara Unger) who speaks of the terrible things done to her daughter, Alessa, by the townspeople. Rose is attacked by Dahlia for her locket of Sharon while proclaiming "She's mine". Rose makes it to her car and finds a drawing of a school. She calls Christopher for help, who only receives enough fragments of her message to know where to search for her. When he arrives near Silent Hill, he is stopped by Officer Thomas Gucci (Kim Coates), who reluctantly agrees to help Christopher's search.
Rose is found and arrested by Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), the officer she evaded. Cybil defends herself from a mysterious creature (the Lying Figure) while Rose flees in handcuffs for Midwich Elementary School. Rose spots the girl (Jodelle Ferland) and chases her into a school restroom. She finds a corpse bound in barbed wire wearing the name tag "Colin." Rose pulls a stone from his mouth that reads "The Grand Hotel" and rushes to exit the room. When she opens the door, Rose is spotted by three mysterious figures wearing gas masks and wielding metal pipes and a flashlight (later revealed as the towns people). After they are locked out of the washroom, the three figures attempt to break down the door until their caged warning canary alerts them of the impending "darkness" and they flee for safety. Moments later the siren sounds and the world darkens again, this time much more dramatically. "Colin" reanimates, and Rose runs in terror only to fall from a window after being shocked by the sight of the girl drawing a picture. As she regains consciousness, a figure wearing a massive pyramidal helmet (Pyramid Head), carrying an equally massive sword appears walking through thousands of insect-like creatures (Creeper). Frightened, Rose runs away in the dark plane, passing Christopher's and Officer Gucci's position in the real world plane. While they are unable to touch or see one another, he feels her presence, which gives him hope. Back in the dark plane, Rose is saved by Cybil who pulls her into a small room just before the insect-like creatures could attack them. After barring the doors closed, the two women are confronted by Pyramid Head who uses his massive sword to easily pierce the steel doors. The sword narrowly misses the women but opens a hole large enough for Pyramid Head to reach his arm through and attempt to remove the bar while the creepers crawl through. The two appear to be hopeless as bullets do little to stop Pyramid Head's attempt to open the door and the creepers begin to crawl on them when suddenly the world shifts back to the smokey plane. The creepers fall dead and Pyramid Head departs while the darkness recedes. Back in the foggy streets, they agree to head to the hotel to search for Sharon. Meanwhile, Christopher is ordered to go home after a failed search. Distrustful of Gucci, Chris breaks into the neighboring town's Hall of Records, where he finds information on Alessa (and incidentally finds that the thrity-year old picture of a younger Alessa is the spitting image of his adopted daughter Sharon). The police reports detail how she was burned with the town thirty years ago. Gucci follows him and arrests him for breaking and entering. He warns Christopher to let matters rest and releases him.
Cybil and Rose arrive at the hotel, where they meet Anna (Tanya Allen), a member of a religious cult. Cybil finds a clue in a mailbox and heads for Room 111, where a painting depicting a witch burning is found. Anna mentions the room is related to the first burning in Silent Hill. In a neighboring building, Rose encounters the mysterious girl again and chases her. The siren blares and Anna cries out that they must seek sanctuary at the church. There they encounter other cultists, summoned by the air raid siren mounted atop the church's bell tower. The Red Pyramid materializes, and Rose and Cybil watch in horror as he kills Anna with his bare hands by ripping off her skin. Rose and Cybil flee into the church, where the cult immediately condemns them as witches. Christabella (Alice Krige), head of the cult, silences them as she discusses Rose's situation. Christabella states that the demon, who resides in the town's hospital, holds the answers. Christabella returns Rose’s locket that was torn off in an earlier scuffle with the cult. She notices the picture of Sharon inside and declares that the child bears a likeness to Alessa. The cult convict Rose as a witch as Cybil fends them off. Rose takes a broken elevator to the basement, where she finds her path is blocked by a number of disfigured nurses who wield knives. Rose uses a flashlight to distract them and escapes. The screen turns white.
The mysterious girl praises Rose for following her clues and tells her story. Alessa was Dahlia's child, born out of wedlock, her father unknown. One day while being tormented by her classmates, Alessa escaped to the bathroom, where she was molested by the janitor, Colin. Christabella informed Dahlia that she knew why Dahlia would not disclose the name of Alessa's father, and declared that Alessa needed to be "purified" because of her "sin". Inside the Grand Hotel, where the church held their cleansing ritual, Alessa was chained to a metal frame and burned. One of the chains broke and knocked the fire pot over, causing the fire to burn out of control. Dahlia returned with the police to find the hotel empty. A young Gucci freed Alessa and she was taken to the hospital and placed in an Intensive Care Unit. Asked to identify herself, the girl has been chasing claims "I have many names. Right now, I'm the dark part of Alessa," and later "I am the reaper." She further explains that Sharon is a manifestation of Alessa's remaining innocence and goodness, and was taken to the orphanage and subsequently adopted by Rose and Christopher. "Dark Alessa" declares that the current state of the town is a personification of Alessa's nightmares, and they will not end until she gets revenge. Rose offers herself as a vessel to help Alessa into the church, which she cannot enter because of the cult's blind faith.
The cultists find Sharon hiding with Dahlia and both are brought to the church, where Cybil is tied up and burned alive. Rose enters the church just before Sharon is burned, and declares to the cultists that there was no Apocalypse and that they are already damned. She is then stabbed by Christabella in the chest with a dagger. The bloody essence of Dark Alessa pours out of the wound, bringing the darkness and disintegrating the floor from which adult Alessa, in her hospital bed, rises out of the pit. She uses barbed wire tentacles to kill the cultists. Rose, her wound apparently healed, frees Sharon, warning her to shield her eyes. Sharon peeks out to see Dark Alessa peering down at her, and passes out. Rose, Sharon, and Dahlia awake to find that they are the only apparent survivors left in the church. When Dahlia wonders why Alessa spared her the fate of the cult members, Rose tells her, "Mother is God in the eyes of a child." Rose and Sharon then leave and enter their car, which now starts. The road reappears and they leave the town. The dimension they travel through is still shrouded in fog, including their hometown. Christopher naps at home as Rose and Sharon arrive. Though they occupy the same point in space, they are still in different 'dimensions' and both parties remain invisible to each other. Rose seems to smilingly gaze upon where Christopher would be as Christopher then awakens to find his door open -and inexplicably doesn't seem to realize her predicament though the entire world as she sees it, even outside of Silent Hill, now has the same ash-grey gloom as the town itself, even the interior of her home.
In the meantime, young Sharon, implied by events in the film to now hold some part of Alessa within her, has run off to places unknown as the film ends.

Cast

★ '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."²

★ '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.^[4]

★ '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. Gans saw Ferland as "the ideal actress" after viewing the television show ''Kingdom Hospital'' and her screen test for Terry Gilliam's film Tideland.^[5]

★ '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 casted 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."^[6]

★ '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.

★ '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. ⁶

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.^[7] 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.^[8]
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. This forced the majority of inhabitants 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.⁵ 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.⁴
The film was greenlit on September 19 2003, and was filmed in both Brantford, Ontario and Hamilton, Ontario as well as on sound stages in Toronto, Ontario in 2005. 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.
The movie was filmed in Super 35 video format, except the scenes with the darkness, which were filmed in High-definition,²because of its ability to cleanly capture light and digitally manipulate it in post production. The film contains around 107 different sets^[9] 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,^[10] 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.⁴ 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.⁴ 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 called Legend of the Overfiend.⁴
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."³ "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]."⁵ "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."³

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.^[11] ''Metacritic's average critic's score is 30 out of 100, with the average user score at 8.2 out of 10.^[12] ''Rotten Tomatoes'' shows a freshness rating of 27% (with a 0% rating from the 'Cream of the Crop' critics),^[13] and a user freshness rating of 58%.^[14]
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 ''Silent Hill'' is in the top 10 video game film adaptations listing on Box Office Mojo (from 1980 to present). ''Silent Hill'' is at #6, between #5, '' which grossed domestically $51 million and #7, '' which grossed domestically $93 million.
According to ''The New York Daily News'', the film's poster of a mouthless Sharon was the subject of some vandalism in New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere, with many artists drawing cartoon mouths (smiling, screaming, sporting vampire fangs, etc.) or placing stickers where her mouth would be.^[15]

Relationship to the video games

Although the film is an adaptation of the first game, it does contain numerous connections to the rest of the series, many of which are purely thematic or aesthetic similarities to the games' distinctive style. There are also various features which appear to be direct translations of their in-game counterparts. Concerning these, 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.⁷

Characters

Many of the characters from the original ''Silent Hill'' video game appear in the film. Director Christophe Gans has described the protagonist Rose Da Silva as a female version of the Silent Hill video game protagonist, Harry Mason. Police officer Cybil Bennett retains much of her same attitude and physical appearance from the ''Silent Hill'' game, but her ultimate fate is different. The young Alessa Gillespie and her mother Dahlia also appear in the film, though the relationship between them is quite different from the ''Silent Hill'' game. In the game, Dahlia was the leader of the diabolist cult known as The Order and it is she who burns Alessa in hopes of invoking the child's dark powers and using them for her own means. In the film, Christabella leads witch-burning Puritan cult bent on purifying Alessa and thus following their interpretation of the word of God. The Red Nurse is based on the character Lisa Garland from the ''Silent Hill'' game.³ Their particular situations are also similar, as they are both caretakers of the bed ridden Alessa.

Creatures

Christophe Gans has stated that, along with the games, the imagery of the film creatures were influenced by artists Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, and Hans Bellmer.⁵
The Grey Children that Rose encounters in the alleyway are from the ''Silent Hill'' game. The Armless creatures found on the street by Rose and Cybil are known as the Lying Figure or Patient Demon in the game ''Silent Hill 2''. The film version of these two creatures are very similar to their video game counterparts.
The Janitor, found in the Midwich bathroom in the film is an original creation by director Christophe Gans and makeup effects artist Paul Jones. The Janitor is based on a decorative corpse that is hanging similarly in the bathroom in the ''Silent Hill'' game. Where in the game he stays stationary and is of no real importance, in the film he comes to life as the punished form of Colin the Janitor.
The Roaches were designed by Patrick Tatopolous and were one of the only completely CGI creatures created for the film. VFX Supervisor, Evan Jacobs oversaw the execution of this sequence.^[16]
The Red Pyramid is known as The Red Pyramid Thing or Pyramid Head in the game ''Silent Hill 2''. In the game, Pyramid Head is a manifestation of the male protagonist's guilt,^[17] while in the film he is a punisher commanded by Alessa. In the film, Alessa's psyche determined his shape, dress, and physicality.^[18] Both versions share the character's trademark brutality as well as his weapon, the Great Knife. The Dark Nurses in the film and in the games are nearly identical in appearance and action, although their general appearance recalls the nurses from the ''Silent Hill 2'' and ''Silent Hill 3'' games.

Scenes

Three scenes from the beginning of the ''Silent Hill'' were recreated nearly shot-for-shot. The first features Rose and Sharon driving towards Silent Hill, only to crash after swerving to avoid a ghostly figure in the road. The second shows Rose walking down an L-shaped alley, minutes before the third scene where Rose is ambushed by the Gray Children after discovering a mutilated body crucified on a chain-link fence. Players of the game will notice that nearly everything in this scene, including the set, the ambitious camera angles, even the positioning of a few rusting barrels (which Rose knocks into) and the occupied hospital bed, has, on the whole, been faithfully replicated.
A number of scenes were also taken directly from the game ''Silent Hill 2''. When Rose enters Room 111, she finds a hole in the wall leading to another building, where she must jump across to access. This is a nod to the apartment areas of the games, which included scenes similar to this. The bed-ridden adult Alessa's appearance mirrors the final boss from the ''Silent Hill 2'' game. The scenes where Christopher receives calls from Rose but only gets white noise is a reference to a scene in ''Silent Hill 2'' in which James first discovers the radio and hears a voice that sounds like his wife's, only to have it garbled by static interference. Finally, when Rose and Sharon are leaving Silent Hill near the end of the film they pass by a gas station which is identical to the gas station where James picks up the pipe weapon jammed in the car bonnet in the second half of the game.
Some dialogue from the film mirrors the games series as well. 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 first meets Maria (who bears striking similarities to his wife) in the game ''Silent Hill 2''. In the hotel, Rose grabs a knife from Anna. A similar knife is given to the protagonist by a supporting character in ''Silent Hill 2''.
The town itself has been recreated with a striking attention to detail, down to the names of many of the town's shops. As a result, the street scenes are almost indistinguishable from those of the ''Silent Hill 2'' and ''Silent Hill 3'' games, including the desolate streets, the fog, and the peeling world transitions. The falling ash in the film is a reference to the snow that falls in the ''Silent Hill'' game.
Midwich Elementary School from ''Silent Hill'' also appears (along with a briefly-seen symbol of Samael, which figured heavily into the first game), along with Brookhaven Hospital (from ''Silent Hill 2'' and ''Silent Hill 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''. Also, the hospital map that Rose investigates while looking for Sharon mimics the maps in game series. It is also worth noting that the random quotes seen in the background of some scenes draw parallels with the ever present letters, facts and notes found throughout all the games journeys. The animated end titles are also similar to the titles used in the video game series as well.
The film also shares some visual symbolism from the games. The persistent mentions and visions of fire suggest Alessa's burning and suffering. The images of wheelchairs (in the alley, school and hospital) are suggestive of Alessa's hospitalization and death in the town. The symbolism of fans, a loop representing Alessa's constant death and rebirth,^[19] can be seen throughout the film much like the games. Fans are seen in the alleyway at the beginning of the film, outside of the school when the Red Pyramid makes his first appearance, and in the room where the Red Pyramid makes his first attack.

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 counties in 2006 which include Russia, Germany, 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 full screen versions and both included a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.^[20] 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.
Director Christophe Gans will supervise a remastered 2 disc collectors edition DVD release of the film for release near completion of the second Silent Hill film. It has been hinted that the release may be a HD-DVD/DVD bundled package.⁴

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 ('', ''The Boondock Saints''), with some tracks appearing in almost identical form to their in-game counterparts, while others were recreated entirely.

Sequel

Christophe Gans announced in December 2006 that the sequel, ''Silent Hill 2'', is "well on the way". Gans has said that he might not direct the sequel due to his next project, a movie version of the Capcom game Onimusha. 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.[1]
The second film will be produced by Samuel Hadida, and distributed by TriStar Pictures.⁴

Notes

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."''^[21]

See also

★ List of films based on video games

★ Silent Hill

References

1. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=silenthill.htm
2. "Silent Hill" Interview with director Christophe Gans
3. Silent Hill Movie Interview: The Director's Cut
4. INTERVIEW : CHRISTOPHE GANS (SILENT HILL) PARTIE 1 (French)
5. Master Class Silent Hill (French)
6. Silent Hill - Production Notes
7. Exclusive: Director Christophe Gans
8. Silent Hill - Notes from the director Christophe Gans - "On Preserving and Contributing to the Mythology of the Games, On Interpreting Silent Hill's Monsters"
9. Really Scary Visits the Set of Silent Hill
10. Silent Hill: Nothing Quiet About These Horrifying VFX
11. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060420/REVIEWS/60421001
12. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/silenthill
13. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent_hill/
14. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent_hill/reviews_users.php
15. Read my lips, a film poster inspires self-expression
16. Deathfall.com interview
17. Silent Hill 2 Creature Commentary
18. Silent Hill - Notes from director Christophe Gans - "On The Red Pyramid"
19. The Wheel of Fortune
20. Silent Hill (US R1 DVD)
21. INT: Roger Avary

External links

★

★ Silent Hill Official Website

★ Trailer, Multiple Resolutions''

★ Silent Hill the Movie at Rottentomatoes.com