tek's rating: meh and three quarters

Silent Hill (R)
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This is based on a video game I've never played. The movie came out in 2006, but I didn't see it until 2023. It did pretty poorly with critics, but it did alright financially. There was a sequel in 2012, but I don't plan on ever seeing it. I didn't really like this movie, but I liked the visuals and general atmosphere well enough, and I didn't have any problem with the acting. It's just that the story was kind of meandering and weird, and not in what I would call a good way. There's a lot that didn't really make sense to me. But I'm glad to have seen it, I guess.

So, there's this couple named Rose and Christopher Da Silva (Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean), who have an adopted daughter named Sharon. Sharon goes sleepwalking, and in her sleep she screams "Silent Hill". This turns out to be the name of a town in West Virginia, which was built over a coal mine and had a fire that left the town uninhabitable about 30 years ago. Rose decides to take Sharon there, looking for answers to her daughter's problem. They end up being pursued by a motorcycle cop named Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), and when Rose sees a girl in the road, she swerves and crashes her Jeep. Rose gets knocked unconscious, and when she wakes up, Sharon is gone. She goes into Silent Hill to look for her, and is eventually found by Cybil, who at first arrests her, but... circumstances get weird, and the two women end up working together to look for Sharon. Meanwhile, Chris goes to look for his wife and daughter, and is joined by a police officer named Thomas Gucci. It eventually becomes apparent that... well, the Silent Hill that Chris and Gucci are searching is somehow not quite the same Silent Hill that Rose and Cybil are searching. Anyway, Rose and Cybil eventually encounter a woman named Anna (Tanya Allen, whom I knew from Starhunter, though I didn't exactly recognize her here). She leads them to a sanctuary where apparent survivors of the fire that destroyed the city hide from "the darkness". See, every once in a while there's this sound kind of like an air raid siren, which is followed by darkness that contains all sorts of deformed monsters, but the monsters can't get into the sanctuary. The survivors are led by a woman named Christabella (Alice Krige), who is fanatically devoted to her faith, which... poses a problem for Rose and Cybil, who are seen as witches.

Anyway, a lot of other stuff happens, and eventually the history of the town is revealed to Rose by a girl/demon (or something) named Alessa, who looks just like Sharon (but creepy). And... I dunno, everything is convoluted and confusing. And if you're looking for a happy ending, I suggest you look elsewhere. That's all I have to say about that.


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