Welcome again to Coffee With Frizzy J! Today we are going to talk about the 2006 movie Silent Hill. With a runtime of 126 minutes, this movie is a thematic whirlwind, nightmarish hellscape, and fight for the souls of the dead and damned, all brought to life in a hellish pocket dimension where a group of fanatics are trapped.
The movie starts with a shriek, as parent Rose Da Silva (played by Radha Mitchell) screams for her daughter, Sharon. They find her, sleepwalking on a cliff over a waterfall, muttering about a place called "Silent Hill." We see the first moment of special effects here, where the bottom of the waterfall becomes a sort of hellpit with girders and catwalks over it. Rose saves Sharon from a fatal fall, and gets the girl to bed. The next bit of dialogue is between Rose and Sharon's father, played by Sean Bean. Here we discover that they adopted Sharon, which is relevant only in connection to certain plot points later on. Next, Rose and Sharon head out to go find the place that seems to haunt the child. Radio interference is the first issue they find, and truly the first supernatural occurrence. The radio begins to emit shrill screeches and static, even though it was not turned on. Rose tries to turn it off, but instead crashes when she catches sight of a girl that looks a lot like Sharon in the road. Thus begins the descent into Silent Hill.
Despite the age of the movie, I thought that the CGI in Silent Hill was really well done. At various points in the movie the surface layers of entire rooms will degenerate and float away like ash. Most of the monsters are computer generated in some way or other, and it is likewise well-done. The monsters are terrible abominations, made all the more frightening by the traces of the humanity left in their bodies.
To name a few themes, there is "Mother is God in the eyes of a child," "Reap what you sow", and "What would you do for the ones you love?" I can't really delve into these without spoiling anything, but these themes make for a powerful emotional response to a lot of the disturbing and gory material plot points.
I highly recommend this movie. It is a well-made and steadily paced thrill-ride. The best part, of course, the climax, leaves the audience with a sense of satisfaction, and is not that why we are here?
Comments