ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (but confusing as Hell)
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I am aghast that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, cannot describe the plot for this movie. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so I think the plot woefully obvious. Allow me to illustrate it, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this story.
But before I begin, I was wondering what you use for a light source when you take notes during the movie? I've tried various book-lights and pen-lights, but they're either too bright, annoying those sitting around me, or too awkward to position, or uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. I was lucky with Silent Hill, as there was an Exit sign which cast just enough reddish light for me to see what I was writing. Of course, I had to sit on the floor next to it, but it wasn't too uncomfortable, except for the occasional person stepping over me to go to the bathroom or concession stand. It's a good thing I don't review Disney films as I'd have had the little monsters and their rude parents incessantly running back and forth, trampling me.
Getting back to Silent Hill, the plot is a simple one, often repeated in horror and science fiction films. It even reminded me of the Star Trek episode, And the Children Shall Lead, where Gorgon, an evil alien who appears to children as a friendly angel (ironically played by attorney Melvin Belli), takes advantage of their naivety to further his evil plans. He uses them as a conduit for his nasty powers. Now instead of an evil alien, in Silent Hill we have a kid, Alessa, who's being used by a malevolent demon to exact malicious mischief and revenge on the titular (I always love using that word) townspeople that did her wrong.
Now—oh wait a minute—is it a demon that is using the girl as a conduit or is it actually the dark half of the girl that's taking revenge on the townsfolk? The convoluted explanation toward the last quarter of the film, oddly done in an inappropriate, grainy, faux home movie-styled flashback, describes how badly the poor kid was mistreated, and how she eventually split into a dark half, who curses and destroys the town and everyone in it, and a good half the dark half sends away, only to call it back after nine years. But then why bother to send the good half away, only to have it return after nine years?
I missed something. I better start over.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I'm surprised that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, can't describe the plot for this move. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so, I think the plot fairly obvious. Allow me to illustrate, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this atmospheric horror story.
Alessa, born out of wedlock, is tormented by her classmates, victimized by the school janitor, and cooked like a hot dog by a wacky religious cult. The poor kid, amazingly, survives all this rude treatment and, naturally, develops an evil personification that can reach out from her badly scarred and bed-ridden body to maliciously destroy her tormentors. No wonder there. Then again, you could look at it this way: a demon from hell takes advantage of the poor girl’s revengeful, hate-filled state of mind to kill everybody in town and lock their souls into a very imaginatively depicted hell-like limbo filled with endless horrific punishments.
After wreaking chaos and horror on the townsfolk, she realizes she's been acting rather badly and decides to create a good version of herself—pre-nastiness and all that, which she then sends away to live with total strangers until precisely nine years pass. Demon Alessa--or just a hell-spawned demon along for the ride?-- then summons pre-nastiness Alessa back to town to…to...what? And what’s that weird, confusing backstory about a witch burned by townsfolk and the town being on fire for years and years?
Oh, bugger! I thought I had it this time.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I'm not surprised that you can't describe the plot for Silent Hill. It can be confusing to those not all that familiar with horror films. Allow me to explain, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this visually stunning and creepy film.
But first, I must give kudos to the art direction. It's a wonderful creaturefest of makeup, CGI-enhanced sets and coloration, and icky-monster costuming that's quite a treat to watch. The creatures are nightmarish, in that nifty damned-to-hell kind of way, and the sounds and music when Alessa's mom goes deeper into that cursed town—especially when the siren blares a warning that the town is going ‘into the darkness’—is goosebumps inducing, evoking quite a horrific mood; and those embers glowing on the damned creatures’ bodies, and all that falling ash and pall over the town—again, Dante himself couldn't have done any better.
The script is another matter entirely. The dialog, for instance, is atrocious. Many of the lines are eye-rollingly bad. The acting also needed better acting, especially during the climactic Barkeresque Hellraiser-styled confrontation in the church between mom and those evil cult members. Mom does manage to easily walk through a congregation of crazed, kid-roasting individuals with amazing ease, doesn't she? And the verbal showdown between them is so lackluster and stilted, I wish I had Visine to squirt in my eyes each time they rolled around those words.
While I'm at it, what's with the black, skin-tight, leather uniform on the female motorcycle cop: I mean really, you couldn’t get it any tighter. How DOES she get on the motorcycle dressed in those tight pants? All she needs to complete her ludicrous ensemble is a pair of stiletto heels. Her weak acting during her own barbecue scene in the church is also very disappointing.
But before I go off on a tangent, let me explain the plot.
Alessa, the poor kid born out of wed-lock, roasted like a turkey by the evil religious cult while her mom puts up little resistance, takes revenge on the titular townspeople of Silent Hill. Though I'm not sure if this occurred before the fires broke out in the mines or afterwards. I'm also not sure how the witch burning, thirty years beforehand, fits into the events with Alessa.
Anyway, from her hospital bed, the badly scarred and immobile Alessa, either through sheer malevolent will power, or by the assistance of a hellish demon (maybe it’s the witch’s familiar?) destroys the town and it’s citizens, forcing their spirits to ‘live’ in a nightmare world that puts Dante’s Inferno to shame. They must endure not only the hellish Limbo they've been caught in, but also the Darkness that brings Pyramid Head (you need to have played the video game) and his agonies (give or take a few like in the video game) to torture them, if they're unlucky enough to be caught outside their sanctuary, the church.
Alessa, for some reason, sends off a good version of herself as a baby, now named Sharon, and then summons Sharon back to Silent Hill after nine years. Since Sharon sleepwalks and blurts out "Silent Hill" in her sleep a lot, her mom, casting prudence to the wind, takes her to Silent Hill.
Yes, that Silent Hill! Tthe one with all the well-known, evil cursed-stuff attached to it. A place so notorious, Sharon’s father reads about it on the web at ghosttowns.com. This is the ABANDONED place that has had toxic fires burning beneath it for years, so much so that ash continually falls from the sky, and deadly fumes spew forth that not even a Glade Plug-in Air Freshener could cure. So her mom takes her there, AT NIGHT, hoping to find out why her daughter keeps sleepwalking and saying “Silent Hill” a lot.
Along the way they're almost stopped by a dominatrix motorcycle cop who dresses in impossibly tight leather motorcycle garb (minus stiletto heels, though), but her mom is determined to bring Sharon (really Alessa) to that deserted, fires-still-burning, town that nobody else wants to go near—in the middle of the night no less—so she puts the pedal to the metal. Promptly crashing her car in the process. Mom wakes up, finds her daughter missing, and heads into town. The motorcycle cop follows them, promptly crashes her motorcycle on the tarmac (stiletto heels would have helped with a few more inches reach here), and heads into town, too.
Now, Mr. Ebert, here is where the subtlety begins. You see, Sharon (really Alessa), her mom, and the motorcycle cop are actually dead, but they don't realize it. They died in their respective vehicular crashes. This is why they can be affected by the creatures and hellish darkness of Silent Hill while her husband, and others searching for her, walk through the town unaffected and unaware.
Now Alessa, as Sharon, has her mom and the cop go through quite a few trials and tribulations to find her so she can use them to get into the church to send those evil cult members to Hell—well, more Hell that is, seeing as they're already knee deep in it. Much gore ensues as Alessa gloats and tears them apart in a scene of ripping butchery that Pinhead would be proud of. Sharon as Alessa--or Alessa as Sharon--and mom then walk back to the car, buckle themselves in for safety—this time—and head home.
Of course, there's the confusing sequelization-antic ending, where the husband is home as THEY return home. The scene shifts between husband in the nice sunlit home and them in the dark, ominous-looking home. Sharon-now-Alessa, or the demon posing as Sharon-now-Alessa, gives us that sinister, ain't-over-yet look, so common in horror films these days to keep milking the franchise cow.
With them being dead, though, how, exactly, does dead Alessa benefit from taking over now dead Sharon’s body? And they still haven't explained why the witch was burned or why the fires started in the mines in the first place.
Oh bloody hell. I thought I finally had it right this time.
Dear Roger,
Never mind.
ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good
ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good
ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair
"The corpse plants are blooming," yelled our groundskeeper, Pretorius. 
