Of course, that's partial speculation because Silent Hill's primary flaw, in addition to being overlong, is that it doesn't make much sense (at least not to someone who is not intimately familiar with the original game). The screenplay by Roger Avary (The Rule of Attraction) is a study in complex build-up without a clear payoff (it also betrays its video game roots by focusing primarily on character going from one location to another). At one point, about two-thirds through the movie, the main character reaches an important location, the screen goes blinding white, and a soft voice tells her that she's earned the right to hear the truth. The movie then switches to scratchy, grainy, faux 16mm film stock to lay out the backstory, which rather than explicating, just makes the story all the more dense. Silent Hill is like an endurance test to get to the "truth," but it's ultimately a gyp because it still doesn't make sense when you get there.

The video game series on which the film was based has long been considered among game aficionados as a pinnacle of atmosphere and location detail, and in that respect the film version stays true to its roots. On a purely visual level, Silent Hill is a marvel. French director Christophe Gans, who last brought us the martial arts/werewolf/costume drama genre mash The Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) and Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen immerse us in creep and decay, making the town itself into the movie's most fascinating character.

Unfortunately, this leaves the human characters somewhat lacking, partially because there's no character set-up. The movie begins in the middle of a crisis, as Rose and Chris De Silva (Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean) wake up in the middle of the night to find their adopted 9-year-old daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), has sleep-walked out of the house and is standing precariously next to a gigantic waterfall (a bit of visual overkill, but forgivable given the overall tone of the movie). After that, Rose hastily drives off with Sharon against Chris's will, her ultimate goal being to take her to Silent Hill, West Virginia, because Sharon's sleep-walking episodes always end with her crying out the town's name. Despite the histrionics, this familial crisis carries almost no emotional weight because it's thrown at us with no finesse; it's the very definition of a hasty set-up.

Clearly, the filmmakers can't wait to get to Silent Hill, and once there Rose realizes that she made a big mistake. Followed by a motorcycle cop (Laurie Holden) who is dressed more like a stripper pretending to be a motorcycle cop, Rose crashes just outside of town and Sharon immediately disappears. Rose wanders into the fog-enshrouded town, which is also drenched in a perpetual slow rain of gray ash. Meanwhile, Chris follows his errant wife and troubled child to the town, but when he arrives we quickly deduce that, although he is in the same physical location, he and Rose are clearly in different dimensions.

The dimension in which Rose finds herself is, if not hell itself, then right next door. Soon, computer-generated beasties of all sorts are crawling out of the decaying woodwork, and Rose is neck-deep in a bizarre religious cult that is fighting against "The Darkness," which apparently takes over the town at various points and turns it into a demonic otherworld. But, wait, isn't Rose already in a demonic otherworld? So, does that mean it's a demonic otherworld within a demonic otherworld?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Silent Hill is about its visuals, and it delivers with ghastly aplomb. The various creatures that haunt the town have a surreal, uncanny creepiness that immediately gets under your skin. The most effective are the ones who look like twisted human mutations struggling to get out of their own skin; less effective are the thousands of clacking, flesh-eating beetles that bring to mind the scarabs in The Mummy (1999) and its sequel. The climax, which involves long-in-the-waiting vengeance involving hundreds of barb-wire tentacles making mincemeat of their victims is some kind of warped achievement, one that would have carried so much more power had it been embedded in a story that thrilled, rather than frustrated.

Overall Rating: (2)

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All images copyright ©2006 TriStar Pictures