A Silent Hill Movie Story (NGJ warning)
Apr 23, 2006 1:46:54 GMT -5
Post by Discoalucard on Apr 23, 2006 1:46:54 GMT -5
This movie is going to flop.
When it all ended, people were pissed. Most of them were kids, teenagers and what not. They were muttering things like "what a terrible plot!" I did my best to stay out of the "well, you guys are just too dumb to get it!" mode of thought. The movie made perfect sense to me. Then again, I've played the games, all of them, and read any associated plot guides to get the most out of them. The Silent Hill movie is based off the original game, but there are still plenty of deivations. Enough to make it interesting even if you're a fan, but enough that's familiar so you still feel right at home.
As my compatriots filed out of the theater, I stayed to watch the credits. They played The Theme of Laura at the end. I was the only one in the theater left when it was done, and everyone had left. I walked out alone to my car. There were people in the parking lot, laughing. I think they were fans of the games, though, because they were talking about a part with a pink ball falling out from the ceiling. I can't even remember if that was part of a Silent Hill game. I seem to recall a similar thing in one of the Fatal Frames.
Lots of people laughed during the movie, actually. Even the most grosteque scenes, with monsters taken straight from the games, seemed to provoke laughter. That didn't exactly seem right, for something that was meant to be scary.
Earlier that night, I had gotten some new CDs at a Sam Goody that was closing down. My CD player seemed to be broken, however, so I hooked up a spare CD player that my roommate had given me. Except the power adaptor didn't seem to fit in the cigarette lighter correctly. I cursed and drove off in silence.
I drove out of the parking lot onto Route 4 and tried to find a U-Turn. It was the most impossibly complicated series of turns, leading several hundred feet off the road, around and under, and eventually back on the other side. Somewhere along the line, I missed one of the "U-Turn" signs and ended up on some side road. I tried to find a good place to turn around, but couldn't. I kept driving, straight though. I though, it'd be fun getting lost. At 1 AM.
There's one part in the movie where Rose is running through darkened, rust covered hallways, screaming and running from sights unseen. People laughed at these parts too. Why?
At that time, I thought of a mouse running a maze. You know the type. If you're a scientist or whatever, you watch the little bastard scurry and scramble about stupidly. But if you were the mouse, you can damn well bet that you'd be confused and scared.
The video games were like that, scrambling through darkness. It mattered because you - your character - was in danger. When you're watching other characters run away from computer generated cockroaches with human-like faces on their underbelly, you're conscious of the seperation between viewer and the characters, and it all feels a little...well, silly, I guess. You could chalk it up to the fault of the movie, if only for being a little too accurate in this sense. It's trying to capture something that just can't be captured.
When referring to games that focus on plot rather than gameplay, you'll usually see some of the same sentiments parroted over and over. "If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie." I think this should prove them wrong.
Still, I wanted to get lost. For real. My wrong turn was accidental (at least, I think it was), but I wanted to experience being lost, the feeling that the games had and the movie lacked.
At the next light, I tried to adjust the power adaptor, but it still didn't work. I ejected the tape adaptor, and the radio turned on. Static. My antenna had been bent for I don't even know how long, probably by some jerkass kid. I turned up the volume. This seemed to fit.
You know how it is driving through suburbia at dark. There are lights on most streets. Most of the traffic lights just flash yellow. Everything is closed, except for the occasional diner. It's not scary, really, because this town - River Side, I think - is relatively upscale area. At least it's not Paterson or Newark. Slowly, sights became familiar. I drove past an Asian supermarket that I had been to months before. You know the kind - poorly lit, dingy, smells like rice and fish and dried insides of God-knows-what. I liked places like that. More than for just the Gummy candies and abunance of Strawberry Pocky. Creepy places like this draw me in. I can't explain why. Right next door to my apartment building, right outside my window, beyond where my cat is sitting, there's an abandoned school. People say the rent is relatively cheap here because that's such an eyesore. I thought it was a bonus. Our basement, right outside the hallway to my room, is lined with white bricks. It's well lit, but clearly very old and a little bit decrepit. Little parts of the walls are falling off. There are pipes and exposed wirings everywhere. The owners tried to brighten up the place with some nice furniture and small statues and paintings of Madonna. There's a huge map of the United States, with a large hole in northern New Jersey, denoting where we live. When I first toured this place, my roommates and I were all reminded of Silent Hill. We thought it was awesome.
I continued to drive and eventually stumbled into a town called Oradell. This whole area is one of those really nice parts of Jersey, the kind they don't show you when they called this place "The Garbage State". It's old, but not too old. There are lots of independent stores and business that almost feel quaint. It's actually pretty soothing.
The thing about driving in this part of Jersey is that, if you keep driving, eventually you'll stumble upon signs leading to the Parkway.
Almost takes the fun out of it.
I ended up following the signs for a good few minutes. I drove past an old building, surrounded by barbed wire fence at least twenty feet high. I didn't get to read the sign, but it looked like an old factor. On the right, I drove past what looked like an an old school. Up ahead was the Bergen Medical Center. This area was open, with lots of parking, and only a huge building stood, several stories high, with the light emanating from the many windows being the only source of life in sight. How many people were in there dying, you think?
Up ahead, there was another sign, pointing left. "To Shopping Centers", it said. I chuckled. This was getting quite familiar - these were all places visited in the various permutations of Silent Hill. The shopping center that the sign was pointing to was the Paramus Park Mall, which is right next to the Parkway. I got on the ramp leading south, and headed home. There was still static on the radio. I kept it on all the way home.
In conclusion, the Silent Hill movie was awesome even if it tries to translate certain things that just can't be translated. It gets the visuals down perfectly and pays plenty of fan service too. People expecting standard horror fare will hate it a lot.
When it all ended, people were pissed. Most of them were kids, teenagers and what not. They were muttering things like "what a terrible plot!" I did my best to stay out of the "well, you guys are just too dumb to get it!" mode of thought. The movie made perfect sense to me. Then again, I've played the games, all of them, and read any associated plot guides to get the most out of them. The Silent Hill movie is based off the original game, but there are still plenty of deivations. Enough to make it interesting even if you're a fan, but enough that's familiar so you still feel right at home.
As my compatriots filed out of the theater, I stayed to watch the credits. They played The Theme of Laura at the end. I was the only one in the theater left when it was done, and everyone had left. I walked out alone to my car. There were people in the parking lot, laughing. I think they were fans of the games, though, because they were talking about a part with a pink ball falling out from the ceiling. I can't even remember if that was part of a Silent Hill game. I seem to recall a similar thing in one of the Fatal Frames.
Lots of people laughed during the movie, actually. Even the most grosteque scenes, with monsters taken straight from the games, seemed to provoke laughter. That didn't exactly seem right, for something that was meant to be scary.
Earlier that night, I had gotten some new CDs at a Sam Goody that was closing down. My CD player seemed to be broken, however, so I hooked up a spare CD player that my roommate had given me. Except the power adaptor didn't seem to fit in the cigarette lighter correctly. I cursed and drove off in silence.
I drove out of the parking lot onto Route 4 and tried to find a U-Turn. It was the most impossibly complicated series of turns, leading several hundred feet off the road, around and under, and eventually back on the other side. Somewhere along the line, I missed one of the "U-Turn" signs and ended up on some side road. I tried to find a good place to turn around, but couldn't. I kept driving, straight though. I though, it'd be fun getting lost. At 1 AM.
There's one part in the movie where Rose is running through darkened, rust covered hallways, screaming and running from sights unseen. People laughed at these parts too. Why?
At that time, I thought of a mouse running a maze. You know the type. If you're a scientist or whatever, you watch the little bastard scurry and scramble about stupidly. But if you were the mouse, you can damn well bet that you'd be confused and scared.
The video games were like that, scrambling through darkness. It mattered because you - your character - was in danger. When you're watching other characters run away from computer generated cockroaches with human-like faces on their underbelly, you're conscious of the seperation between viewer and the characters, and it all feels a little...well, silly, I guess. You could chalk it up to the fault of the movie, if only for being a little too accurate in this sense. It's trying to capture something that just can't be captured.
When referring to games that focus on plot rather than gameplay, you'll usually see some of the same sentiments parroted over and over. "If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie." I think this should prove them wrong.
Still, I wanted to get lost. For real. My wrong turn was accidental (at least, I think it was), but I wanted to experience being lost, the feeling that the games had and the movie lacked.
At the next light, I tried to adjust the power adaptor, but it still didn't work. I ejected the tape adaptor, and the radio turned on. Static. My antenna had been bent for I don't even know how long, probably by some jerkass kid. I turned up the volume. This seemed to fit.
You know how it is driving through suburbia at dark. There are lights on most streets. Most of the traffic lights just flash yellow. Everything is closed, except for the occasional diner. It's not scary, really, because this town - River Side, I think - is relatively upscale area. At least it's not Paterson or Newark. Slowly, sights became familiar. I drove past an Asian supermarket that I had been to months before. You know the kind - poorly lit, dingy, smells like rice and fish and dried insides of God-knows-what. I liked places like that. More than for just the Gummy candies and abunance of Strawberry Pocky. Creepy places like this draw me in. I can't explain why. Right next door to my apartment building, right outside my window, beyond where my cat is sitting, there's an abandoned school. People say the rent is relatively cheap here because that's such an eyesore. I thought it was a bonus. Our basement, right outside the hallway to my room, is lined with white bricks. It's well lit, but clearly very old and a little bit decrepit. Little parts of the walls are falling off. There are pipes and exposed wirings everywhere. The owners tried to brighten up the place with some nice furniture and small statues and paintings of Madonna. There's a huge map of the United States, with a large hole in northern New Jersey, denoting where we live. When I first toured this place, my roommates and I were all reminded of Silent Hill. We thought it was awesome.
I continued to drive and eventually stumbled into a town called Oradell. This whole area is one of those really nice parts of Jersey, the kind they don't show you when they called this place "The Garbage State". It's old, but not too old. There are lots of independent stores and business that almost feel quaint. It's actually pretty soothing.
The thing about driving in this part of Jersey is that, if you keep driving, eventually you'll stumble upon signs leading to the Parkway.
Almost takes the fun out of it.
I ended up following the signs for a good few minutes. I drove past an old building, surrounded by barbed wire fence at least twenty feet high. I didn't get to read the sign, but it looked like an old factor. On the right, I drove past what looked like an an old school. Up ahead was the Bergen Medical Center. This area was open, with lots of parking, and only a huge building stood, several stories high, with the light emanating from the many windows being the only source of life in sight. How many people were in there dying, you think?
Up ahead, there was another sign, pointing left. "To Shopping Centers", it said. I chuckled. This was getting quite familiar - these were all places visited in the various permutations of Silent Hill. The shopping center that the sign was pointing to was the Paramus Park Mall, which is right next to the Parkway. I got on the ramp leading south, and headed home. There was still static on the radio. I kept it on all the way home.
In conclusion, the Silent Hill movie was awesome even if it tries to translate certain things that just can't be translated. It gets the visuals down perfectly and pays plenty of fan service too. People expecting standard horror fare will hate it a lot.
It's part of a puzzle in the school, you have to put it into a drain pipe to clog it up so you can go down a floor and collect something or other to unlock a door.
