In a departure from anything art and class specific comes a story of horror. Well, really it’s horror borne out of a mistake that oddly enough encouraged me to write a small bit. Inspiration comes from odd places and I promise if you stick with me then we’ll make it to a point that involves art, video game and film.

I usually keep my promises. Okay, I try to keep my promises.

So out of boredom Chase and I started looking at ‘on demand’ items on cable. We were checking out the lazy TV channel because as far as video games go we’re waiting on a couple releases like Far Cry 2, Fallout and other releases that are just plain fan favorites of mine but shall remain nameless because I don’t really want to admit to loving them. So in a round about way it really was my fault we ended up in the horror section and picked the Silent Hill movie. I started it as a joke because it was either Silent Hill, Darkman or a movie whose title involved any number of suggestive verbs and lots of gore. As I flipped past Silent Hill my husband joked about watching the ‘gaming horror classic turned cinematic’ because we all know the track record of movies based on video games hasn’t been all that spectacular. You always think there might be hope for someone not involved with the game development to actually care about recreating significant parts in a film but then they always seem to miss the point. Chase and I decided that we had delayed long enough finally gave in to watching the Silent Hill movie.

This blog isn’t about movie recaps so I’ll just be honest from the very beginning: it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sure it was pointlessly grotesque at moments, a little unnerving and the nonsensical plot grated on me after a while… but it wasn’t completely boring. Why was that? Well, take the same movie and remove the art direction and nothing could have saved it from being a waste of time and money. The style and the visuals helped to buffer a stilted and stunted plot while bringing the ‘idea’ of Silent Hill to the big screen. I’m not shocked that this is all basically what film reviewers Ebert and Berardinelli said of the film: ‘Great looking but it basically makes no sense’.

Of course if you play the games then you can delight in the reincarnation of Silent Hill as it takes the form of more recent horror releases in mainstream cinema. For those of you who have seen the film: was the ending really so different from The Orphanage, Dark Water, The Others or The Ring? They all involve a struggle involving creepy children, a horrific deed, revenge and finally everyone you even remotely cared dying or facing impending doom at the end of the film. It’s a pretty popular movie trend and it usually annoys me to have a not so surprising ‘M Night Shyamalan twist’ to wrap things up. (HE’S DEAD, JIM.) In retrospect I suppose it was a wise decision to stick with the witch plot line and not the ‘incubating god’ from the original game–that would have definitely taken longer than an hour and a half to explain. The movie definitely didn’t buck any trends in the horror story department but it did have amazing visuals to cover up a rather mediocre and, honestly, expectedly bland storyline.

Getting back on track, if you played the video games then you could tell it was pretty faithful to the visuals and the feeling that made Silent Hill a frightening and intriguing game. As Chase noticed during the film, the movie’s monsters were not particularly based on the psychosis of the main character–except for the nurses if you consider Alessa to be the/a protagonist. Despite the brilliant atmosphere the movie cultivated off of the game it lacked a poignancy and development of a character. Maybe this comes from the aforementioned diversion from the originally storyline of the game and maybe translating Silent Hill mythology to film is more difficult to achieve than it is within the luxurious length of a game. I suppose the right question is, ‘how much are you willing to accept on faith as an audience and when does watching the twisted and weird without reason wear itself out?’ Sadly, the movies aren’t just for the fans of the game.

So as I mention before what (luckily) saved Silent Hill from falling into the endless pit of movie suckdom was the art direction being faithful to the game. I think what impressed me most about the movie was how was the excellent art direction. It’s really not a shock they ran out of budget for the CG scenes and had to alter the ending–the transformation from one world to the alter world was astounding and made it worth my while to watch the movie. I found myself not caring at all about what the actors were saying but rather unable to take my eyes from the screen when a monster was present- the movements, sounds and lighting were incredible. It is inspirational to me as an artist that Silent Hill was, at least artistically, be fully realized in animation and art in a film format. It was exceptionally impressive considering what I was expecting at the outset of the film.

Every frame of that film could be frozen and compared directly to the video game. I think that is one of the major successes of the film: that people who play the games and pay attention to the traditional art style recognized the artwork and planning that made the film unique in it’s style. In a Gamasutra interview with Silent Hill creator Akira Yamaoka he reveals that director Christophe Gans would bring in a 40-inch TV and show the actors exactly how the movements and each frame should play out. The film direction and the framing of the movie made it interesting to watch in its own right–it was claustrophobic, tense and darker than Batman (that’s saying something).

I’m not sure if people going to see this movie who hadn’t played the game would appreciate those nuances but let’s face it: while it may hold mainstream appeal as a mediocre horror flick- it was completely worth watching for the artistic direction of video game adaptation. Even if you don’t agree completely…. Come on, the blind nurse scene in the basement? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at how strange it was or cover my eyes but either way the scene worked.

That would have totally been a ‘reflex button pressing sequence’ moment.

So, long story longer, if you have the hankering to watch a video game movie that doesn’t totally fall apart, has moments of gratuitous gore and like burning witches but isn’t Monty Python and the Holy Grail… then you might want to take the time and check out Silent Hill. Hey, it’s the first video game film I have ever seen that follows the art of the game so faithfully (as opposed to, oh say, any other video game film) and it’s free if you have ‘On Demand’.

…but you don’t have to take my word for it. </Levar Burton>

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under AJ & Art, PEOPLE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.