Silent Hill Goes to the Cinema

There's another video, here. I suggest people watch both.

Pyramid Head's in it.
Nurses are in it.
Corpsebags (from SH2) are in it.

It looks ace.

The first problem I have with these video-game to cinema adaptions is that they are made for all the wrong reasons..... aaah I could write a thesis on this. I won't. In summary there is a one in a billion chance of this film being any good, regardless of what 'talent' has been paid to get involved with it. Gans and Avary are hardly prolific so thats not a good sign either...

It will be stylistic balls over bullshit content, with a certificate 15 rating and guaranteed to have a disappointly predicatable ending.

When will people learn that trailers are no indication of quality?

It has all the elements of SH I have come to expect.

People said the trailers for 28 Days Later and Dog Soldiers were no indication too, and they're too of my faves of all time. Trailers, when well-made, tell us a lot. What that tells me, is they've been faithful enough to leave in all the best bits: Midwich Elementary, the place in the original with the toddlers with knives that got cut from all non-US/Jap copies; Pyramid Head; Nurses; the burned out sign; the rain of ash; Nightmare Silent Hill...

To be frank, SH was the ONLY game I thought would make it successfully. The Sony Pictures credit gives me a little doubt, but hey.

Well, maybe not a thesis, but if you want to write an article, go ahead!

I agree that most all of them are bad, and that some of them are made for the wrong reasons (Uwe Bolle apparently working out - The Producers stylee - how to make money from a flop???). But I suspect this one might be Not Terrible.

Do I have a good reason to suspect that? No, none more than thhat the trailer looks "right" and that Christophe Gans, while maybe not prolific, directed Brotherhood of the Wolf and Crying Freeman. And for those two alone, I'm a fan.

On the other hand. Sean Bean. The man has never been good in a movie, and has on occassion turned a good movie into a less good one.

Until I IMDB'd this, I didn't know Gans had done Crying Freeman and Brotherhood of the Wolf. But as I typed that, i realised that both those movies starred under-rated Marc Dascascos. SH doesn't, but then Gans next movies does. Guess not that much call for Kung Fu in Silent Hill?

I have to say that I'm a fan of Brotherhood of the Wolf so I'll be watching the Silent Hill movie closely.

The reason that game to film adaptions don't work is simple most of the time. That main reason is that the wrong product is being choosen for adaption. I hope Silent Hill can buck the trend.

Case to point, we would have thought that by now we'd have seen a Zelda film instead of a Super Mario one. Back when these types of films started with that silly Mario film studios clearly had no idea what they were doing and to some degree still don't. Legend of Zelda would have made a great film but is still ignored. Luckily with every failed attempt something is learned.

Reasons why a film fail can differ. Resident Evil has potential, but was messed as a film up due to it's heavy gunplay and rock sound track which totally lost the survival horror feel of the game. Deviation from the storyline also hurts things. Now in my opinion the RE storyline has so many possibilities for double crossing and conspiracies that it could have had a more X Files slant to it, possibly making it better and less gung ho like it was. Combine with a little horror and stir gently, it could have been a greater film.

Silent Hill has more of a horror slant to it so this can work in it's favour. Less guns and more scares I hope.

I went to watch Doom at the flicks recently and I was spelling doom for it before I saw it. Why because I'm losing faith perhaps. However, Doom actually wasn't that bad despite the changes to the plot, but again it was a gun fest and while being true to Doom in that respect, it doesn't make for good cinema.

So what do we want to see on the big screen? Personally I pray Slient Hil does well, because if the s**t game to film adaptions continue I'll have to put my full faith back in the hands of the japanese. While Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within flopped in the mainstream, Advent Children is already recouping Square's lost money. This is how game to film adaption need to be done. Films for gamers not the masses. This would also make more sense because the game industry now makes more annually than hollywood (correct me if I'm wrong anywhere). The japanese know what to do with anime too, so there's another angle that can be explored, with or without CG. Anime is no stranger to these kinds of game to film adaptions either. Anyone remeber Street Fighter 2 The Anime Movie?

Studios should talk to gamers and see what they want. Other than that we have Square to fill gaps with lovely CG flicks

Good luck Silent Hill.

Read this if you get a chance.
http://www.n-philes.com/features.php?id=207

This oft-quoted fact, that "games are a larger business than films", is not entirely true.

The real fact is more along the lines of the total amount spent on games in the world, including hardware, is slightly more than box office takings worldwide for Hollywood films.

This does not take into account VHS and DVD sales or money made from TV showings.

Okay, but you get my point about the wrong material being chosen.

Metal Gear and Splinter Cell movies have more potential than Super Mario Brothers ever did, to be good films.

Devil May Cry could work well while trying not to step on the toes of stuff like the Blade trilogy.

Peter Jackson on the Halo flick and now with Tarantino on the Half Life flick there's potential for the things to get better with the right minds behind the camera.

I do, but I also think that the Resident Evil movies are both excellent.



Hmmm. Kong sucked. While Bad Taste and Braindead were great fun nothing Jackson has ever done, with the exception of the LotR trilogy (which - let's face it - was a gift for any director), has ever impressed me. Everything Tarantorino has ever done has been dire, except KBV1.

It's so good to hear someone else say this. I've really enjoyed both films and thought they were well made, the part when she first realises her abilities when confronted by the zombie dogs, I thought that was excellent.

Although the second one should of finished when the helicopter went down.

I'm just hoping the 3rd is as good and will finish the trilogy off nicely

I enjoyed the Resident Evil films too to a degree and I'm a big RE fan.

I don't really think anyone out there expects a dot to dot version of the game onscreen.

I do think Silent Hill has the potential to trump the RE films because of its more based in the horror sector than the shoot em up survival one. I feel RE films ould have learned from the Aliens film about suspense and setting atmosphere.

So much was missing from the RE films that could have been added. The quiet but creepy moments the weird puzzles. Nemesis in RE:A should have been CG instead of some lumbering bloke in a suit.

Films adaptations of video games are only made of the most sucessful video games. What does that tell you? It's because they automatically have a market/audience and the producers know that the game playing community will discuss it online thus spreading the word for them. As we are now.

Just because a game is good doesn't mean it should be a film in the first place. The game's story will always be disappointingly contrived to fit into 90 product placement filled minutes. These are films made by a commitee to target a specific set of demographic profiles. It's not a vision or a story that an individual feels passionately about and has struggled to bring to the screen, nor are they creatively inventive or entertaining they are always a disappointing waste of time.

In the history of video game film adaptions not one has delivered the goods. Was tomb raider better than indiana jones? Was resident evil better than alien? Was re2 better than aliens? Of course not.

The trailer for the film tells you nothing about the film other than it has a few references to the game in order to entice fans of the game. This is not an accident.

Please save your money and don't pay to watch it. What is the point of wasting up to two hours of your life on something that has been made simply to get you to hand over £6-10 at the cinema?
This film has not been made to entertain you, open your mind, tantalise your imagination, make you laugh - its been made simpy to make money for minimal marketing spend.

Thats what the last 3 crap star wars movies were about. They were never meant to be made and no-one was better off for them having been made. They were made purely to make money, and off the back of them sell merchandise and games.


Teach Sony a lesson and do not watch this film it will be crap. Unless of course you have read this and have had your expectations lowered so much that you cannot fail to be impressed by it, in which case you may enjoy it.

But you wont really. Why do you think these films always have crap actors in them?

Good point. Well made. Except for the "always" part...

Resident Evil: Milla Jovovich
Alone in the Dark: Steven Dorff
Bloodrayne: Ben Kingsley
House of the Dead: Jürgen Prochnow
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider: Jon Voight
DoA: Devon Aoki, Eric Roberts, Jaime Pressly
Mortal Kombat - Devastation : Christopher Lambert
Super Mario Brothers: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Lance Henriksen
Wing Commander: Freddie Prinze Jr.
Street-Fighter: Ming-Na, Raul Julia

While it may not be the Hollywood grinning fool brigade, every one of these actors has turned in exceptional roles.


The fact is, Hollywood typically makes s**t. Bland dire unchallenging tripe, designed purely for product placement and sponsorship. They ran out of ideas years ago, so now they are in a cycle of remaking and ruining earlier Hollywood movies, and leaching on the creativity of Europe and Asia by remaking and ruining their movies. Videogames is the latest area for them to plagiarise, and - as you state - each movie comes with a ready-made fan base, which they see as a bonus. But they are still compelled by their own lack of creativity and corporate fundung structure to make "safe" movies.

Mega junior, too. Wasn't this one of his first roles? I'll bet he thought is career was over after that movie.



Was Ming-Na really in SF? Bloody hell, never realised that (though I've never actually managed to put myself through watching the movie from more than 10 minutes). First I knew of here was in ER...

She was of course in Final Fantasy:SW, providing the voice for Aki, along with a host of other famous voice talent including Ving Rames, James Woods, Donald Sutherland and Alec Bladwin. Oh, and Steve Buscemi :)

I really liked FF:SW, despite it being a bit "out there" plot wise and, regardless of my sharp critique on the CG (esp. skin shaders and lip synch), I though Square was way too hasty to pull the plug on the outfit.

As for RE, as Doc Dee and Tyrion will attest, I really didn't think they were up to much.

The first was plodding, lacking any reasonable suspense IMO. And where were the fasking zombies and mutants? Oh, about two-thrid into the movie. And then we have to put up with some contrived holographic AI kiddy, FFS!

RE2 was way better, right in with the devastation and zombie madness, but let down by horribly sucky acting.

Neither were bad - I actually enjoyed them - but I think they were far from excellent and could have easily been better.

Plus Colin Salmon.


Plus Michael Madsen.


In addition to her Dad's undoubted excellence, there's also the fact that Ms. Joile has won an Oscar herself.


David Suchet, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner.

To be honest, movies of the game seem to attract quite a decent level of actor. Even if it's a single actor in a minor or sidelined role.

So did Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow. Proves nothing.

BTW, in addition to his "undoubted excellence", Ms. Jolie's dad won the Lead Actor Oscar in 1978, and has been nominated a further three times.



My point exactly. I think.

Yeah, 'cause they've got a horribly big gob and nasty saggy tits, respectively.

WTF did Jolie get an Oscar for? Fattest, most cleaved bottom lip in tinsel town?

She doesn't have saggy tits. Well, she might now she's squeezed little Apple out. But she didn't before.

[NUDITY ALERT]
http://www.robbscelebs.co.uk/noops434/gwyneth_paltrow0017.jpg
[NUDITY ALERT]

Hmmmmm, perky!

Was sure there was a scene in Shakespear in Love where she's sat defrocked at the end of a bed, and her norkage kinda disappears round her ribcage.

Sadly, Robb's Celebs doesn't seems to show that scene.