Silent Hill

Perhaps better silent. Or, if possible, with the dialogue cut, but moans and screams and echoes intact. I must say I did enjoy this movie, and to be honest would not have enjoyed it in the theater. At home, I could cut all the lights, sink into a chair, turn the sound mostly down and speed through just to catch cool visuals. And there are a slew of great visuals: it’s a genuinely creepy aesthetic, and there’s rarely a shot that doesn’t have some nice touch, some cool glint off a moist surface or a sharp angled line through a beautiful wide shot. The story is of course piffle, and I feel bad for Alice Krige, who I first recall from the lousy film adaptation of Ghost Story, playing there and then playing everywhere ever since a spooky evil woman. Would have been nice if this had been simply strange, instead of trying to explain… or if there was a clearer, more starkly-defined sense of urgency to the thing. Instead, it works as a not-terribly-frightening but still malicious dream.