PLOT:Rose (Radha Mitchell) and her husband, Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean), are concerned about their adopted daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), who has been experiencing extreme nightmares and sleepwalking while screaming the name of a town, "Silent Hill". Desperate for answers, Rose takes Sharon to Silent Hill. As they enter the town, she is chased by a police motorcycle driven by police officer Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden). A mysterious child appears in the middle of the road, causing Rose to swerve and crash the car, knocking herself unconscious. When she awakens, Sharon is nowhere to be seen, and mist and falling ash blanket the town.Rose wanders the empty streets of Silent Hill looking for her daughter. Instead, she encounters a series of monstrous creatures that appear after loud sirens wail. Rose also comes across a woman named Dahlia Gillespie (Deborah Kara Unger) who speaks of terrible things done to her own daughter, Alessa, by the townspeople. She claims that Sharon is Alessa. Rose then returns to the car and runs into Cybil, who arrests her. Together they discover that the road leading out of town has disappeared. They pair up to battle the monsters in the town.Scenes of their search are interspersed with scenes of Christopher's seemingly simultaneous search of the town (which is shown to be abandoned but otherwise normal; no mist, no falling ash), with the reluctant assistance of Officer Thomas Gucci (Kim Coates), who admits to have grown up in Silent Hill. Christopher discovers documents showing the town was abandoned after a coal seam fire 30 years ago, along with a photo of Dahlia's daughter who bears a remarkable resemblance to Sharon. He is told to stop investigating Silent Hill under threat of incarceration. Faced with this, Christopher reluctantly gives up the search and heads home.Rose and Cybil meet a woman named Anna (Tanya Allen), who leads them to the town church for refuge. The siren blares as they approach the building, and Anna is killed by Pyramid Head (Roberto Campanella) ripping off her skin. In the church, Rose and Cybil discover a cult, headed by Christabella (Alice Krige). Christabella tells Rose about "the demon" and that it knows where Sharon is. After convincing Christabella that she wants to find "the demon" so feared by the townspeople, Rose (along with Cybil) is taken to a hospital in the town. Here, Christabella learns of the likeness between Sharon and Alessa and condemns Rose and Cybil as witches. Cybil lets herself become captured and beaten with pipes by the townspeople in order for Rose to escape and descend into the basement of the hospital. There, Rose encounters a badly burned figure – Alessa – in a hospital bed and a mysterious little girl who strongly resembles the missing Sharon.In a flashback, Rose discovers that Silent Hill has a long history of ritual witch burnings, stemming from the Puritan-like beliefs of the cult. Thirty years prior to the movie, Alessa was heavily stigmatized as an incarnation of sin for having been born out of wedlock by an unknown father (who is suggested to be of supernatural origin, a classic Lovecraftian device): her schoolmates bully and humiliate her, with adults making no effort to protect her. Dahlia, Alessa's mother, agrees to Christabella's suggestions that she allow the cult to 'restore the innocence' in Alessa. When not allowed to follow her daughter into the ritual, Dahlia realizes her intentions and runs for the police. Alessa is subjected to a hideous ritual burning: the conditions of her birth are seen as marks of sin, for which they must burn her. However, in the midst of the ritual, the cage by which she is suspended directly above the red hot coals swings, dumping the coal and causing a fire. When Dahlia returns with the police, Alessa is horribly burnt but still alive. Rose learns that the manifestation of Alessa's remaining innocence and goodness took Sharon's likeness and led Rose through her journey. After the flashback, Rose is told that she must aid Alessa in her revenge by granting her entry to the church; she is also told that Christabella will soon find the real Sharon and attempt to burn her as well.Rose enters the church soon after Cybil has already been burned to death by the townspeople, and Sharon is about to suffer a similar fate. She confronts the townspeople and Christabella with her new knowledge of the truth, attempting to convince the cult that they are in denial of their own fate. Christabella stabs Rose, causing her blood to drip onto the church floor. The blood serves as a portal, and Alessa rises out of a pit and proceeds to kill Christabella and the townspeople with long tendrils of barbed wire, leaving Dahlia, Rose, and Sharon the only survivors. Rose and Sharon leave Silent Hill and return home. Although Rose and Sharon are in the same room as Christopher (who has also returned home), they cannot see each other.
PREVIEWS: Advanced screenings of Silent Hill were not given to critics by thedistributor, and so no reviews could be printed until after the movie's release. Metacritic's average critic's score is 30 out of 100.
Rotten Tomatoes reports a29% rating on the review aggregator, based on 89 reviews.
James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film a mildly positive review,awarding it two and a half stars (out of four). Berardinelli said "thefilm is overlong, with too many unnecessary scenes" and that "a lotof the movie seems like pointless running around", but added that the film"looks great" and that "it packs in a few scary moments andoffers a nicely ambiguous conclusion." Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars (out of four), calling it"an incredibly good-looking film", but said that he "did notunderstand the story" and criticized how "all through the movie,characters are pausing in order to offer arcane back-stories and historicalperspectives and metaphysical insights and occult orientations."Don R.Lewis of Film Threat praised the film's visuals but said "this entire filmis downright confusing and not in an intriguing way", calling it "thebest-looking bad film I've ever seen."Owen Gleiberman of EntertainmentWeekly gave the film a score of D+, saying that "a few of the images arestartling" but "Silent Hill is mostly paralyzing in itsvagueness."Dennis Harvey of Variety said that "above-average interestis generated for a time by [the] elaborate visual package", but "inthe end, Silent Hill degenerates into an overblown replay of all those TwilightZone and Stephen King stories in which outsiders stumble upon a time-warpedlocation from which there's no escape."Nathan Lee of the New York Timessaid, "It begins as a quest, develops into a ghost-town mystery, devolvesinto a preposterous cautionary tale about witchcraft and religiousfundamentalism, and wraps up like the outrageously overwrought fantasy of amovie nerd obsessed with horror who has been given obscene amounts of money toadapt a video game."The film opened in 2,932 theaters and earned $20 milliondomestically on its opening weekend and opened at number one at the US boxoffice. As of January 3, 2007 the film has grossed $46 million domestically and$97 million total worldwide.According to The New York Daily News, the film'sposter of a mouthless girl was the subject of some vandalism in New York City, LosAngeles and elsewhere, with many malefactors drawing cartoon mouths (smiling,screaming, sporting vampire fangs, etc.) or placing stickers where her mouthwould beSilent Hill is in the top 10 video game film adaptations listingon Box Office Mojo (from 1980 to present). Silent Hill is at #9, behind ResidentEvil: Extinction, which grossed domestically $50 million.