When Silent Hill came out in 2006, many critics (even some of those who actually understand genre films) were exceedingly underwhelmed by it. I never understood exactly why, but re-watching it gave me some ideas:
- It's a videogame movie, and because videogames are unworthy and juvenile, a movie derived from a videogame cannot be good.
- Many people are still unprepared to embrace artificiality in films. A film like this, which is dominated by a very conscious artificiality in set design, camera work and acting (although I admit some of the actors could just not be all that great) is something not everyone can appreciate.
- Silent Hill's plot is so loose it is basically not a plot at all. But in the context of a movie about a woman entering a place that is an extended metaphor for her subconscious, plot shouldn't be (and can't be) handled in a traditional way.
- The film has no interest in its few male characters. The male-lead sub-plot is its greatest weakness. That is of course perfectly all right with me.
- Characterization is handled in a weird way, less by the actors emoting (which they do anyway), or their reactions to the things they see, but by the way these things relate to them, a little like in Argento's Inferno.
- Not everyone is a Silent Hill fanboy like me.
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