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Silent Hill
TriStar Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment


8.2

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 518 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Brotherhood of the Wolf

GAMES:

MPAA RATING: R for strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, and some language

Starring Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Sean Bean, Deborah Kara Unger, Tanya Allen, Jodelle Ferland, Kim Coates, and Alice Krige

The eerie and deserted town of Silent Hill draws a young mother desperate to find a cure for her only child's illness. Unable to accept the doctor's diagnosis that her daughter should be permanently institutionalized for psychiatric care, Rose (Mitchell) flees with her child, heading for the abandoned town in search of answers -- and ignoring the protests of her husband. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Horror \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Roger Avary Nicolas Boukhrief (story) Christophe Gans (story)
DIRECTED BY:	Christophe Gans
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 22, 2006 Theatrical: April 21, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	125 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Japan / USA / France

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It packs in a few scary moments and offers a nicely ambiguous conclusion. In Silent Hill, atmosphere trumps storyline.

Empire James Dyer

A step in the right direction for console-to-screen transitions and a twisted masterpiece of set design. Ultimately, though, it's a little too much like watching someone else play the game.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Runs out of story a good half hour before it runs out of spooky images, but it comes to a quietly chilling conclusion far more haunting than any bloody mayhem.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Works up a decent amount of solid, creep-show atmosphere in its first act before making some absurd decisions of its own in its second.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Silent Hill's main attraction, for genre fans, certainly, lies not in its plot nor in its characters (you could place anyone in this particular township and whatever might happen, you could be sure it'd be unnerving), but in its relentlessly nightmarish imagery.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Recommended to those who feel "The Crucible" doesn't feature enough bodies ripped in half vertically. Others are duly warned.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

As I sat through this two hour stumble through what looked like fog, I just kept thinking to myself how this might be the best looking bad film I've ever seen.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Horror maestro Christophe Gans ("Brotherhood of the Wolf") directed this feature, worth seeing for the zombie nurses who gyrate like a Bob Fosse chorus line before slicing each other to ribbons.

Variety Dennis Harvey

In the end, Silent Hill degenerates into an overblown replay of all those "Twilight Zone" and Stephen King stories in which outsiders stumble upon a time-warped location from which there's no escape.

Village Voice Bill Gallo

Stuffed with cheap effects and devoid of tension, this French-Japanese-U.S. co-production contributes exactly zilch to the rich film history of those three nations; the most horror-crazed teen may be hard-pressed to find any authentic thrills here.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Although I did not understand the story, I would have appreciated a great deal less explanation. All through the movie, characters are pausing in order to offer arcane back-stories and historical perspectives and metaphysical insights and occult orientations. They talk and talk and somehow their words do not light up any synapses in my brain.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson

Though Silent Hill's shoddy dialogue and incoherent story constantly irritate, several sights and scenes possess a certain surreal grandeur...Sadly, that's not enough to compensate for Silent Hill's utter lack of tension, intrigue, character development or satisfactory explanations for what the hell's happening on the screen.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A few of the images are startling, but as Radha Mitchell (a good actress) wanders through a ghost town, searching for her lost daughter as though she was touring an abandoned movie set, Silent Hill is mostly paralyzing in its vagueness.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

Buried beneath Silent Hill’s hyper-stylized stupidity (the film looks like a collaboration between David Fincher, Trent Reznor and music video director Mark Romanek) is the hollow effort to bottle something of the zeitgeist unease surrounding religious fundamentalism.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A great-looking but stupefyingly incoherent supernatural thriller adapted from a popular video game that ransacks the entire catalog of horror film tropes for more than two mind-numbing hours.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The worst kind of horror movie: trash that takes itself seriously.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Witless, soulless and joyless, it displays its video game origins throughout.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Tens of millions of dollars were spent to tell us what we should have known going in: that the makers of the movie you're slogging through will spare no expense to demonstrate how much they hate us. Do us a favor. Tell them the feeling is mutual.

The New York Times Nathan Lee

From first frame to last, not a second of the film has a grip on reality. Structured around a series of blackouts and gross-outs, it is one long free fall through icky surrealism and underlighted nightmares. It takes us to the sort of world where hell is round the corner, secret doors abound and faux-blond policewomen outfit themselves in skin-tight leather.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Silent Hill has plenty of bad acting, bad dialogue and a confusing plot -- all of which become exponentially more painful when the movie goes on forever.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 518 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dre H gave it a10:
One of the best horror movies ever produced and definitely one of the better games-> movie. I was confused that one character was in both the past and present and looked exactly the same, but then researched the issue and saw, if you look, you can tell he does age. Coulda did a better job at that, otherwise, this movie hits the mark. Loved the resolution and Outcome

Not Telling gave it a10:
The only people detached from reality seem to be the professional film critics. If you liked the games, you'll like the movie. It appears film critics have become so complacent with slapping bad scores on game-to-movie adaptations that they didn't even care to look at what they were reviewing before choosing a score. After all, when the plot (while it was still a game) is critically acclaimed by a majority of game reviewers, it doesn't make sense for it to only achieve a 30 from movie reviewers.

Keenan S gave it a10:
This is one of my favorite films of all time. When I was the film, I didn't even know it was based on a game franchise. This film was absolutely amazing with its frightening atmosphere, fantastic music, great actors, a good storyline, and just about everything else. Forget what the critics said about this film, it's practically perfect! This film was amazing and is a must-see for any horror fanatics, you'll be blown away.

Andrew M gave it an8:
I think its fair to say that this movie wasn't made that well. it has plenty of directorial and acting flaws but you know what? its fun. its an enjoyable movie to watch for fans of both horror movies in general and fans of the game particularly. Like many have said, the atmosphere is great. A lot of its shots are done quite well.

xyz face gave it a9:
One the most intense enthralling films iv seen .. very surprised by the critics reviews, it shows that they haven't played or have any interest in the original subject matter that is the silent hill games.

Jay H gave it a2:
A promising starts gives way to something completely unrelated to the series I love. To say it's a disappointing film would imply some kind of expectation from a video game to film cash in, so let's just say it sucked.

cecile p gave it an8:
The nightmarish aspect of silent hill puts up and above any other horror movie I've watched, and the ending though confusing was a nice touch.

Silent Hill TriStar Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Silent Hill
TriStar Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment