I quite liked the movie. I had to understand something right out of the gate; the Silent Hill series has a deep and carefully connected mythos, and I knew 1) that however good they may be in every other area, the new games would likely never catch on to that, and 2) that the movie will have 0 connection and can almost be forgotten that it's related to my favourite game series.
Now it's on that second point that I will dwell. See, I went into that movie with nothing more than the atmosphere on my back... and I didn't need it, because the movie created its own. Most of the monsters were rebuilds of the creatures from the games, with carefully constructed costumes (not CG, which I am glad for), inhuman walking and twitching that they needed acrobats for. The new monster designs, working from a new base principle? Holy freaking moly, they were GENIUS. If I had never heard of Silent Hill, I'd be holding them up as the best "creature feature" designs of all time.
The storyline made sense from a movie perspective. I've seen much more convoluted movies; it seems hollywood hipsters love them. The setup was better than I expected, but still not superb.Daughter has nightmares and sleepwalking in which she sees a rusted nightmare realm continuously burning and keeps talking about Silent Hill, a town she has never been to. In a last ditch effort to cure the girl's dangerous sleepwalking, her mother takes her to this place in the hope that it will be the cure she needs. Through a series of events, mostly the town being completely blocked off due to a dangerous mine fire, the two end up in the Otherworld from the games.See? That's not so bad.
The acting was good, the story was OK, and the effects friggin' made it. What do people hate so much? It has nothing to do with the games in my mind; it's just an interesting coincidence. You know what else? The mine fire angle is something I wish had been included in Silent Hill 1. Stick that in your rusty pipe and smoke it.
