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Metareview - Silent Hill (the movie)
You've read our take on Silent Hill, now it's time to sum up what the film critics are saying. Currently, Metacritic has posted 14 reviews, which average out to a 29/100. For the record, this is the last time we will ever — EVER — get our hopes up for a movie adaptation of a video game.Choice quotes: Chicago Sun-Times (38/100) - "My damn brain lit up too much." [Roger Ebert] The New York Times (10/100) - "[Wraps] up like the outrageously overwrought fantasy of a French movie nerd obsessed with horror ... who has been given obscene amounts of money to adapt a video game." [Nathan Lee] San Francisco Chronicle (0/100) - "Nobody gets naked, which on second thought may be a good thing — because when a movie features people getting their skin ripped from their bodies, it pretty much kills the mood." [Peter Hartlaub]
Silent Hill film inspired by Centralia, PA
In 1962 a trash fire accidentally ignited an exposed coal vein in the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Over forty years later, the mines underneath the town are still on fire -- and will continue to be for at least another 100 years. The population has been reduced from over a thousand down to just eleven! Smoke and steam continue to pour out of the ground. Sounds like a pretty creepy place? Silent Hill screenwriter (and gaming geek) Roger Avary agrees! He apparently researched Centralia while writing the screenplay; Silent Hill, in the film adaptation, is a West Virginia coal town with the trademark fog/smoke. For more images of Centralia, check out this site.[Via Rotten Tomatoes]
Silent Hill scribe is a gaming geek
FiringSquad has an interview with Roger Avary, the Academy Award winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction and the upcoming Silent Hill movie. Like his friend Christophe Gans, the film's director, Avary is a gaming nerd. How nerdy? This nerdy: "I collect and restore vintage Atari XY monitor games like Lunar Lander and Battlezone -- only vector, only Atari." He talks about the collaboration with Gans, his respect for the source material, his similarities with Uwe Boll (they both like hookers and blow!), and his future gaming/movie plans. "I'm currently adapting a game into a script for myself to direct. I'm not talking about it yet, but it's for Atari -- so you can imagine that it's like a dream for me." What a nerd!Sounds like Sony got themselves a perfect team. This guy is so awesome![Thanks, John]
Silent Hill director is a gamer, fo' real
Christophe Gans, the director of the upcoming movie adaptation of Silent Hill, actually played the game — before he got the job. What's more, he loved the game enough to strike a deal with a friend to film Gans pitching his ideas about the movie and later, insert Japanese subtitles. Gans then had the 37-minute tape shipped to Konami headquarters in Japan. Konami ended up screening the tape for the entire staff.Luckily, Brotherhood of the Wolf (Gans' previous film) was just making the rounds in Japan at the time, and Silent Hill's creator, Akira Yamaoka, realized that Gans would be capable of handling the game's movie adaptation (i.e. he wasn't just a delirious fanboy). Needless to say, Gans got the job. "If tomorrow I wanted something else, I would do exactly the same thing,” says Gans.
Silent Hill billboard welcomes you to... Culver City
Sony Pictures' upcoming Silent Hill movie is hoping to break the long-running cycle of terrible movies adapted from video games. Curiously enough, their plan involves hiring a proven writer and director! Clever folks over there in Culver City. Their way of thinking is so unusual it's almost "Otherworldly," lending the above billboard -- located just outside Sony Studios in Culver City -- a certain credibility. Either that or they're referring to what might happen when Ken Kutaragi activates the PlayStation 3's fourth-dimensional SPU during their scheduled E3 keynote in Culver City this May.[Thanks, Mof]Read - Silent Hill billboard imageRead - IMDb's Silent Hill message board thread on the billboard (use BugMeNot)
Silent Hill movie poster finalists, site update
Sony Pictures has relaunched their Silent Hill website, adding the theatrical trailer, some downloads, and the five finalists of the poster design competition. If you can handle the Flash-heavy site (ughhh), you can vote for your favorite poster. Methinks the second one from the left in the lineup above is the best; that fog screams Silent Hill to me.If you hang around on the site long enough, you'll cross over to the Otherworld. Creepy![Thanks, Elpea]
Silent Hill theatrical trailer
If the Silent Hill teaser wasn't enough to sate your appetite for creepy video game promotional materials, the full length trailer oughta do it. And if you've been stuck watching Uwe Boll movies lately, then behold: high production values! The poster is also new I think... perhaps a winner in the poster designing contest?Fans of the game know how creepy it is -- especially if played at night, alone -- and so there are some high hopes resting on the movie to really deliver in the pants-soiling category. From the looks of the trailer, it just may. To prevent being consistently disappointed in movie adaptations, let's resolve to expect total garbage, then we can be pleasantly surprised if it's anything but. I'll begin: "This movie looks so l4m3! I'd rather have my eyelids cut off and watch BloodRayne for the rest of my life than watch this thing!"[Thanks, Elpea]
Silent Hill teaser: short and creepy
Set to open April 21, Sony Pictures has released a teaser for their upcoming video game adaptation of creepfest, Silent Hill. This one might just get it right: a competent director, good writer, solid cast, good art design, and one of the more interesting video game stories recently, should help keep this one out of the gutters. We should make a bet whether or not this will be one of the better video game movies yet made. Loser has to sit through BloodRayne... and Dungeon Siege... and Alone in the Dark! Sorry, that last one was just too cruel.[Via Eurogamer]
