Back With a Vengance!
Sorry for the long delay folks, (as though I know whether or not I have any readers), but after a couple weeks of not having anything to blog about in particular I've unfortunatly stumbled upon a sharp rock along my path of film lover bliss...and that jagged stone was Silent Hill...and I must say...I am pissed!
Now before I dive deeper into the misery and anguish that was the two hours I sat through this debacle, let me preface with this: Dave, Russell and I LOVE movies! I mean, movies that most other people don't have the time to sit through, aren't willing to think seriously enough about, or even don't require any thought at all, we are there for all of them, and we generally appreciate them (Russell even sat through all of Brown Bunny and found some things he liked about it...I didn't, but Russell did and that should count for me and Dave too, right?) Some of our buddies lament our movie choices when we're bummin on a friday night instead of going out because you never know what we'll pick, and we usually find something to like about every movie. We nearly always can seek out some point of the film we relate to, or something we recognize the filmmaker was trying to do, or find ourselves transforming our attitudes into those of the film's intended audience. All that to say this: You now understand how bad a movie must be for me to find the level of disgust I had with Silent Hill. Yet to be fair, throughout my forthcoming diatribe I will try and intersperse some polite comments about the artists involved. There...I said it...
Anyway, back to my misery. Silent Hill was the first big film I was looking forward to in the 2006 movie season, and man, the trailer was kick ass and spookie, I thought I was going to be scared out of my mind at this thing, my buddy Dave bought our tickets early on Fandango and our pal Trey even saved us prime center seats...all to find out that...I have never been so wrong about a movie in my entire life! Lets start with the plot...okay, I'm trying to remember a solid story arc running through this thing...uhhh...oh yeah, a little girl sleep walks and talks about a town called Silent Hill that burned down because of a supposed coal fire, but really it was fanatic pentacostals roasting chestnuts and children over an open fire in a hidden hotel room downtown (but more on that later). So anyway, it turns out the kid is adopted and really is somehow from Silent Hill in 1974, but she's still a kid and not really the same girl from Silent Hill but all that kids goodness stored up in a cute little package by the devil...who looks like the little girl. Yes, it is as confusing as that when you watch it. So anyway, the mom loves her little girl enough to chase her down into Silent Hill which every so often goes into Psycho mode and she gets chased around with the only other normal character in the town, a cop, who WILL remind you of Police Academy, I promise. Anyway, the story just doesn't make any sense, characters pop up out of nowhere and then dissapear again with little or no explanation, bad guys are bad just because, and apparently the devil is the good guy...or something.
Okay, so lets get down to the meat and potatoes of my rage. Here you have a talented director (Christophe Gans) who directed a good movie once called Le Pacte de Loups (The Brotherhood of the Wolf). That movie had all kinds of good stuff, witty dialogue, cool action, hot girls, and GREAT cinematography from Dan Lausten (who provides Silent Hill with its only bright spot, his excellent lighting and camera work). So what happened here? I think Gans forgot one of the most important rules of Horror films, and that is that Gore does not necessarily translate into scares. And there is plenty of gore to go around in this flick, in fact the film's finally just made my stomach churn and caused me to want to get up and walk out of the theater...but no...like an idiot I just sat there praying for the film to end. Take a night and go back and watch some of the great Horror flicks...Holloween, Friday the Thirteenth, the Exorcist, etc. Is there gore in these movies? Yes...but its the suspense and concern for the characters that keeps you on the edge of your seat, the gore is just a little pay off to get you to flinch and be even more worried about the other character's fates. But that's the problem here, there's not suspense and you don't give a damn about any of the characters...why? Because they don't seem like real people. That's where I come to Roger Avary, the writer. Now Avary has writing credentials I can only wish I had, and maybe I don't have the right to critique him becasue I'm not there yet, but I've got to be honest, I've never heard such terrible dialogue in a movie, people in the theater were laughing out loud...seriously...and not at funny lines either. Okay...here's an example. The cop and the mom and some weird chick they pick up along the way are digging around in the towns Old Hotel about an hour into the movie after they've already talked about how terrible the fires were and the deaths, and the freaky demon who chases them around with bugs and a huge sword (no explanation mind you, that's just what happens) when the cop states after looking around for a bit that "it looks like there was a fire." OH MY GOD!! The dialogue was so on the nose and in your face that as I said before, people were laughing. That made me a little sad becasue they were laughing at Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black) and Sean Bean (insert one of the many AWESOME Sean Bean movies here). These are two good actors, I would even go so far as to call Sean Bean a GREAT actor. The only actor in the film I won't stick up for is Laurie Holden (who plays the cop), she is indeed a hottie, but just gives a completely turgid performance with absolutely no life whatsoever, but I blame half of that on the script and the other half on the directing (so maybe I'll stick up for her after all).
I guess the point is this, they spent millions of dollars making this movie with big stars and a big director, and it all came down to the story and the writing. In a genre like horror, people will forgive alot if you can hold them in suspense or make them jump. Take Stay Alive for example, it was made for less than 10 mil, didn't have great acting or great sets, no big names attached, and almost no gore whatsoever, but you know what? I was interested in the main character and what happened to him, and the scary scenes actually made me jump! It was worth the price of admission...Silent Hill wasn't worth the price of the paper my ticket was printed on...period. So for all us Indies out there, we need to remember, whether its horror, thriller, drama, or sci-fi, its not always the bucks or names attached to your project that make it quality...its the story and the storytelling. and I suppose I should be thankful that I was reminded of that by Silent Hill.
Oh!! And one last thing! I know Gans is from France where they aren't big fans of religion of any kind...but is anyone else tired of all the film negativity toward some religions? It was a lesser theme in Brotherhood, in that movie all the bishops and what not were evil...just because I guess, and Mani the spiritual Indian guy is chided by the main character (a naturalist of course) to "cut it out" when he gets spiritual. In Silent Hill though, Gans goes a step further...to making the Devil the good guy. Yes folks, thats right, the church people are psycho evil and burn children over an open fire because they don't know who the dad is (that is actually the only reason for the cook out given in the movie) and the devil, who has taken on a sudden interest in justice, makes sure they get paid back for it. So much so that the Alice Krieg character is wrapped by the ankles in barbed wire, and while praying to remain pure has more barbed wire shoved up her you know what and then gets ripped in half and the Devil (who looks like a little girl) dances under her blood as it rains down. I think this was supposed to be a stand up and cheer moment...GIVE ME A BREAK!! I almost got sick...So I guess the moral of the story is...Silent Hill is a POS, so don't go see it...yeah, I'll try and talk about something more positive next time...like how paying my taxes went or something.
Now before I dive deeper into the misery and anguish that was the two hours I sat through this debacle, let me preface with this: Dave, Russell and I LOVE movies! I mean, movies that most other people don't have the time to sit through, aren't willing to think seriously enough about, or even don't require any thought at all, we are there for all of them, and we generally appreciate them (Russell even sat through all of Brown Bunny and found some things he liked about it...I didn't, but Russell did and that should count for me and Dave too, right?) Some of our buddies lament our movie choices when we're bummin on a friday night instead of going out because you never know what we'll pick, and we usually find something to like about every movie. We nearly always can seek out some point of the film we relate to, or something we recognize the filmmaker was trying to do, or find ourselves transforming our attitudes into those of the film's intended audience. All that to say this: You now understand how bad a movie must be for me to find the level of disgust I had with Silent Hill. Yet to be fair, throughout my forthcoming diatribe I will try and intersperse some polite comments about the artists involved. There...I said it...
Anyway, back to my misery. Silent Hill was the first big film I was looking forward to in the 2006 movie season, and man, the trailer was kick ass and spookie, I thought I was going to be scared out of my mind at this thing, my buddy Dave bought our tickets early on Fandango and our pal Trey even saved us prime center seats...all to find out that...I have never been so wrong about a movie in my entire life! Lets start with the plot...okay, I'm trying to remember a solid story arc running through this thing...uhhh...oh yeah, a little girl sleep walks and talks about a town called Silent Hill that burned down because of a supposed coal fire, but really it was fanatic pentacostals roasting chestnuts and children over an open fire in a hidden hotel room downtown (but more on that later). So anyway, it turns out the kid is adopted and really is somehow from Silent Hill in 1974, but she's still a kid and not really the same girl from Silent Hill but all that kids goodness stored up in a cute little package by the devil...who looks like the little girl. Yes, it is as confusing as that when you watch it. So anyway, the mom loves her little girl enough to chase her down into Silent Hill which every so often goes into Psycho mode and she gets chased around with the only other normal character in the town, a cop, who WILL remind you of Police Academy, I promise. Anyway, the story just doesn't make any sense, characters pop up out of nowhere and then dissapear again with little or no explanation, bad guys are bad just because, and apparently the devil is the good guy...or something.
Okay, so lets get down to the meat and potatoes of my rage. Here you have a talented director (Christophe Gans) who directed a good movie once called Le Pacte de Loups (The Brotherhood of the Wolf). That movie had all kinds of good stuff, witty dialogue, cool action, hot girls, and GREAT cinematography from Dan Lausten (who provides Silent Hill with its only bright spot, his excellent lighting and camera work). So what happened here? I think Gans forgot one of the most important rules of Horror films, and that is that Gore does not necessarily translate into scares. And there is plenty of gore to go around in this flick, in fact the film's finally just made my stomach churn and caused me to want to get up and walk out of the theater...but no...like an idiot I just sat there praying for the film to end. Take a night and go back and watch some of the great Horror flicks...Holloween, Friday the Thirteenth, the Exorcist, etc. Is there gore in these movies? Yes...but its the suspense and concern for the characters that keeps you on the edge of your seat, the gore is just a little pay off to get you to flinch and be even more worried about the other character's fates. But that's the problem here, there's not suspense and you don't give a damn about any of the characters...why? Because they don't seem like real people. That's where I come to Roger Avary, the writer. Now Avary has writing credentials I can only wish I had, and maybe I don't have the right to critique him becasue I'm not there yet, but I've got to be honest, I've never heard such terrible dialogue in a movie, people in the theater were laughing out loud...seriously...and not at funny lines either. Okay...here's an example. The cop and the mom and some weird chick they pick up along the way are digging around in the towns Old Hotel about an hour into the movie after they've already talked about how terrible the fires were and the deaths, and the freaky demon who chases them around with bugs and a huge sword (no explanation mind you, that's just what happens) when the cop states after looking around for a bit that "it looks like there was a fire." OH MY GOD!! The dialogue was so on the nose and in your face that as I said before, people were laughing. That made me a little sad becasue they were laughing at Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black) and Sean Bean (insert one of the many AWESOME Sean Bean movies here). These are two good actors, I would even go so far as to call Sean Bean a GREAT actor. The only actor in the film I won't stick up for is Laurie Holden (who plays the cop), she is indeed a hottie, but just gives a completely turgid performance with absolutely no life whatsoever, but I blame half of that on the script and the other half on the directing (so maybe I'll stick up for her after all).
I guess the point is this, they spent millions of dollars making this movie with big stars and a big director, and it all came down to the story and the writing. In a genre like horror, people will forgive alot if you can hold them in suspense or make them jump. Take Stay Alive for example, it was made for less than 10 mil, didn't have great acting or great sets, no big names attached, and almost no gore whatsoever, but you know what? I was interested in the main character and what happened to him, and the scary scenes actually made me jump! It was worth the price of admission...Silent Hill wasn't worth the price of the paper my ticket was printed on...period. So for all us Indies out there, we need to remember, whether its horror, thriller, drama, or sci-fi, its not always the bucks or names attached to your project that make it quality...its the story and the storytelling. and I suppose I should be thankful that I was reminded of that by Silent Hill.
Oh!! And one last thing! I know Gans is from France where they aren't big fans of religion of any kind...but is anyone else tired of all the film negativity toward some religions? It was a lesser theme in Brotherhood, in that movie all the bishops and what not were evil...just because I guess, and Mani the spiritual Indian guy is chided by the main character (a naturalist of course) to "cut it out" when he gets spiritual. In Silent Hill though, Gans goes a step further...to making the Devil the good guy. Yes folks, thats right, the church people are psycho evil and burn children over an open fire because they don't know who the dad is (that is actually the only reason for the cook out given in the movie) and the devil, who has taken on a sudden interest in justice, makes sure they get paid back for it. So much so that the Alice Krieg character is wrapped by the ankles in barbed wire, and while praying to remain pure has more barbed wire shoved up her you know what and then gets ripped in half and the Devil (who looks like a little girl) dances under her blood as it rains down. I think this was supposed to be a stand up and cheer moment...GIVE ME A BREAK!! I almost got sick...So I guess the moral of the story is...Silent Hill is a POS, so don't go see it...yeah, I'll try and talk about something more positive next time...like how paying my taxes went or something.
posted by Twenty One Productions at 6:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home