The first half of the film was great. It was creepy, it was suspenseful, and it was almost scary (speaking as someone who considers most scary films to be dull and silly). The film did a good job of summarizing the first, and the 3D was generally well-done. So where did this film fail? Well first, the character relationships were extremely superficial, to the point where it felt like they were tacked-on or unrealistic. Some of the character motivations were also underdeveloped and made the characters come off as stupid or just hard to relate to, especially towards the end. The characters take a while to actually enter Silent Hill, and when they do the film quickly devolves from creepy moments to explaining the story, which is not particularly compelling. Obviously, the film makers had to work within the context of the original while trying to tie it into the third game, but so much of the film was devoted to characters explaining the plot that it made the film feel somewhat dull. Think of the old adage "show, don't tell". The film was overly short, and it seemed as though this was the central problem. 20 more minutes to SHOW the plot, interspersed with a few more creepy scenes, and this film could have easily surpassed the original. Alas, the director chose to keep the film succinct, and the result is that it feels rushed and the last ten or fifteen minutes feel more like a cheesy action movie than a horror film. As I said, with twenty more minutes of footage, the film could have easily been one of the scariest movies of the last 10 years, and could have had believable characters and a more expertly revealed plot. Instead, we're left with a decent movie with a few good scares.
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