For Sharpshooter: Silent Hill

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i'm still mad at capcom for turning down george romero's script for a RE film because it was "too violent".

Yeah, I'm still mad about that too. While romero's script wasn't the greatest, it was far better than Anderson's hour and a half eye rape. Guess capcom really didn't care enough about RE.

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The infamous "pyramid head rape scene" must have been some cutscene I didn't get. Since...I honestly can't remember it.

it's in room 208(?) I think when James hides in the closet. There we see pyramid head "Getting down" briefly (like 2 secs tops) with two of those mannequin thingys.

No, it's the first time you're attacked by Pyramid Head. You suddenly enter a room, where you see him in full view humping a mannequin.

Take a step, and he gets up and attacks.

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I think when James hides in the closet

So then, would he be..trapped in the closet?

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So then, would he be..trapped in the closet?

lol. I never though about it that way. 10 points to sharp on that one. hehe.

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Originally posted by X Prime No, it's the first time you're attacked by Pyramid Head. You suddenly enter a room, where you see him in full view humping a mannequin. Take a step, and he gets up and attacks.

Yeah...you have to pretty much watch it.

James was just standing there. And he pulled out his Baretta!

Being as I said this could be about the movie, I guess a review of it would be fitting.

I'll start right off by saying this is not completely objective. It's pretty obvious, but yes, I've been waiting impatiently for this movie for a good long while, and as such I'm probably pretty willing to forgive some things you may not. So...if you're on the fence about seeing it, don't let this decide it for you.

That having been said, I disagree strongly with alot of the reviews. It's DEFINATELY better than the 18% rotten tomatoes is showing for it (or 22% now, it was 18 earlier). I can really understand why this movie is getting slammed though.

First off, the burning question. Did they nail the silent hill atmosphere. The answer is yes, yes, oh dear God yes. It was wonderful, the "normal" town looks like your standard ghost town, the "foggy" town looks...well..beautifully fogged over, and the nightmare world is pretty much dead to the letter. Furthermore the movie has tons of little visual cues in it that harken back to the game, I noticed a bunch but can't remember all of them. Suffice to say, in the first hour or so you'll notice all sorts of little things.

The acting is....I'll be honest, nobodys winning an Oscar here. Theres very little that was GLARINGLY HORRIBLE. But if you thought the delivery was wooden in the games...well...I guess they remained pretty faithful to that aspect too. But I'd say this was a given from the onset.

As this is a horror movie, you may be wondering how gory it is. It's definately not a kill a minute, but when something happens it's no holds barred. Theres flaying at one point, I'll stop right there before I ruin it too much. If you enjoy the blood and guts...you'll appreciate the movie on that level I guess.

The music isn't anything stunning. If you heard the piano in the trailer, you've heard most of the original score. Music from the games does pop up here and there (again, as a big fan of the games..the opening notes of SH1s main title playing as the tri-star logo came onscreen were nice. And hearing the opening theme from SH3 booming through the theater's speakers was pretty great too). This isn't to say the sound effects are bad...they're great. Most of the horror in the movie, thankfully, comes less from jump scares, and more this prevailing sense that everything you're seeing is just fundamentally wrong. The most effective parts of the movie played to that.

The fears of rampant CGI turned out to be unfounded. I remember sort of rolling my eyes slightly during one scene when it seemed a bit..well..you've all seen star wars, you know about really joltingly obvious cgi trickery. Thats what I mean.

Now the part thats getting this slammed in the reviews, and easily the most mixed part of the movie in my opinion...the story. Good, not great, easily could have been better. The first hour or so? Good stuff, covered all its bases really. Then we enter the cult..thats where things start getting a bit wobbly..

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"The cult" is not the one you're familiar with from SH1 and 3. Understandably they changed it because this is a 2 or so hour movie, and...well yeah, even in the games that whole "birthing a god" thing seemed sort of off. This time the history of the town and its peculiar religion is that they're some crazy sect of rogue witch hunters. Dahlia's not the leader. Alessa is there, her burning is done this time because she's seen as "evil". From there it parallels the game, she splits into two, etc. And from there it...becomes sort of a revenge deal...yeah..

. But now the BIG problem I had, the one I really think was the weakest part of the movie...waayyy too much exposition. I'm not saying they should have just been overly coy, and left everything up to interpretation through repeated viewings, but the movie had too many expository scenes, some of which seemed tacked on, Ebert's review mentions this and it's entirely correct.

The ending also seems to piss off alot of people, and I think its a mixed bag...it's open ended, sort of odd, generally the type of ending a silent hill game/movie/whatever sort of deserves. I like to think I "got" it.

Overall...if you liked the games, you'll either love or at least really appreciate this movie. If you didn't then you might be a bit more open to seeing its failings, but I doubt you'll be terrifically disappointed or something.

I hope this turns enough of a profit that they can do a sequel, which I've already heard mentions of. I'm pretty sure if they took the good parts of this movie (of which I still say there were many) and worked on the shortcomings, then it would probably be alot more solid.

EDIT: And yes...yes...pyramid head looked great.

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They're remaking SH1...But without Harry, the main character will be Rose

I'm still confused if Original Sin (apparently the title) will be a straight-up remake, or more in the...I guess "movie universe", which isn't completely mutually exclusive to the plot of the games, but sort of cancels out certain things.

Either way unless the PSP drops in price by then, or something happens aside from this to make it worth my while, one of you will have to wind up explaining it to me when it hits since I probably wont play it.

I saw it tuesday during a staff showing at a local theater, as well as earlier today. The thing is...there was no ending.

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They walk into the foggy house together and sit on the couch. Then it cuts back and forth between that and the husband sitting on the couch. And that's it. That's not a concrete ending to the movie.

However, the special effects were awesome and the sound and music was amazing.

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Originally posted by Cerpin Taxt I saw it tuesday during a staff showing at a local theater, as well as earlier today. The thing is...there was no ending.

Exactly. It was ambiguous, but I'd argue it's either

A)

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They're dead, and this was some homage to that one ending in SH1. I almost guessed that'd be the ending when it shows Cybil with the wound on her head early on

Or (and this is what I'm thinking it was)

B)

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Alyssa basically f***ed Rose over. It's already shown she can like...I dont know...somehow enter into other people, thats how she got into the church. I figured that close up on the "evil" side of her when she's looking at Sharon is a setup for that, and explains why the whole world outside the town is now fogged up. Because she got out, and she's going to keep up with whatever the hell it is a half-dead kid with a psychotic vendetta would do. Although I'll admit even that has some issues, since theres no clear reason she'd want to get back at Rose or the outside world.

I mean again, I think the endings going to boil down to what you went in there expecting/hoping for. I actually wanted something sort of vague and weird, since...well, thats generally how the series went (not that I wanted some carbon copy transfer of any of the games). But I can see how people might have gone "...the hell is this?" since even I was sort of nonplussed there for a minute.

I quess I'll hide this in case no one wants to know ANYTHING about the movie...

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I had to go a little "buh?" with the new version of the cult. I mean, I suppose it was necessary to make them a group of whacked-out Christians just so it'd be easier for a wider audience to relate to, but. Though, you know? The more I think about it, the more I'm able to make myself feel better about it. Remember Saint Jennifer? That Order chick in the games who was made a martyr through being persecuted by the Christians of the town? I mean, suppose that these Christians are those Christians. That still leaves whatever is within Alessa (the "I have many names" business) intact and providing room for The God/Samael/whatever you wanna call it. That still doesn't jive with the fact that Dahlia was apparently a member of wackychristians, but. I think that might've been my biggest note of "D:" with that movie-- Dahlia. I miss the crazyfanaticburnin'myowndaughtertobringgodintotheworld Dahlia. She wore a tie, too. She was awesome, and I miss her. I REALLY liked what they did with Lisa, though.

Dur, this is getting long. All in all, I liked it. I have my gripes, but it was good. Of course, I'm speaking as a fan of the games here and not as the average moviegoer... so I can't know how that feels. Judging by the reviews I've heard, it seems like it's been a little frustrating for them. ^^;

I just saw this movie, and it kicked ass. It really gave me a whole new view of Silent Hill. I loved it.


Thumbs Up!

I was going to see it with some of my friends last night, but ntwo of the people didn't have their ids and couldn't get tickets. Hopefully I'll get to see it soon.

Seriously, i was all ready to go see this movie (even played the original Silent Hill to get me in the mood) me and my girlfriend get up to the ticket taker and he asks for a flippin ID. Since when did they start acyually enforcing that damn law!? I used to be able to use that same theatre and see R-rated movies when I was thirteen (and I was by myself) Then i had to settle for Scary Movie 4, it wasnt that bad but I wanted Silent hill.

haha sux 4 u guyz

Well, the reviews for this movie have been downright awful. I hate to sound pessimistic, but I've pretty much given up hope of any video game movie turning out to be a success. More and more it seems that some mysterious force within the movie industry does not want any video game movie to be successful.

On a more optimistic note, I'll probably see this when the DVD becomes available. I've pretty much stopped trusting reviews for the most part.

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Well, the reviews for this movie have been downright awful. I hate to sound pessimistic, but I've pretty much given up hope of any video game movie turning out to be a success. More and more it seems that some mysterious force within the movie industry does not want any video game movie to be successful.

They're sharply divided is what they are. I'm seeing really terrible ones, and really good ones.

It's the sort of movie you either absolutely love, or really hate.

As far as "video game movies"....this one is really as good as they've done. It was also just pretty good in general as far as I thought, if this ones judged "not a worthy adaptation", then really..nothing is, and they can just stop, which would be fine.

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More and more it seems that some mysterious force within the movie industry does not want any video game movie to be successful.

Well considering most of them are absolutely HORRIBLE, and usually don't do that well, the mysterious force you're thinking of is probably the audience and the accompanying box office returns.

Maybe thats complicating stuff for this movie, the fact you had German tax-loophole guy (Boll) running around producing tripe, and resident evil, and doom which underperformed, that people aren't necessarily too excited over this one.

edit: I remember saying "pyramid head couldn't be done using a guy in a costume" earlier in the thread...well apparently that could be done, and was done quite well. Whoops?

They didn't really seem like...anything...aside from

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the pseudo-cross in the school and other places.

They just seemed like some crazed group of...I don't know, something.

Sort of like how the first game had alot of symbolism in it relating to christianity/judaism, but the cult wound up being something completely different.

Again, they had to change it..

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rogue witch hunters

isn't the most brilliant plot device ever, but then again if they'd stuck with that whole

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"birthing a god/demon"

thing, I can easily see how people would have rolled their eyes..hell I've played two of the games (two and a half, I guess) and I even sort of rolled my eyes at those parts.

I'll be honest, I always thought the cult storyline of the games wasn't...really that great. The idea of the town itself being this place of unimaginable horror due to its bloody history always seemed alot more interesting.

It almost seems like they've got a set-up for using that version of events in a sequel,

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at one point that girl that gets her skin ripped off mentions burning people "to keep the darkness at bay" or something. In a subsequent sequel maybe the town actually could turn out to have some dark past to it, and...yeah, I'm forcing myself to read too much into this.

For a sequel, I was thinking more along the lines of

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The husband of Rose goes looking for his wife since she never came back. They really didn't explain anything he was feeling after he was sent home by the police, and since he felt his wifes presence in the house when she came back, I think we can expect a sequel where he goes searching for her by himself. More along the lines of SH2 though, without the Cult involved in the storyline.

Yeah the only reason I kind of like the "she's dead" interpretation of the film is it could set up for a SH2 sort of thing, but I think it could anyway. We know nothing about the husband's relationship with his family really (possibly since those scenes, which alot of people are complaining about, weren't even supposed to be in there. Gans basically was told "we just noticed there aren't any guys in the film" by the studio apparently, and they tacked on the husband and detective characters). Aside from Rose hanging up on him before he could talk her out of going, theres nothing. Maybe that was meant to imply there was some history of strain, and the husband is the James character.

Or again, it was just all tacked on later.

Alot of people I've noticed keep making vague comparisons between Silent Hill and 2001...I'm not sure how much I agree with that. I get that they both "confused" audiences, and both are based on preexisting stories, but I'm not sure I'd say its completely a good analogy.

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I REALLY liked what they did with Lisa, though.

I know, at first I thought "oh, what a nice reference", then it got all

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oh hell she's crying blood

which was pretty good.

I can easily say that the way they portrayed Pyramid Head in the movie was incredibly badass. I mean, he lost the meaning he had in SH2, but that was redeemed when

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He ripped that girls skin off

Silent Hill #1 at the box office.

So...20.2 million...production was 50,000,000. And this is just week one, or weekend one more specifically. I'm GUESSING that bodes well as far as it getting into "the black"? Someone more familiar with the buisness angle of movies, feel free to correct me there.

The only reason I feel this is pertinant is we're already hypothesizing about a sequel, and if it makes a sufficient profit, Gans already mentioned being tapped to produce a sequel in the event ones greenlit.

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he lost the meaning he had in SH2

Well...he lost the MAIN meaning, but I think some of the explanation of what he is remained. As unclear as that is.

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In SH2 he's the manifestation of James' guilt, yes. Hence the raperaperape stuff. However the picture in the historical society shows he's based off an executioner type figure in the towns past. This is the explanation Gans and one of the people who made the game said was behind the pyramid head of the movie, more an executioner than the guilt caused nightmare from 2. He also seemed...I don't know..like a free agent somehow, basically just going around doing whatever he damn well pleased when the "nightmare world" popped up. It seems like he existed independently of the other monsters which were all manifestations of Alyssa's nightmare, like he was an aspect of the town/the otherworld/whatever entity was involved with Alyssa more than just a puppet of her nightmare. Then again I'm also seeing a theory expressed by some people that Dahlia somehow "summons" him before the flaying scene, you sort of see her gesture somehow to the nightmare world apparently, and he then forms from the physical remains of the town as they kind of disperse and are replaced.

'

Also the IMDB listing for this ones still funny since it lists characters and accompanying actors not even in the film (eddie and henry? huh?) and credits the girl who played anna as playing pyramid head (I think in one of the interviews it mentions the head coreographer or something was the guy in the p-head suit, he also played the nightmare version of the janitor)

edit: For someone whos beaten SH3...the song "hometown"..please tell me thats for the ufo or some other gag ending, because it's unbelievably awful. So much so that I'm thinking its a joke.

In case I need to jog your memory, it has lines like "SURVIIIIIVEEEEEE THE TOWN THAT TAKES ALLLLLLLL"....yeah...stark contrast with almost every single other bit of music in any of the three games..