315: Silent Hill (2006)

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Pyramid Head said, Hold my beer, because I'm not gonna hold your tit. Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. You've brought sin among us. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

A total joke, a waste of time, or a slash. Totally killer. Fun intended.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with a perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac, Sharon, the classic horror connoisseur Sean, Sharon, and the paranormal paramour, Binx. Sharon! The people who've spoken in our patrons have decided we're covering a 2006 film adaptation of an iconic video game franchise. Before we grab our controllers though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Let's follow up on a movie. We recently reviewed Let the Right One In, and we wanted to know what you thought. So 9% of those who participated in the poll thought it was a hack, and 91% gave it a slash.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Absolutely. 100%. I figured that this was gonna go this way, though. This is a pretty well-liked movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

We've got some good comments, I think, to back that up as well. Aladdin Sane 27 said fascinating, scary, beautifully shot, haunting, and fucked up.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Great descriptions. I mean, it is fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

The whole thing is fucked.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

And Naistu said slow, sad, frightening coming-of-age movie, rare combination.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Honestly, sensing a theme with how everybody wants to approach describing this movie in single-sentence adjectives. I think Binks, you pointed that out earlier. I did. You see it now, right? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Now Knast T said atmospheric tense and cute. Cute. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Cute. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I mean their little bonding love, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:59

What the fuck was cute about this movie? I'm sorry. No, even the kids weren't cute because the snot, I'm just remembering the winter snot. The winter snot. And the bad wigs.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Aw, winter snot. Now, Jackson Todd said the wigs are wigging.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

There it is. That's a direct quote from Chris, actually. My man. Great job, Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Now, Toast Smasher did say that this gave us a new perspective on the lives of the old vampiros.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

That is true, because we have a young little vampiro.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, young or old. We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

It doesn't matter. Touche. Ambiguous.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Ambiguous. That's what's important about that movie. Now Life of John Paul said, ah, the pool scene.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

I don't know why. I just want to comment on the name Life of John Paul. It's giving RB singer. And I'm kind of here for that too. But the pool scene, also fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Now, here to take some credit, Martin Strand says, because I'm the one who recommended it. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

He was one of the ones that recommended it, actually. This one was originally nominated by another patron. So we really doubled down there. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

That's right. They made us watch it. We said, okay. Now speaking of patrons, we do have some new patrons. Welcome to the family Mary, Nebraska, and Sarah Tonin. Nice. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Honestly, really fun names. Thank you so much for being part of the family. Starting your new year with us. Wow. Honored. Blessed.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

New Year, New Me. And that's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Well, this week's film follows the journey of a desperate mother on a relentless quest to find her adopted daughter. Their destination? A small town that's had an underground coal fire burning for decades. It's a tale that took the director a staggering five years to bring to the silver screen. And his dedication to the project was so profound he crafted a 37-minute video pouring his heart out about his vision to persuade the original creators to grant him the rights. So clearly this isn't just a film. It's a director's love letter to a video game that terrified and captivated him. And he saw in this game a unique blend of horror, myth, and it's a real world that begged to be brought to life. His journey to adapt this game into a film is a tale of passion, perseverance, the terror that lurks in the shadows, and the emotional journey of its characters. So prepare to step into a world where the fog is thick, the ash falls like snow, and the line between the real and the unreal is as blurred as the boundary of the town itself. This week, after winning 64% of the overall patron vote, we're talking about Silent Hill.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

This film was nominated by our patron Jake, who says it would be cool to revisit the Silent Hill movie. I know it's a movie based on a video game franchise, which I love with all my heart, but now watching it as an adult, damn. This movie has tremendous haunting visuals and set pieces to spare, and kudos to this movie for allowing itself to go into full chaotic weirdness. No major studio would ever put money into a movie like this today. If you would put some of the hokey acting aside, this is a very solid, gory monster flick with a bizarre premise. This movie was definitely treated poorly by critics, but still has a hugely faithful following. I can't work one horror convention without someone dressing up as Pyramid Head or the Bubblehead Nurses. It's flawed, but you can tell a lot of love was put into the vibe of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Well, time we'll tell just how apparent that love remains, Jake. So let's dive right in. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I definitely watched this one probably right around when it first came out in 2006. I remember being hyped for it. I definitely played at least the first two video games, so when this movie came out, I was pretty hyped for it. I've probably watched this a handful of times since then as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

I think one of the patrons earlier mentioned watching it on cable, and I'm pretty sure I watched it on cable at some point and then watched it on streaming when that became available later on.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah, I definitely loved this movie when I was younger. I remember watching my brother play these video games and being extremely scared. But it has been a long time since I've re-immersed myself in the Silent Hill universe. I actually had a conversation with a friend of mine not too long ago where we were talking about video game adaptations, and Silent Hill came up as one of those that was considered one of the best video game adaptation to film movies. It's nice to see that we are revisiting this and chatting about it today.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Yeah, I've never seen this movie before. It's exactly in the era of horror movies. I'd like to think I'd prefer to not see, actually. And I think even thinking about video game horror movies in particular, they're so hit or miss. You know, stay alive was done a few years before this. And it's just a situation where I don't know that it's for me. Now, going into this, any connection I had to Silent Hill was really just through Dead by Daylight. So I knew that Pyramid Head existed. There was some barbed wire, a big blade. I knew about Midwitch Elementary because geez, I can barely ever survive that map. But then in addition to that, there's a lot of lore that's in its characters that I only picked up through the context of reading their bios and their descriptions. Granted, a bit of that gets wrapped up into Dead by Daylight lore. So I was really expecting complexity. I was expecting a dad and his daughter. I was expecting a lot of mystery with a disappearance. And boy, did I not get that this time.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

You know what's interesting about Midwitch is Midwitch is actually a fictional town in the Village of the Damned, 1960, and also in John Carpenter's remake.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

That's some good, you know, horror, horror ring right there. That's some horror ring right there, if I ever heard it. I think having seen this before though, what I was really expecting, because it's been a little bit, you know, I was expecting it to be dark. I remembered some of the imagery being grotesque. I knew there was going to be a lot of tension and just full of near disturbing images.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah. When you think of the game, it's definitely that grotesque feeling of just madness. But I think kind of to your point, Chris, when you think of movies based off of video games, there's not a whole lot that stand out as great films, in my opinion, and probably many others, but naturally you may have your doubts about a movie based off a video game like this. It's a wild and dark video game. It's crazy. The lore is convoluted. It's just a wild ride. So, what can you really expect from this? It's hard to say, but you can hope that it's able to capture the essence, right? The same feeling you had while playing the game, you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great way to describe actually how I was feeling while I was watching it because it reminded me once again that the thing about Silent Hill is it's all over the place in terms of the lore, a little bit. It reminds me a bit about what you were talking about when we did Five Nights at Freddy's, Chris, and you were explaining that it's your nephew, right? That's a big fan, and how FNAF has this crazy lore. It's so enriched with a lot of things. Silent Hill is also one of those landscapes where there are a lot of Silent Hill games and remakes and different characters living in the same kind of circumstances a bit. It's just all over the place. And while I was watching this film, I was reminded that I'm gonna be feeling like, what the hell is going on a lot of the time? And there's a couple things that now being on this podcast, I was laughing to myself about, and it's this whole thing of how we had our fuck them kids era last year, and it just seems like a little twinge of that this time around again, you know. She's popping her head in and saying, Hey, kids are being kids in horror, which we will see a lot of that.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Yeah, I can really back away from that theme for a long time, and yet it still persists. We had it in a new release this year already. And I'm like, geez, back off. Let the trauma heal, just let it be. Kids deserve peace, kids deserve joy. Not in Silent Hill, it's just not gonna happen. Yeah. Before I get into that, actually, because I think I made a horrible mistake not playing the video game or trying to understand the video game before going into this. And I thought, listen, maybe this is a situation where I can go into it and find an appreciation and an interest into the video game based on what I see in the movie. But I think honestly, I missed out because there are moments in this movie where I felt this must be a fan service moment. There are moments that felt like, okay, this stands out as very video game. It doesn't just stand out as a natural thing that should be happening in this moment. I enjoy fan service in the things that I enjoy as a fan. I totally get that. But I think it should be executed well enough that perhaps if you're not a fan of that thing, you don't pick up on what just happened. It's supposed to be like an Easter egg versus like a bonk on the head.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

I found myself shifting between that feeling, but then also feeling bored because it felt long.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Hmm. That's an interesting take. I I don't know if boredom was it, but I can see what you're saying. Like if you had never played the game, are you missing out on some moments that maybe only the fans of the games would really enjoy? And I guess possibly. I never really looked at it that way, but I think that this movie did a good job in bringing me back to the game. So maybe that is the thing that you're missing in this. I think that this movie had this deep brooding kind of feeling or vibe to it, and it can be kind of slow at times, but there's this underlying sense of maybe I don't know if boredom is is the word. I think there's this underlying sense of maybe loneliness, maybe some dread, and the story I think really builds, but the pacing for me still felt fine aside from one aspect of the film that I think added very little value.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I can also speak to, I guess, where boredom could come from. Because when I thought about this, my memories of the movie are really focused on imagery, and it for some reason I thought it was as out there as something like the cell. Yeah. Like how vivid it was and what it was showing. But then getting into it, I realized there's just so many moments that drag. There's a lot of stuff that feels slow. When we do get some action, a lot of times it feels rushed. But then I think the pace finally like settles in the second half. Feels a lot more balanced when you get there. But when you're first making it through, it just feels like a lot of repetition. And then eventually, like we pick up to the actual movie.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah. I I think you're on to something, and we can dissect that a little bit later in the spoiler zone. But I think that specific example you just gave is pretty much due to the fact of what I was alluding to, of what just didn't need to be in the movie that probably caused some of that weird, elongated parts of the movie that just felt like we were dragging in the first half. So I don't know. We'll we'll have to break it down a little bit later.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

So I have a theory though, because another thing that I noticed, and I guess in some ways was a little bit of a disappointment for me, was man, this movie is impressive with its CGI and with its set design and with its ever oh god, everything technical, right? But the plot gets lost in that, and that's what my biggest disappointment was. And you as you guys are describing, maybe it's that boredom, it's how you're feeling that, it's how you might think it's dragging on. It dawned on me that this movie is two hours long, and I'm like, man, is it really? Like, why? You know, I don't think it needed to be. I don't think the game needs the movie to be. Does that make sense? I think they really tried to drag this on a lot, and maybe it is because of that fan service, right? Because we get a lot of it, and we get a lot of that beautiful moments. And if anything, that's something that surprised me is wow, this is 2006, and the CGI was giving. And I know that maybe CGI in comparison to now, it would be like eek. But thinking about 2006 and how this movie looked, it's incredible, in my opinion. And of course, Christoph Gans has mentioned that he really was trying to channel like David Lynch and Cronenberg as well as inspirations for this film, how disgusting everything was, and I thought it was so impressive. But unfortunately, that means that I'm only excited when those things are happening on screen. And I was noticing that I was just like drowning out when dialogue happened. And maybe initially going into us recording it, I was like, meh, maybe I'm just feeling that way because I know the storyline very well, but it seems like I'm not the only one, so that's kind of nice, maybe to feel like not alone in that.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I think the thing is that it's a really atmospheric movie, and so because the plot itself, even all the way back to the video game, is so weird that it can lose people. And if you don't know the lore and you don't follow along really well, it may lose you, or even if you follow along, but you just at some point veer off because they don't really get to the meat and potatoes for a while, and so it may just feel like this is just not going anywhere. So I can definitely see that, but I was surprised by how well the atmosphere of this movie was able to depict the video game. So, from the visual aspect alone, it was surprising to your point. And I don't know if we're gonna bring this up later, but I feel like I've gotta bring it up now, and I've been wanting to bring it up because this surprised feeling that I had while watching this movie, and even though I've seen this a handful of times, maybe it's because I'm looking at movies in a different way now that I'm reviewing them for this podcast. But the music and the score and how intentional it was to be the music from the game, it just added this menacing groove that actually worked really well, in my opinion. And that's the best way I can put it. It was a menacing groove, like it was evil lurking, but it was grooving. I was kind of like, ooh, like it would catch me a couple times, like, wow, I can get into this, you know what I mean? And I'm like now invested in what's happening. So it brought anything that maybe took me out of the movie, that little groove brought me back in.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

It's a good little ditty. I wish I could say the same about the music. I'm not saying that it wasn't good, but I just remember there are so many things that took me out of the experience of the movie. Namely, honestly, the CGI. You're saying that the CGI felt great, but man, I think about what movies came out in the 2000s. King Kong, CGI, 2005, The Chronicles of Narnia, right? The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, 2005, Spider-Man 3, 2007, Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, 2002. So many great examples. And then we had Avatar a little bit later, but so many great examples of CGI that made this feel like kid stuff. And again, budgets, the genre. No one pumps into horror the way that they're gonna pump into any other genre, right? But it doesn't change the fact that watching this, even trying to be kinder to it from a modern perspective and thinking like, okay, well, it is 2006, it did not stick the landing for me. And it's a bummer because some of these things were also done practically and then augmented with CGI, and it still didn't feel like it was even done practically. You had such a great foundation, and then you just fucked it up by just coloring outside the lines too much and just pouring a can of paint on it. It was just weird.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Interesting. I had moments where I focused on the CGI and the effects, and I had other moments where I just didn't even think about it anymore and was invested to the point where I just didn't care. But I think something that caught me off guard was probably the cast of the movie, because I completely forgot who was in this movie. And that was a pleasant surprise. One character in particular who is, I would say, like a major secondary character. Their freaking Borg Queen is in this movie, and I love that because Star Trek, it's my life to be honest, but Alex Krieg is in it, and without Borg makeup, I still can't help it. I see the freaking Borg Queen and I love it. Yeah, even Lori Holden. I mean, goodness, I haven't seen her in a couple seasons of The Walking Dead. It feels so good to see her face again. The short hair, I'm here for it. I don't know, whoa, yeah, I don't know why, but I love it. It's working for me.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Well, you're not the only one. You and every lesbian ever.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Also, since you brought up Lord of the Rings and of course, good old Bormir.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I love Sean Bean, and I can never get enough Sean Bean. And and in most movies and TV shows, they just completely underuse him. And so every time I see him, I'm like, yes, please, more Sean Bean.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

The cast is a pleasant surprise. You know, I don't want to sound like I don't like anything about this movie, right? There are some performances in here, especially from our young Starlet and the range that we have to get out of some of these folks. It's honestly great. And I know that there's a little bit of something to be desired when you're bringing beloved characters into a movie from a video game, but then you're changing what it is and what the whole storyline is and who they are. And there are major adjustments that I think can lose you, but I think the quality of the performances were surprisingly great for a video game adaptation. However, on the other side of that though, I want to go back to the things that surprise me. One, the CGI being a disappointment, but two, the set design just all around. Fantastic. I'm surprised that I hadn't watched it sooner. And being you mentioned about thinking about Silent Hill anytime you see fog. I see why now, right? These are moments where you go through and you tendentially hear about this movie and you hear about everybody referencing this seems like it'd be pretty cool, but you don't realize how fucking iconic it really feels until you watch it. So I can appreciate that. But within that CGI, I gotta say, I think the lack of precision there really just diminished any opportunity this had to really make me feel any kind of fear or tension. There's no tension in this movie for me. It's just more like, okay, we're running along and when things get intense, holy shit, it gets intense. But it feels like a big explosion that saved for the third act versus peppering in some real threat anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, it's not super scary. I mean, I remember Pyramid Head being just such a big part of the movie and being really, I don't know, creepy or freaky or spooky or something like that. And this time I just wasn't feeling any sense of danger from that character whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

That's interesting because I don't think the movie is super frightening. This movie, to me, I think it does a good job of, you know, you're in reality and then you're out of reality, you're in reality, you're out of reality kind of thing that it does throughout the film, and then it builds into the third act and into the ending, which of course you're gonna get the climax and you're gonna get all that stuff that we've been wanting to see. But I do think that the movie still builds this menacing sense of dread for sure. I think it does do that well in some key areas, and it feels gross and grotesque. But yes, I wouldn't say it's super frightening. I don't know if I'm a hundred percent convinced that's a bad thing, though, because maybe it's a good thing. But there are definitely moments and opportunities where there could have been some really good jump scares, but that's just not the direction that the film chose to go in for whatever reason. So that's what we get.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Man, friends. All right, I'll be the one once again. I feel like when we always talk about a movie being scary, it's always me because nothing can scare the three of you at this point. Nothing. I don't know. I gotta disagree. It does have a lot to do with the atmosphere, like Sean, you were saying. There's several factors to it. I think if you're watching this like really late at night and you can imagine yourself going into a town that is abandoned, you can't see a thing, that's already scary in and of itself. Especially, again, you mentioned it, Chris. Every time I see fog and it's like really early in the morning or you know, a little bit of daylight, but it's just fog, I can't see a thing. I always think of Silent Hill, and I'm always a little bit nervous, so there's that. And then it is going in and out of reality a little bit. All of these characters, Pyramid Head, the nurses, some of the grotesque stuff that you see is very eerie and uncomfortable and scary to think about. And also, there are sirens that are involved in. This film that I if I heard that siren, I in real life, even I would lose my mind. I would be scared shitless. So there are a lot of things that this film has. Although it doesn't have the jump scares, it is extremely effective in making you feel very uncomfortable, very scary. And if you are definitely a light, scaredy cat, this movie will do it. It will do it.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Okay, I think I was unkind for a brief moment here. I'm not gonna say that this movie is scary at all, but the sirens that do play, it did remind me, and not in the way that I think Night Swim tapped into some primal fear for me, but it reminded me of being in East Texas, living in Tornado Alley, and then hearing tornado alarms for the first time. And having that oh shit feeling.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

And going to jump scares a little bit, my thought is that I almost feel like if they had jump scares, it would cheapen the point of this being an alternate reality in some ways, or like you going back and forth between where the hell am I and what is this place. If there was jump scares, I feel like it would be more intentional to scare this main character or to scare the characters. Because usually that's why jump scares exist. I think of Silent Hill's main competitor is Resident Evil, and zombies can sometimes do that because they're predatory and they want to catch you off guard so that they can eat you. And that's not a hundred percent what Silent Hill is about, so maybe that's why.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well, that's what I'm saying. So I don't think we're too far off from each other on this because I I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the film isn't trying to do the jump scares. I think there were opportunities where they could have taken advantage of that and really played off of the reaction from the audience, and there's still opportunities there, thinking back to the game. I mentioned about the radio static and stuff at some point, but there are things that the game did that really built that sense of fear as you were playing it, or that tension or nervousness that I think maybe were missed opportunities in this, but overall it did build that sense of dread. So I'm with you. I wasn't frightened as far as jump scares, but I do think it did a good job of building that dread and just knowing that like that siren hits and some shit's about to fucking go down, and it's gonna be wild, and some of it is crazy to look at, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

100%, which I think is a great segue when thinking of originality. Silent Hill, this film, how original is it in comparison to I already mentioned it, Resident Evil, which the movie came out just a few years prior, and the games also are just a few years apart from one another. But I don't think that Silent Hill rips from Resident Evil. I think it is its own thing, it's just its competitor because it's scary. However, that being said, Silent Hill itself, the creators, both in the game and the movie, have said that they are drawing inspiration from a ton of horror films.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

The movie, it's specifically, like I mentioned, he was getting inspiration from David Lynch, from Cronenberg, from all of these horror films that we've seen. But one funny one that I'll say that I thought of, it didn't take inspiration from it, but rather a modern show that made me think of this movie is Stranger Things. I couldn't help it. That's fair. Yeah, I feel like Stranger Things is just one of those much, much lighter, way lighter versions of Silent Hill. But you know, it is that reality situation going on, it is that town, and that's going crazy, that kind of vibe.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Yeah, there's a lot there that I think this movie gets credit for for feeling different, and even from what I understand is different from the actual video game. I think I can admire a bold swing, right? To completely change up some core characters and try to capture the essence of a game while creating your own story for the movie. But let me just tell you, and I I gotta think about this because you mentioned Stranger Things. The modern thing that this reminds me of, Rose from this movie needs to get with Josh from Insidious in search of their children.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Because what fucking terrible parents just being fucking reckless and then also not approaching finding their children anywhere remotely responsibly.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

My god.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Matchmade in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Terrible.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Obviously, not a knock against this movie, but holy shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, I feel you. Yeah, it's interesting because obviously, on one side of it, the movie is adapted from a video game, but this film did take, I feel like, multiple Silent Hill games and the lore from multiple games and blended it together to make one cohesive story as best as they could. And and I can see a lot of influence. You you said Cronenberg and all these different things, but I even got, to be honest with you, in my opinion, a little bit of the sixth sense with that lurking dread feeling that you get. I I also see the shining with this movie distorting your reality and playing with you. So I get there's so much influence here, but this movie does cast its own shadow in a way. Like you can see influence, which is good. There's gonna be influence, but it does stand on its own and doesn't feel like it's a ripoff of anything, obviously, other than being adapted from the video game.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of video game movies where you watch them and you know that they're just doing their best to pull the good parts from the video game and the stuff that's not super stand out, they just make up or replace with some crap.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

And this one doesn't feel like that at all. It feels like they they really wanted to capture the feeling of playing the game. Never played it, so I don't know like how true they are to the mythos. I don't know how true you know the movie is in terms of like characters and events and stuff. It's really obvious when we bring up characters that are in the games, it's like painfully obvious. But I feel like what what's being portrayed is a feeling. It is a feeling of what it's like for a player to move through levels and to see these different apparitions, I guess. And so I think it's effective and it doesn't feel like a lot of other video game movies, which are basically let's just capitalize on everything everyone recognizes. But what makes this one unique from a lot of other a lot of other video game movies is the way that it ends is not super explosive, like a blockbuster to really get people to buy in and sign up for the next movie tickets, right? It's a movie that ends hopefully with some questions. I mean, they're not super deep questions, like you can answer them just by by watching the movie. But the thing that really caught me off guard is there's a particular character that survives, and we'll get to this. I can bring this up in the spoilers, but like it didn't make sense to me that this character survived for completely non-logistical, non-movie related reasons, and it'll make more sense when once we make it into the spoiler zone.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

I gotta say the ending in the whole third act of this movie is the best fucking part of the movie. I mentioned earlier that it was very boring until it suddenly wasn't. We get to a sudden eruption of things, and man, I was invested at that point. And honestly, even thinking about where the movie leaves you, I was reminded of a very niche film, a very terrible film, at least from what I recall it being White Noise with Michael Keaton. Have you all seen this?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

I saw it in theaters on a date with my first boyfriend. That shows you how fucking long ago this was. Terrible movie, at least from what I remember having that experience for. But I was reminded of that here at the end, and not in a negative way. I really enjoyed the way that this movie concluded itself because it does this duality, and there are moments where it flickers back and forth into different perspectives, but I think the way it brings it home at the end, I really appreciated. And while I don't know shit about the greater lore of Silent Hill, I think it sets up nicely for more without making you need more.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I don't know if I'd say it was the best part for me, but I would say that the ending did a couple things really well, and I did really enjoy them. I enjoyed some of the action that we get, and I also thought the way it ended was a little bit interesting, and I think will keep you thinking or at least talking about it for a little bit. I don't think it's just like this clean cut, cookie-cutter type whatever ending. I think there is a little bit more depth to it. So it it's not that it's a bad ending. I think it did some stuff really well, but there are some things with the ending that I think were a little rocky.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

I don't know. I think the ending is one of those acts, obviously Chris is a testament to that, where if you weren't really paying much attention and you were just amazed by all of the production and set design and all those other things like I mentioned earlier, the ending is gonna take you right back to the core of what the whole point of this movie was. And just in case you missed it all, we're gonna do a recap and just set this whole thing ablaze. We're just gonna do shit show extreme. There is no holding back. It's really one of those moments where, okay, make sure you're paying attention to me now, and you are going to be.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

Well, obviously, we've had some mixed things to say about this film, but let's start making our way to our rating so we can actually assess it. Now, before we do, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_01 31:12

I think although this could have been way more gory, which I think is crazy to think about, all things considered, uh there are certainly some mutilated bodies, right? We see some flesh ripping, flesh roasting, some bisected bodies. I just don't know if it's hovering towards the top of that medium territory or if it should be simmering at the bottom of high territory, because we get some grotesque things that I think are really, you know, it's gory, but do we really get balls to the wall gore that's gonna get you to high territory? I think there's moments, yes, but there's a lot of moments that you don't get anything, and it's just kind of dark and eerie and gloomy. So I struggled with this one. I think it stays at a very solid medium. I think it's almost at high, but it just didn't earn that extra star.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Yeah, I mean it felt like a whole lot of nothing until it was a whole lot of something.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Look, Silent Hill is a lot of things. But surprisingly, it's not an animal killer, with the exception of one insect. So there's that. I just want to say that although we might be safe, I personally feel like it's a little fishy because it's almost just that hard to believe.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Alright, well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. Silent Hill from 2006 as selected by our patrons, was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

You know, this movie is like 60% watching someone walk through a CGI-backed haunted house. You walk into a room, you see something creepy, you see your escape, and something or someone turns into ashes, rinse, repeat. Does that make the movie not enjoyable though? Of course not. The sights, the sounds, I think they really work. As someone who's never played a video game, this movie's still really interesting and really intriguing. I could tell, of course, every time they introduced a character's name that someone who played the game should or would recognize them and think, ooh, I know them. So I got to sharing that feeling kind of semi-secondhand. I don't know if that's good or bad, though. I don't know why this has held a fond place in my memory, but even though it felt slow and mostly uneventful on this watch for me, I still paid attention. I still really enjoyed the visuals, and I wanted more action with all those baddies. It's just honestly a slash.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, you know, this movie, much like the games, I think has a lot of depth to it. The storytelling, it's there. I think it's pretty solid. It's just a lot to try to convey in a film, which is why I think partly it went a little bit longer than it should. And I think the music really added a whole lot of value for me to the way the film flowed. And at times I felt like I was in this sort of demented Alice in Wonderland style tale. This movie was able to capture the atmosphere of the game in a lot of ways. The ash-covered ghost town, the shots of that cemetery, the creepy and disgusting basements and eerie, empty classrooms. It was a vibe. It was a it was just a great film to look at. And in CGI, yes, there were some bad parts, but it didn't really take me out of it. It definitely hit that nostalgic feeling for me, but I don't think you need to, your point, Mac, I don't think you you need to have played the video games to enjoy the film, and I think that's something to be said, because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that watch this film that never played the video game and still enjoyed it. And there just aren't a ton of great films adapted from video games out there, but this one I think is pretty good, so I'm giving it a slash.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Yeah, speaking for people that may have played the games, I think this is one of those films that you remember loving because of how gritty and insane the creature design is and definitely the effects and stuff, and you love it because you played those video games, and so you recognize that, like I've mentioned before, it's one of those games that put horror in the conversation in the gaming industry, along with Resident Evil, of course. But is the movie phenomenal without all of that? I actually don't really know if I can still say that after my second most recent rewatch. I enjoyed it, but a lot of it is because I already understood that lore. And I think you can get lost in that and trying to understand what's going on if you're going into this fresh, obviously hearing from Chris's experience, having watched it for the first time and not having played the games, I'm seeing that even more so, right? It's just hard to understand, and you can get lost in a lot of these pieces, but it comes together towards the end, and I think the ending is really solid and so much fun. And so, because of that, I've gotta say, this is one of those early 2000s horror films that I think is really great. Definitely one of the better horror video game adaptations to, and so I'm gonna give it a slash with the excited anticipation that obviously there's more things to come out, there's more video games actually that are coming out this year or possibly next year in the Silent Hill franchise. So, who knows about updated films? So it's exciting. It's an exciting time for Silent Hill.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Well, it seems like this is going really well, and I'm really excited for y'all. This movie has a lot of potential, there's a lot of good in it. I don't want that to be lost. There's a ton of great cinematography in here. When I was looking at images of the movie before watching the movie in preparation for the episode and making the graphics, I was like, damn, this should be great, because this doesn't look like what I would expect from a 2006 video game horror adaptation movie. And then it started to look like it a little bit in some spots. But by and large, this movie looks great. It sounds great, it feels great in terms of the quality of its performances, and the set design is absolutely immaculate. But the problem is beyond that, I logically know and understand that, but I still wasn't moved by it. I felt a noticeable lack of tension, and even from there, I didn't have enough fun with it to make me feel like I really got something from it. Instead, I felt long, large periods of boredom until suddenly we got a really intense kill, and I was like, oh shit, that was cool. It looked terrible, but that looked cool. And then we get towards the end where it's like, oh, are we really doing this? Are we pulling this an evil dead? It got weird, and I'm like, all right, if we had that energy throughout more of the movie and cut out some shit that was absolutely unnecessary, this movie could have had a shot with me, but it didn't. And the problem is, Sean, we talked earlier about do we miss out on critical context by not playing the game? And I don't think you need to, but it's not that I think I missed out on information, I think I missed out on the opportunity to fall in love with Silent Hill the way so many people have, because my introduction to it is with a movie that honestly hits in a pretty mediocre way for me. While I am open to the franchise, I'm open to the game, I'm intrigued. It's not enough for me to say it's a slash. If it was even a little bit more fun, it'd be slash. And maybe at the end of the year, after I learn some more and I revisit it and look back on it, maybe it's a retract the hack situation, but for now, it's solidly a hack.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Wow. Your bar, I feel like, just got raised tonight a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

For sure. I'm proud of you. No, it's just I didn't feel anything. Winnie the Pooh, I felt something. Amusement.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Well, that's also not fair. Winnie the Pooh also, you felt something because it was during a very difficult time. Night Swim because it reminded you of a very difficult time. I would hope to God that Silent Hill doesn't remind you of either of those things.

SPEAKER_03 38:39

Yeah, well, here we are. And with that, Silent Hill from 2006 as chosen by our patrons has earned one hack and three slashes. Now you can find this movie available online. Check the link in our show notes to see where you can find the streaming right now. Then join us in the second house and we can unpack our thoughts together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Are you longing for an escape from the mundane? Look no further, because today's episode of Hackerslash is brought to you by the Silent Hill Tourism Board, your getaway to an unforgettable journey. Imagine a place where every foggy street corner whispers tales of the past, where the line between reality and the unknown blurs like the mist over Toluca Lake. Welcome to Silent Hill, a town not just on the map, but also in the annals of legend and mystery. Stroll through the historical district, where the architecture is as rich in history as the streets are in fog. Every building tells a story, from the famed Alcamilla Hospital to the eerie abandoned Midwitch Elementary School. Be sure to visit the Silent Hill Historical Society for a glimpse into a past that's as intriguing as it is unsettling. Adventurists, explore the town's natural beauty, from the foggy shores of the lake to the enigmatic lighthouse. And for those who dare, the infamous Brookhaven Hospital offers nightly tours, an experience that redefines thrilling. Culinary enthusiasts will be captivated by the local cuisine, where the specialty of the day always has a hint of mystery. Dine at the renowned Cafe 5-2, where the menu is as unpredictable as the town's weather. For the art lovers, Silent Hill's art scene is a hidden gem. The town is home to the Silent Hill Gallery, showcasing works that challenge the very essence of art and perception. Accommodations range from the quaint lakeside hotel to the rustic comforts of the Green Lion antiques. Each room in Silent Hill offers a unique view, be it of the town, the lake, or perhaps something more ethereal. And for those who seek introspection, Silent Hill's a haven. The town's unique atmosphere provides the perfect backdrop for self-discovery, reflection, and perhaps encounters with aspects of oneself long forgotten or hidden. So why wait? Book your trip to Silent Hill today. Use the code Hackorslash for a special guide to the town's most secretive spots. It's not just a vacation, it's an experience that will stay with you long after you've left its foggy borders. Silent Hill awaits, where every visit is an adventure into the unknown.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Yeah, so we have a couple of people we learn about, so let's get those out of the way, right? We have Nurse Garland with her eyes gouged out. We've got Colin, the creepy janitor that felt way too fucking rapey, who was bound and bled by barbed wire. So that's two. We're just gonna get those out of the way. Then we have something like 19 kills throughout the film's progression, bringing us to a total of 21 kills for this one. And there were some good ones, so let's get into them. What were your favorite kills?

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Alright, I just want to sweep the floor right now with Anna because holy shit, Pyramid had a way to make an entrance and actually prove your point of your fucking existence to me. I know that the existence of the game is different from the representation of who Pyramid is in this, from what I've come to understand about the confusing lore. But to emerge to then rip off the clothing, I was like, whoa, what the fuck is happening here? I was really upset about it. Didn't like it. I didn't think we needed it. It was giving Winnie the Pooh Banks when Winnie the Pooh ripped off that woman's shirt. It was unnecessary. This is true. But then Pyramid Head said, Hold my beer, because I'm not gonna hold your tick.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

It's almost like to prove, hey, I can do this, and I want you to see exactly what's happening here. Just rips off her flesh and throws it at the closing door. That's a power move.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

The thing about that kill is that you get this slow kind of build-up through the first half of this movie, and you get to see before this probably some pretty grotesque looking creepy shit, but it's just visuals, and then all of a sudden you get this kill, and it's so crazy. The kill is so fucking crazy that you are just caught off guard. This fucking person just got completely fucking annihilated. You got declothed, skinned, mutilated, and just tossed against a fucking door. You're done.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Now it's all I'm gonna think about anytime I see Pyramid Head in Dead by Daylight. Like, damn, that motherfucker is strong.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

It was obviously the best kill of the movie, though. It was just so out there and so graphic and so sudden. And that's what was great because there was a moment where you're unsure what's gonna happen here. Like, she's not moving, and he's right there, and she's apparently really scared of him. So, what's the deal here? And he was like, Yeet, there goes all of you.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

You know what it actually reminds me of now? It's almost as impressive as I find. When people take a tablecloth and pull it off of the table, but all the dishes stay in place. It's just magic. It's magic. I don't know how he did it, but it's magic.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

That's because he never skips arm day. Never. Can I say a kill that was my least favorite? Because you picked the best one, but Christabela's kill was just so over the top and so unnecessary. Where was the barbed wire going? Was it going into the guts? Everywhere. You know where it was going.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Well, we know where it started, but you know, after that, it went everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

You can't talk shit about this moment and then still look at Evil Dead the way you do.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

It's 100% Evil Dead again. I don't want to hear it from either of you. You know it. That's exactly what this is.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Listen, I'm not defending against that. It definitely takes inspiration from Evil Dead. I'm just actually shocked that you think it's the most disappointing kill.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Why didn't she get her skin torn off and thrown against a wall like trash? You know, why didn't we get that just like a quick exit? But I I think it's because it was just the barped wire that did it for me. It made it not as good. It wasn't as brutal. I mean, it was brutal, but it wasn't like I'm gonna de-glove your whole body at once. That was brutal.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Well, it wasn't as intense. It was fucking gnarly, but it wasn't the shock value, I feel like, as we got with Anna. 100%. Or maybe it's because we got Anna's death at first and we were just like, there's nothing that's gonna top this. It's like the hot dog cut in Terrifier. Like you're just you're gonna get that, and then everything else just feels like child's play.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

But you know what's funny is that I feel like they were going for this being the most brutal kill of them all. So I think to them they thought this was absolutely horrific, terrible, and it sure was, but I feel like it lands differently for us, maybe, because we've just seen so many things, also. We're not obviously big fans of the approach. We've seen Evil Dead. There's lots of layers to that where we're like not as impressed.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Yeah, we're seasoned vets over here, okay? Barbed wire isn't just not gonna cut it.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

It's not gonna do it. But it was absolutely horrific. For me, though, I would say that the kill that stands out the most and was brutal in its own way, maybe a lot more because it's emotional, is Sybil's death. Just because her reaching out, practically like really praying and just hoping that she's gonna be okay in some capacity. It's almost like closure in a sense, right before her death, just as she's slowly burning, is really tough to watch. And also the camera angle, too, because you're approaching it like you are this entity that she's praying to almost, right? Because you're like watching her from this angle as the fire is slowly climbing up. Typically, I feel like you would just see that as a straight shot and not like overhead in that nature. Oof. It was really sad.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

It's the bubbling and melting of the face for me.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

No, it was not good. It I mean, it was good, but it wasn't good.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

It's the bubbling, it's the mama be with me. I didn't want Sybil to die. Sybil was the only character beyond Sharon that I actually gave a shit about. The performance is again great.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

I'm not discounting it, but how did she survive the pipe beating? Yeah. How did she survive getting beaten to death with pipes to the face and shit? That's wild. I don't know how she lived.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

She a bad bitch. Another killer I want to highlight since you started off was 100% Colin the janitor. Because fuck that man.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

To all hell.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

That vibe, that little quick cut scene you get flashback or whatever, that was improv. And they kept it. They were like, we kind of like this. Let's go with this. And they saved it, but that was completely improvised. Licking the fucking lips or whatever bullshit he did. Sicko.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Props to the actor, I guess, but not pleasant.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Is it props to the actor? Who knows what that guy is really all about. If that's like some weird random feeling he was just vibing with in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Look, I've seen Saltburn, okay? I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Well, I think we've mentioned some good kills. I want to go back to something that we talked about earlier. And it's kind of divisive, it feels like. It's the CGI. The CGI in this movie is something. We can say that. It's clearly CGI, and it's worse in several scenes. It's just so obvious, right? But why wasn't I bothered by that? It actually was kind of cool. You know, we got to see some really interesting things, and it made it feel like more tied to a video game. For whatever reason, I just felt really grounded in video game world, and it wasn't a bad thing, and I actually kind of enjoyed a good bit of it. There's some of it that's so bad. That's just, come on, did you guys even try? There's parts where you're like, I know it's CGI, I know it's cheesy, but I'm having a good time with it.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Yes, Mac. Yes. Look, that insect was not great. There's a couple moments, sure. But I feel like I really like the CGI here. And earlier, Chris, you were rattling off a ton of films that came out this year. But also, they were massive productions. Spider-Man, fucking Lord of the Rings, for Christ's sake, King Kong, of course. You know what I mean? Massive budgets. But we're talking about a horror film. We're talking about a horror film, and they've got CGI like this. Incredible stuff. Because the other horror films that we've watched around this era, not stellar in terms of CGI.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

Maybe what I should have done to argue my point better was point out all the movies that had a lower budget than this used practical effects and still looked better. That's probably what I should have done. Okay, but practical effects for what, barbed wire roaming around and going all over? What I'm saying is budget aside, there is a difference between doing what you can with what you have and making good decisions with what you have. Thinking about the gray children specifically. The great children were the ones where she's surrounded by them and she's holding this lighter, and I'm like, okay, what the fuck is this gonna be about? And then the CGI just looks so awful, and then the more they got on top of her, it looked even worse. And to know that there was a woman in a suit, they had it right there. And that's what disappoints me about this. You could have gone practical for so many things in this movie and then gone digital where you absolutely had to, and I think it could have just been done differently.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

I can see there's some moments where the CGI is bad. There's what you're talking about, there's the insect shit, but not everything throughout the movie looked that bad. And I think with the whole set design and the atmosphere and everything, it just allowed for you to kind of ignore some of that and still get into the movie a little bit. But I also think there are some great cinematic visuals sprinkled throughout the film, and I think one specific one that stands out is when they're even just on their way to Silent Hill and you get that shot from above the highway going through the mountains, and you get the night sky that looks amazing. There's some really beautiful shots that are put throughout the movie, which I think are great. And you know, you think it's snowing, but it's really the ash. Have you ever been in an area that's actually raining ash from a fire? It's pretty intense. I was living in the San Fernando Valley in California back in the day. We had these huge fires in the hills, and they were like right up to our backyards, and it was one, it doesn't look anything like this movie. It doesn't look like snow, but it definitely looks like the apocalypse. It's blood-red sky, black clouds, and it's just raining ash, which also is interesting because it's really fucking hard to breathe when you're outside. So I don't know how she just wandered around this town for so long without coughing.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Okay, so that was a point when I was watching this movie. She walks in, she touches a bit of ash, and she realizes that it's ash. I thought I would simply perish because I could not walk in there without a respirator. I need a respirator just to clean my room with the dust. I would die.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

Not to be the technical bitch, but I'm just gonna say technically, she wasn't really walking through Silent Hill at that point. You know what I'm saying? She already had entered another dimension. Now the dad, however.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

They did, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

They did, and they tell him multiple times to wear a mask or to cover his mouth and stuff. So you're right. So I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

That's a good point, but still raining ashes wild, nonetheless.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

Yeah, it's honestly the town of Silent Hill that is one of the best things to look at in this whole movie. It's the abandon ghost town nature of it all. Yeah, there are so many that are still across America that you can still visit, and I have been like itching to go do that. Aven Paris, I believe, has brought this up on the show before. There is the town that visually this movie took inspiration from that has had a coal mine fire burning underneath it for decades.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

To take that kind of inspiration and then to change the shift of what I believe the game had has is snow instead of ash, to make that shift for your film, but then also nail the way that looks, that's where you see the disparity in this movie. Because some of it looks good, other parts of it look like pure trash.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

For sure. But you know, this movie is riddled with Easter eggs. There is so much shit in this movie that you can catch. Like we talked about the midwitch thing, which I thought was interesting. We also get the name Cheryl in graffiti within the tunnel, like at the beginning. Wasn't Cheryl the actual name? It wasn't Sharon, it was Cheryl in the video game, correct? So they have that Easter egg. Jodell Ferland herself also was little Carrie in the 2002 version of Carrie. So we have that. There's a theater in the fucking movie that's playing a double feature of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, and it's remake, the Omega Man, which is fucking awesome. So there's just so much stuff that you can get out of here.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

I will say I do live for Sean's massive Easter eggs, like just the smallest of things, details. It's like always has an eye on something.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

They put him there for a reason.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

No, it's warranted, for sure. It's warranted, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_03 54:01

I want to actually point out something else that I thought looked really fucking cool, and it came in my favorite scene. It is when Rose is running through. Sybil has taken now the beating of a lifetime, but Rose has this light, and she rounds the corner and she sees the nurses, and they're frozen, and then they start twitching. They come back, she figures out, she just turns the light off, they'll mostly freeze. I need you to know that I am so goofy. My immediate thought was oh, this would be great to thriller. So I pulled up my music app, rewound the movie, pulled up thriller, timed it a little bit of a delay, then I hit play, and it matched up perfectly. Especially when the song says something evil's lurking in the dark, bam, her light turns off. It's fantastic. I need to show you all this because now it's all I can think about when I see this. Again, not in a goofy way, but I can appreciate this. And I know that they got a lot of dancers to portray a lot of these creatures and these monsters in Silent Hill, and I have such a respect for that and the way they're able to control their movements because holy shit, that was impressive.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

The lengths that you went to. It's something. But I will tell you that perhaps you need to do like a little TikTok moment with that. Maybe you need to do the fan edit.

SPEAKER_03 55:13

I already have it edited. Oh, so you also took the time to do that. I needed to share this with the world. Drop it right now.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

I don't have a spicy favorite scene like you do. I feel like you've made a good selection here. I do like the inclusion of Dahlia though, and I like some of the exposition we also get, which I typically find going into the past in a movie kind of boring. I think when we see the flashback later on, kind of unnecessary, just have a character tell us a story or something. And that's why I like Dahlia's introduction, and because she can just tell us some stuff and it and it's useful, and you pick up the vibe that okay, the daughters, there's a mirroring, cool, I get it, I like it. Her makeup also looked awesome, and so her introduction as a character was really cool. And I think it was just such a better way of giving you some more context than flashbacks.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yeah, I don't know if there was any specific scene that I think was like mind-blowing. One scene that I thought was really good was when Rose was running after, I think, what she thinks is Sharon and runs into that disemboweled dude in the gas mask who is somehow still alive, and you could see his just the sh the close-up on his eyes through the mask, I thought was really great. That was such a cool scene. And then get snuck up on the evil ash babies that probably didn't look so great. But that one disemboweled dude was great. I think that was such a good scene.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Can I tell you what it reminded me of?

SPEAKER_01 56:32

What?

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Repo the genetic opera.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

Not in a bad way.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

That came out of your mouth. You said that.

SPEAKER_02 56:39

You brought up repo.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Okay, listen, I've brought it up before. Usually it's in a shit talking way, but that moment, seeing that mask, seeing the disemboweling, it reminded me of Repo. What a great time.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

My favorite scene we've talked a little bit about, which is basically the look of Silent Hill and our introduction to this place. So I'll talk about another favorite scene of mine, which is all the way to the end. And I think the ending where Rose and Sharon, well, we presume to be Sharon in some ways, heading back home, but you're obviously seeing that dad is also in the same place. Like that's where I really got that Stranger Things connection because both of them are in the same house, in the same spaces, and he senses her, but isn't actually there. And this is when it hits you where you're like, Whoa, they never really left. Rose has no clue. You know what I mean? She's just somewhere else at this point. But specifically, when Sharon is walking down the hallway, she knows already, she's fully aware that they have never left. She's not even Sharon anymore, obviously. And it's the smirk that she gives when she's looking dead at that camera that's really eerie, and I really loved it.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

And we get that same kind of thing at the end, too, where they're in the same room, just not the same reality.

SPEAKER_02 58:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Which I think that was a really interesting way to end the film.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

No, absolutely. I think a lot of the times they go through all of these things, and you really just want that resolution and you want them to be okay, and you just don't get that satisfaction in this film, not in the same way that you would have hoped, I guess. And I like that cliffhanger moment. You're kind of left wondering, okay, so then what happened? And granted, you're probably feeling that way throughout the whole film, anyways, but specifically now, after all of this, after all the sacrifices, all after everything that happened, you want her to just leave, but they haven't left. So then where the fuck are they?

SPEAKER_00 58:38

An imagination land.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

Who knows? I don't know. But also, shout out to the end credits, too. I'm just gonna bring it up real fast. The end credits are so early 2000s, but sh this actress makes that same face again. She's scary, she's real scary. She doesn't give that same vibe in Breaking Dawn Part 2, but she really did it in Silent Hill. There's our Twilight Moment.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Yeah, I didn't face Palm, but I grasped my face with my fingers on my hands, so close to face palm. I think now's the goodest time as any to mention what I was talking about before the break, which is who should have died. How does Sean Bean play a character that didn't die in this movie?

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Because they were like, look, Boromir, all right? Poor guy. But also not because he's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

It's a huge miss because this motherfucker shouldn't even have been in the movie.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Useless.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

This dude added no value to this film.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

He added no value, but you know what my theory is? They said, Well, since Silent Hill, the video game, is really about a dad looking for his daughter, and we want to change it up by making the movie great, so we're gonna make it about a mother, and that complexity, since that's literally the story of Silent Hill to begin with, let's not get people too upset by diverting too much, and let's still include the dad.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

That's literally what it is. The original script only had women after submitting the script. It got back to them. There were no men. That's literally why he's there and why that cop has that whole fucking subplot. Again, unnecessary. That shit's boring.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

It just added time that we didn't need. We could have been at an hour and a half to hour twenty if we didn't have this dude roaming around doing absolutely nothing, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:21

And it's because we already know that she's clearly not in the normal plane. Like, she's in another astral plane. No one's stupid watching this film either. You know what I'm saying? We know that she's clearly not in the normal world. Like, he's not gonna just find her willy-nilly. For Christ's sake, this cop drags her all the way, and then there's nothing. The whole ground is gone. There's the whole place is cracked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

I say again, this movie is just an hour and 57 minutes of Chris getting ghosted by his lesbian wife. That's all it is. Literally ghosted. It's giving ghosts from a ghost town.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Is it an alternate reality though? Because if you think about it, they really set it up, if it wasn't based on a video game at least, they really set it up to where she and her kid and the police officer died in automobile collisions or accidents of other sorts. And so, of course, they wouldn't make it back to real life because you know they crashed or wiped out on the bike. There would be like a perfect explanation. It would all work out in the end.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:17

Yeah, could have been. And let me tell you, I just gotta say, I know that I've made some jokes about the lesbianism of it all, but there was no tension more lesbian than the tension between Sybil and Rose. There really wasn't. They had more chemistry than her and Shambin.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

I'll give you that for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:32

It's absolutely true. That marriage, loveless. Loveless. They were only in one scene together. Exactly. You should be able to tell more.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

It was a little confusing, though. There's just too many holes. The dynamic of the relationship was super confusing. We get the opening scene, and Rose is chasing after Sharon. How the fuck she gets to this random ass cliff, I don't know, but that's some wild shit. And maybe I missed like a second or two of this, but it seemed like the husband is consoling them and they're talking about whatever, and then all of a sudden she's like, you know what? No, I need to take her and go, and I'm out of here, and I'm not gonna answer your phone calls. And I'm like, wait, what just happened? Why did this go from zero to a hundred?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

So, what they should have done is remove this whole him trying to find her and this whole bit and added more to the beginning to explain the dynamic between the two of them, to explain why she would make such drastic measures to take her daughter to Timbuktu and discover where she was adopted from and blah blah blah. Because also, ma'am, you're a little reckless, okay? You're a little frickin' reckless. Mm-hmm. And then my favorite part is at the end to be like, I'm so sorry, you're right. I shouldn't have done that. Well, no shit, ma'am. No shit. Everyone has died. You've seen all kinds of things. You got stabbed in the chest.

unknown 1:02:50

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yeah. Really, the issue that I have, let's do a little bit of devil's advocate here because you won't get very far with this math at all. Let's pretend that we are all 100% on board to agreeing to whatever subtext existed before this movie starts. We know that Sharon has been going through some shit, that the doctors haven't been able to figure it out, that she keeps talking about this place called Silent Hill. Let's pretend we're all on board with Rose making the decision to take her to Silent Hill. First off, dumb fucking idea. Let's just pretend we're there with her. This woman loses all credibility with me the second she thinks it's a good idea to pull away from a cop at a traffic stop and speed away with your daughter in the car. And then just drive straight through a gate, bro. It's not just, oh, let me get it by this car. No, she drove through a fucking gate and then thought, I'm speeding. Let me also look at the radio. Just keep hitting the button. You know where that button is. You've driven this car. You don't need to keep looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

You know where the button is.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

This is where I struggle with her because of course she s swerves, of course she crashes, and all of it just feels like it could have been avoided had she just not done any of this dumb bullshit. And that's where I struggle with this movie. We know that people don't make perfect decisions because then you wouldn't have a plot. But sometimes the decisions are less noticeably bad and unrealistic and also unjustified. This was like, hey, wake up one day, you gotta go to that place. Shit's gonna get real. All right, cool. How about you just give me any other fucking reason why?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

It really seemed like they just needed to find, I don't know, a better fit for a mental health professional for their daughter and perhaps for them, do some family therapy and just move on and try to move forward and not dwell on that past and they don't even know why. They don't even know why she's obsessed with this town. They're just like, well, let's just bring her there and see what happens. I don't know. Maybe she'll have like PTSD or something. That'd be cool, huh?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Well, she is adopted. She's adopted. We learned that, right? So maybe they're just bad at telling us what's going on. That's why we don't know the dynamic of the relationship between the husband and the wife. That's why we don't know why they want to take her there. Maybe she's adopted. She keeps talking about Silent Hill. Obviously, they fucking picked her up at some fucking random place not too fucking far from Silent Hill. Maybe there's some connected shit here. I don't think it's a great idea. I think it's a bad idea, but I just think they did a bad job setting us up.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Yeah, they did such a bad job setting us up that I couldn't bring myself to care about any decision that was made. But here's the reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

It goes back to the beginning, our our initial explanation, which is this was fan service to some extent. Why bother? Because at the end of the day, a majority of the people that watch this film, myself included, and Sean as well, right? We played the games, so we know how this is gonna go. And they're like, why bother trying to do a little bit of exposition for some of these characters? Let's just jump right into the meat and potatoes and get this person straight to Silent Hill as soon as we can. That's basically what they did.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:53

That's not fan service, that's fan robbery.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

True fan robbery, I agree. But initially, what I'm trying to Say is they just wanted to show people Silent Hill and show them the characters and blah blah blah as soon as they could.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

For sure. Which I think is honestly a crime. And again, this is not a discredit to the director, because I know the director loved this game and put a lot of soul into it, but I think mistakes were made. And whether that was a studio interference, whether that was any number of reasons, either way, it's an imperfect product. But I think the best part of this movie, all those critiques aside, ghost towns of America.web. No? Do we not agree? What a sick website that was. That's super sick. Yeah, I tried going to it. Ghosttowns of America.com exists, but not.web.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

So that's really tragic.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:42

I really hope that the domain would have been available, but here we are. Aside from that, though, I do think that Sharon as a character and the performance that we get to Alessa, we think about Dahlia, would you think about the complexity of what that lore is? While I think a lot of it was executed in a very convoluted way, I think the people who bring it to life did a phenomenal job.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

Fair enough. It's easy to say for the worst part of the film that some of the atrocious visuals we do get throughout the film, you can pick that apart. But listen, I'm gonna stick with this because it was a feeling that I had throughout the whole film, and I just didn't think it's the husband. I just didn't think he needed to be there. I think it was just unnecessary. Even if you look further, because I did, I looked further. I was like, why is this here? And I uncovered what you said, Chris, about hey, it's just an all-female cast, whatever, we need some males in there kind of bullshit. That's terrible. One, but also, this dude's the only dude that didn't play or attempt to play the game prior to getting into this movie. Come on, dude. If you're gonna do a movie based off of a video game, at least give the video game a try to understand the vibe, and you're the only one that didn't want to do it, you just shouldn't have been in there. That's all. I like the dude. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, he does some good stuff, but in this movie, doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

I do want to watch an edit of this film that completely removes him and the male police officer. Just to strips him right out of the film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:12

That's the erasure I'm here for.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

We've mentioned it ag nauseum, but I guess my worst part would definitely be just the delivery of the plot because it's a pretty simple concept initially. Like when you really water it down, it's not that difficult. This girl's adopted. She is the essence of this tortured soul that has passed many years ago. This town has been burned down. This cult is crazy. The plot has a lot of things that we've seen, right? We've mentioned it in originality, so it's not that difficult. And yet somehow, I don't know what it is, but you just don't care. And we've talked about it. Maybe it is because it lacks that exposition and that detail or attention to detail with the characters at the beginning. Maybe it's because the characters look so freaking cool that who cares, anyways. I don't know, but it just it gets lost. And I think it would I would have liked for me to care a little bit more, even though I already know how this movie goes. Because when I compare it to everything else that I've seen multiple times, I still am invested. I mean, I've seen Gone Girl so many frickin' times, and I've am still invested, right? I've seen Resident Evil a ton of times, and I'm still invested. So Silent Hill, it's not that I'm not invested, I'm just not invested in the characters, nor the story, nor the dialogue. I'm there to see Pyramid Head destroy Anna.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

That's basically it. I have to say the worst part of the movie for me, not visually, just you know, in terms of moving the plot along, was the meandering through the haunted house rooms with no actual effects on the outcome of the plot, which is what at least a good like 30 minutes once we make it into Silent Hill. It was interesting. We want to see some weird, creepy things or whatever, but it doesn't really do much. It doesn't do much of anything until we meet up with other characters. Once we link up with other characters, cool. Now the plot can move along, now we can have a little back and forth, it's a little bit more interesting. But I'm gonna walk into a room and see creepy things, and they're gonna just turn into ash and disappear. What was gained? What was lost? Nothing. It's just neutral.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:19

Yeah, and that's exactly why I struggle with the idea of watching this movie again. You did bring up an interesting concept though. Could I re-watch a version that cuts out all the extra bullshit? Yes, I could. Give me the spark notes on this movie in movie form, and I think I'd be down for it. I'm also open to revisiting it after getting some more context, culture, knowledge from either playing the games or continuing the franchise. Although understanding what the next movie is, I feel like I'm gonna be even more confused. So yeah, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

Yeah, I think the next one is pretty wild. I don't remember exactly, but I do think the next one gets a little bit wild for sure. And I think, listen, for this one, I've already watched this one a handful of times. I think, Chris, definitely if you find a way to play the games, if you can even go back somehow and play some of the older games, I think that would be kind of cool, right? It would be something where you play that and then you revisit this movie maybe one more time, and I think maybe we'll see. But I'll probably watch this one again. Maybe there's some issues with the delivery of the plot, but I think the story's good. I think the movie, as bad as some of the CGI is, there's some movies out there today with even worse CGI. So I think for me it aged pretty well for how old it is. So I'll probably revisit it again.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

I agree. I definitely will revisit it. This is one of those films now that I think I'll just pop it in and put in the background when I'm doing things because ultimately, again, I know what's gonna happen and it's fun enjoyment. If for anything at all, it is for the score. That end credit song I still listen to this day on repeat. It's a bop. So I'll for sure be re-watching this, but even more specifically at the end of this year, potentially, or like later on in the coming months, because again, there's talks of remakes potentially, or the third film, and then they're redoing the Silent Hill games for PS5. So I think it's a really fun time for the franchise. So definitely we'll be re-watching it. And I actually am pretty sure I still own Silent Hill Origins, which is a PS2 game, I'm pretty sure. So it's a prequel to Silent Hill. So, Chris, just saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:38

I mean, I'm down, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:40

Fire up the Twitch stream. I don't know that I'm down to rewatch this movie anytime soon, though. I like have really fond memories, and this watch, I think it held up not as well, but enough for me to slash it. But I think another viewing in the next couple years, and I would not be as kind. I think as you get older and you realize I don't really have time for stuff, and the time I need to spend on things needs to be spent in things I truly care about or things that really remove stress. I don't know that this would fall into one of those groups pretty easily for me if I were to try to watch it again. And so I think this viewing, let's leave it at that. If it happens again in the future when we get to a new release or a remake or a reboot or something like that, okay. I'm here for it, but I'm not gonna seek it out because I I don't think it's gonna end well for another rating.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:21

You know, leaving well enough alone seems like a great vibe, so let's go ahead and leave it there. There you have it, folks. Silent Hill has earned one hack and three slashes. Now we've certainly had a robust discussion here, but it doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:34

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SPEAKER_00 1:13:44

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SPEAKER_01 1:13:58

There's something weird going on here.