Rating: Infernal Heat
In cinema there's an unwritten rule. A rule that most people involved don't even know. Films based on video games suck.
With one exception.
A don't know what it is exactly about films based on video games that explains why I hate them (what do you think I am an educated film critic?) except that if there is a unifying thread it's that they are amateurishly made. Looking at each film individually would probably be more effective at exploring the reasons for their failures but that's a matter for other reviews. This is about this film.
They broke the rule by actually taking their effort seriously (if they didn't I'd be rather pissed off that Radha Mitchell is in it.) I have no experience with the Silent Hill video games so cannot offer any perspective on whether they live up to them, if they share themes or a storyline.
The story focuses on a woman who's adopted daughter suffers hellish visions in her sleep and sleepwalks with near fatal consequences during which she screams 'Silent Hill.' She takes her daughter off the beaten path to the abandoned town but promptly loses her. The town turns out to be a nightmare world mystically cut off from the rest of the world and she has to find her daughter and escape from the infernal things that live there but that's not even half the story.
