Apparently, Silent Hill is based on a computer game.  I haven’t heard of it.  I haven’t played it.  If this film is anything to go by, then I won’t be buying the game version anytime soon.  I’d only be confused and irritated.

I’m not really sure what this film is about.  This doesn’t mean it’s cool in a Mulholland Drive kind of way.  Rather, it had we wanting to walk out of the theatre.  It begins with a mother, Rose (Mitchell), and her daughter, Sharon, driving to a ghost town called Silent Hill.  Sharon has been having bizarre hallucinations about this place and Rose thinks that visiting it for real might help cure her.

When they get there however, things start getting spooky.  The town is covered with smoke and there are strange ghostly creatures that attack them.  When they try to leave, they find the roads have been cut-off.  They are trapped and must fight for their lives.  Trying to help locate them is Rose’s husband, Christopher (Bean), but he too is up against some supernatural elements.

Well, that’s my interpretation of events.  If I’ve gotten it wrong, then they should have done a better job helping me understand.  I’m surprised to know that it was written by Roger Avary, a filmmaker I admire for his screenplays of Pulp Fiction and The Rules Of Attraction.  This is not one of his better efforts.

Australian Rhada Mitchell stars in a role that only requires her to look frightened and scream out her daughter’s name repeatedly.  At the preview screening I attended, the audience’s reaction said it all.  They laughed when they weren’t supposed to (mostly at the cheesy dialogue) and looked as equally confused as I was.  Few would have had positive words to say afterwards.

There are a few different theories about the ending on internet forums but after two hours of this nonsense, I couldn’t be bothered reading them.  Please don’t make a sequel.