Silent Hill Movie Review

Silent Hill
A review by Mike Amari

I wont bore those of you who havent played the games with a brief history. Go here instead.

The good news for those of us who have played the games, Ill get this out of the way.
This is everything you could have ever hoped for in a Silent Hill movie. And so much more. Every moment, every camera angle, every little detail all point to one thing, that this film is purely and truly part of the Silent Hill Mythos.

But is it a good horror movie you may ask o faithful reader. And to that I answer oh dear lord yes.

This is the way horror is supposed to be. Uncomfortable angles, unflinching situations and unbelievable visual effects all remind us of the promise that the horror genre once hinted toward and has resolutely forgotten. Blood is not just tossed at the audience, body parts are not severed without an immense sense of gravity. Recent movies like Hostel throw scene after scene of gore at the viewer without much effect because its all handled matter of fact, gore for gores sake and causes us to forget why it should bother us. It is not matter of fact, it is not normal, it is a phenomenally awful thing and all of that shock and amazement is in full force in Silent Hill. One scene in particular with Pyramid Head (thats right fellow fan boys, Pyramid Head) will catch you completely off guard, which is what horror should do.

Most importantly though is that we finally have a true horror movie with a highly intelligent, multi-faceted story running throughout the movie. Silent Hill the games have a convoluted and rich mythology. The screenplay hits all of the important bits in a most lucid and organic manner without ever leaving you in the dark. Even fans of the games will be led off track with a few twists, but ultimately winds up in the same place where the games leave you. My love of this film was cemented when, after the final scene, the frosted haired, muscle bound mook two rows ahead of me said Im confused

Which leads to the biggest hurdle this movie faces: it is not a mainstream horror movie. This is horror as it is meant to be: uncomfortable and challenging and all together engrossing (see also last years criminally under rated Stay)

See it early, see it often.

Till next time, keep it cool boppers.

Trapt for ps2

Trapt
Developer: Tecmo
Year: 2006
Rated: M for Mature

I was always one of those kids who reveled in finding new and interesting ways to destroy his toys. G.I. Joes littered the backyard, usually in pieces, from failed paratrooper drops, slightly singed from a napalm attack or smashed under various rock slides. Hell, even He-Man’s arms were swapped with Skeletor’s after a successful Frankenstein moment. It’s this fascination with destruction that’s innate in all little boys that comes bubbling gleefully to the surface while playing Trapt.

Actually the fourth installment in Tecmo’s less than popular Deception series, Trapt continues the series tradition of damsel in distress luring various villagers, soldiers of fortune and ruffians into some old building and dropping a big goddamn rock on them. A goddamn FLAMING rock.


And really, that’s where the game excels. Nothing beats the satisfaction of successfully luring some brave sir knight onto a bear trap, swinging a big rusty pendulum at him and catching him mid air with a wooden stake launcer, pinning him to the wall. If nothing else this game will get you applying that Rube Goldberg type thinking to everything around you for about a solid week.

Which brings us to the first of many weakness’ of this game, it’s length, or lack thereof. Your first play through will top off at about two hours, even with the extra side missions, so unless you get sucked into the ‘gotta kill em all’ mindset (there is a death gallery that keeps track of who you killed and how) like I did, this is barely enough to keep you busy for a weekend.
The story, while at least recognizably in English (unlike the abominable localization of Deception 3), is your finest dime store plot. That is to say, about on par with your basic soap opera (some of the side missions are funny though)so don’t expect too much in that department.


Not much is new in this installment. The game play is still fairly repetitive, adding only minimal upgrades (the large scale, environment specific traps are a nice touch) and the graphics are along the lines of first gen PS2 games complete with slowdown.

This was obviously a rush job, they didn’t even get American voice actors, deciding instead to subtitle the original Japanese.
It may not be pretty, it may not be groundbreaking, but at 30 bucks, damn if Trapt ain’t fun as hell.