Silent Hill: The Art of Adaptation

Ever since "The Super Mario” movie failed miserably every video game turned movie has shared the same critical demise and showed why there is a distinct reason video games and films are two separate entities. Films as a medium are entertainment that gives the audience the narrative and made passengers while the story marches on at its own steady pace. Video games on the other hand are created entirely different, some would argue, and needs the player to be in the driver’s seat to unfold the story that the creators envisioned. There are very few good examples of a video game to film adaptation that does justice to the source material. There are altogether way too many bad examples of studios not understanding how to handle the intellectual product they have film rights too. In a mad dash to produce a financially successful film studios usually waste the goodwill of the fans of the video game franchise and the patience of the typical movie goer. In the endless abyss of bad video game movies, I argue that Christophe Gans’ 2006 film “Silent Hill” is one example of an adaptation doing its source material modest justice.

“Silent Hill” as a franchise revolves around subject matters that range from cult orders, domestic violence, and penance for past acts; all the while giving the player a menacing sense of mystery and ominous oppression. The franchise has solidified itself as one of the staples of the survival horror genre for its deep storytelling, gripping gore, horror, and hypnotic sound design; these elements do show up in its adaptation to some degree. Gans being a fan of the video game franchise before joining the project went out of his way to send Konami, the holders of the franchise’s film rights, a video message telling them the importance of the series and heavily expressing why he wanted to make this film. He also went the extra mile and asked the series composer, Akira Yamaoka, for permission to use music pieces he’d written for the games to be featured in the film. The elements of “Silent Hill” as a whole have been inspired by several horror films, novels, and TV shows, so why is the borrowing of film elements into video games so much easier than a film borrowing elements from a video game? To answer this, we must look at how the games were structured and how film tries to maintain the same individuality that its video game sibling tries to maintain.

 The first few “Silent Hill” games were structured as a linear semi-open world, meaning that the player had a great range of freedom and agency to explore the titular town. A film cannot replicate this framework due to time constraints and most films’ heavy reliance on a three-act structure that deviates away from too much freedom to explore the world the film is set in. Movies made in the early 2000s had the “get in get out” mentality, world building as a concept is a new phenomenon that wasn’t too prevalent back then and the process of fleshing out these worlds could be a daunting task if those writing the movie are inexperienced or unknowing of the source material, which is usually the case. The “Silent Hill” film benefits from having many scenes be both indoors and out to show the trademark fogginess of the town and the grimy rusted hellscapes underneath. One of the main staples missing from the film that were always present in the games were its puzzles, the games prided themselves on these and their esoteric solutions. There is no scene in the film where we see our protagonist Rose Da Silva shoving a six pack of juice into a trash chute to retrieve a McGuffin to progress the plot of the film, a film undergoes these changes sometimes for the better and is an excellent excuse to place an “Easter egg” for the game fans to point out.      

Time and time again, at least during the video game adaptation boom of the early 2000s, there were many movies that were based on franchises that shared nothing more than the title, because of this, original stories that are usually narratively weaker than the source material’s took precedence over adapting something that was already present. Many video game adaptations fail at doing justice to the simplest of concepts. Arguably the first staple of survival horror video games is the “Resident Evil” franchise, who’s fate in movies went on too long and did nothing to elevate the source material. Another example of a video game borrowing from film, the Resident Evil franchise was heavily influenced by the zombie films of George A. Romero but established its own identity since its inception. The downside of the franchise getting as popular as it did, and still retaining its popularity (which is a great thing), is that it led itself to being picked up by a studio that knew nothing of the franchise besides its name. The Resident Evil movie franchise was led by an original character, in an original story that had nothing to do with the plots of the games. Besides the main antagonists of the series being Umbrella and shoehorning main protagonists from the series, even though their presence makes no sense, the movies reflected nothing of the games it was based on, but still managed to make six movies.

Unfortunately, the screenwriter that helped Gans flesh out the film, Roger Avary, was arrested for vehicular manslaughter and that halted the plans for him returning to doing another “Silent Hill” film, this is the circumstance that lead to the disastrous “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.” “Silent Hill” may not be a perfect film to critics, but it is a film that retains its artistic vision because of the director involved actually wanting to do the series the film is based on justice, not looking to chase a pay check. The future of this video game's film adaptations are practically non-existent, but there are some that see that town in their restless dreams and hope to re-visit it someday soon.