Silent Hill movie announced

Yeah, just spotted the news of this on Gamespy. Holy goddamned fuckin' SHIT, dude, that sounds great.

But what really gets me going is the fact they also mentioned Konami is going to be participating in the production themselves, working on script supervision, monster design, and sound creation.

Dunno if that's true or not, but well, I'm gonna be praying to Samael like frickin' crazy just to be on the safe side.

I also am wondering if they'll be going for straight adaptation or a new story altogether...curious.

SCREW Gans. Fucking Uwe Boll is where it's at.

Not to sound overly cynical, but I'll believe the Gans involvement when I read it in the trades.

Although granted, he did just lose funding for "L'Aventurier", so maybe he's looking for a paycheck project.

The first 30 minutes or so of Phantoms has always reminded me of a Silent Hill movie, actually. Here's hoping they cast Ben Affleck!

Just found a press release of sorts on this with a quote from Gans himself. Sounds legit, but who knows. Writing up story for evening update now.

Yup. Looks like it's true after all. Interesting.

You're joking, right?

arg. i don't know about this. silent hill games are my fave survival horror and the they have scared me more than pretty much any movie i have seen in years, but i don't have faith in the translation, as they will most likely not let it get too fucked up for fear of alienating a lot of potential viewers. maybe with konami involved they will try to make if for people into the games, but i somehow doubt it. i always hoped some japanese director would take a crack at this, since japanese horror is a lot closer in tone over to american horror. or maybe david lynch if he decided to do a straigt up horror someday.

Is Milla going to be in it? If not then it will never be as good as RE (which was a goddamn good movie).

Here's the thing...Konami's had many chances to see the game made into a movie, especially after the success of 'Resident Evil'. They've always said they wouldn't let a movie about 'SH' get made unless they knew it would live up to the name. The fact that they've brought in a very stylish director is a really good sign to me, though I admit he's never really shown anything to show he can pull off that kind of atmosphere.

Still, they're working close with him, and despite what Ryan says <a href="http://www.creature-corner.com/news3/sept18silenthill.php3" target="_blank">here</a>, I think that might be a good thing...

Yeah, I'd like either to have seen a Japanese treatment, moments of Ringu seemed to have a similar feel, like the uncomfortable glimpses we see of Sadako. And I'll double yay and triple hipshake the Lynch SH movie, I found much of Mulholland Drive similar in tone and abstraction from reality as Silent Hill. And I'm sure I read that Twin Peaks was amongst the game creators list of many influences. Which has a sense about it.

I really hope the child and drug abuse subtext to Silent Hill aren't done away with. The full horror of Silent Hill has many levels to it.

I'd so love to see a good adaptation, the game was more than a game, it was a movie we could take part in, and imo there are few great horror movies any more, just gore and 'shock' crap - SH sustained my neeeeeds.

Despite what Ryan wrote in his article on the main site, Gans is no longer working on THE ADVENTURER because financing fell through. So SILENT HILL could actually be his follow-up to BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. Interesting.

Gans is kind of an odd choice to go for.

If a Silent Hill movie must be made then Jaume Balaguero should be the one to do it. Him or the guy that did Vanilla Sky (not a great film, but perfect SH atmos).

Fucking Uwe Boll IS where it's at.

Preferably with an iron rod.

A rusty one.

With spikes.

While denying him tetanus shots.

Yay!

Silent Hill has always been a creepy game series, so now maybe the movies could follow.

Yea, Samuel Hadida is the producer. H (he did true romance, brotherhood of the wolf and Spider) Christophe Gans is the director.
Of course, Konami will be helping also. The games were GREAT so I cant wait to see how this turns out.

Gans could do a great job with Silent Hill, but I would still have loved to see John Fawcett get the gig.

I hope this don't go to waste like RE did, eventhough I think it was a good movie. Can't wait...you guys think it'll be about the first game? what actually happen during the first game, I beat SH 2 and 3, and 3 gave me an idea about what went on in SH...anyone who beat the first one explain to me.

(SPOILERS TO SILENT HILL 1)

Essentially it was the story of Harry Mason who goes to Silent Hill with his daugher some years after his wife dies, taking him on a wicked journey into the depths of evil and learning about the evil plot by some cult to ressurect/arise up "Samael", a dark God. That's the gist. I suggest you play the game, though. There's a lot lot more details to things that're really hard to explain for me. Hell, I don't know how the SH-goddess I have for a friend remembers all that stuff.

There was some cool stuff in a school, lot of traveling around town, some good stuff in the hospital (every SH game has Hospital goodness wink ), etc.

I sure as hell hope they either do a new story or the first game, because that'd be best. SH2 I loved a lot but it's so incredibly cerebral and worked so perfectly as ambigious as it was, don't think it could be done justice in 2-hour film format. SH1, with good visual imagery to help tell the story, would work well as a film.

Then again, I'm all for a new story, as long as it's different and unique enough.

I read off one of the movie sites ( I think it was this one) that they plan to make an original story for the movie. It does not matter if they take the story from the first game or not because the main character of the game series was the town itself and the mystery behing it.

I think it'd be great if they just smashed all three games together and made a movie with bits from each.. I especially love the idea from SH2 where the main character recieves a letter from his dead wife, saying to meet her in Silent Hill. Just that alone would be great material for a SH movie. But with that said, if this movie isn't one of the scariest films I've seen in awhile, I'm going to be disappointed. The SH games go beyond any movie I've seen as far as scaring the shit out of me, so I really hope they do these great games justice.

Exactly! If anyone was born to direct a SILENT HILL film, it would be Balaguero. His films may have their flaws but his stylistic approach, the use of sound and editing in his films and the atmosphere of gloom and despair that he so effectively created in both THE NAMELESS and DARKNESS would make him the perfect director. Maybe someone else should write the script, though.

Christophe Gans is a very talented director and while I didn't like his NECRONOMICON short, I enjoyed CRYING FREEMAN and BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. The only problem I had with the latter were some very poor special effects that pulled me out of the story. But budgetary constraints shouldn't be a problem with SILENT HILL. My main concern is whether or not he'll get the atmosphere right. I don't worry all that much about what story they will end up using but rather if they'll be able to nail the SILENT HILL atmosphere.

Gans is an odd choice and definitely not the ideal director but he's much more promising than the usual suspects when it comes to video game adaptations (Paul W.S. Anderson, Uwe Boll) or the next music video director who tries to make it big in Hollywood.

If they start in a whole different direction, meaning a new story.... that kinda reminds me of the approach Paul W.S. Anderson did. So, I'm kinda fearful in that sense they might fuck it up. The movie should either be the entire story of SH2, becuz that was the shit... or put SH1 and SH3 together.. for those who played all three, u know what I mean.

I still say SH2 is a bit too complex to be done on film, though. There's way too much nuasances and the like. Then all the very-ambigious, "makes you think" stuff. Hell, the whole game essentially REQUIRED you to think to figure out what was happening and why. It bugged some of the morons in the gaming community, I remember.

Sure, you can trim down a lot, but it'll end up confusing for a lot of people unless it has TONS of imagery that tells you what's going on.

Though, if they could do it right, like as a 2 and a half hour hour, maybe 3 hour thing, perhaps. But I remember there was just so much "Stuff" in SH2 that it's not possible to truly do, unless you'd have to cut and shrink some stuff down. You got all the different characters and their scenes, and the whole Pyramid Head mythos and whatnot. Let alone all the backround on the whole, "monsters are based on what you fear" which could be hard to explain. Just in general, I'd love to see it (just out of curiousity), but I feel it's more fitting as a game, rather than a movie.

Given, you'd have to cut down for an SH1 movie anyway, but I think in the case of SH2, it'd be higher. Not to mention, with SH2, the ending would be difficult to do because every one could really work (though be very unsatisfactory), whereas SH1 had a definitive ending.

Yes, I do realize I spent my time doing a rant for no real reason. Ignore me.

Edit: Note to self, tweak your posts entirely after adding a chunk to a paragraph.

I like your ranting, evil . You're right about cutting SH2 down alot..but I still say it would be a more interesting movie than say the whole occult angle that SH1 and 3 had... although it works for video games, I'm tired of seeing it on film (i.e - Bless the Child, End of Days, blah , blah)

Not when you know he's a big big fan of the series. He was interwieved in a special issue of Cahiers du Cinema about video games and he raved about SH 2 for a long while. Makes sense to me that Konami would spring for a high-profile director who knows the shit he's gonna be adapting. I only hope his influences aren't gonna show as much as they did in his previous movies, but this has more potential with a guy like him at the helm.

And I hope, nah pray, that Konami's close involvment means that Akira Yamaoka will get to be composer and sound designer.

I didn't know that. But being a fan doesn't really qualify him for anything, I mean Anderson claims to be a fan of the Resident Evil games. I'm more interested in how good a filmmaker Gans is, and so far he's yet to impress me with his sub-Fuqua Crying Freeman Wooisms, and the decidedly lightweight Brotherhood of the Wolf. Necronomicon was merely ok.

Like I said, Balaguero would be a better fit. Of course the BEST choice would be Adrian Lyne, but he would probably never touch this.

Darkness, loneliness, depression, sorrow, abuse, freakish body movements, layers of nightmare "reality", perfect use of shadows and sound. Whoever directs Silent Hill has to know his way around this shit. Not just supernaturally haunting, but EMOTIONALLY haunting.

Of course....no one said anything about taking out Pyramid Head. They better not, the movie would be ruined..ruined I tell ya!!!!

Well, I think Pyramid Head should really only be used if he's necessary. If the guilty/damned soul is one of the types he's supposed to go for. Not like gratitiously.

Totally. While not so keen on his direction in tunes on SH3, his tunes and fx/soundscapes go along way to making SH a compelling and atmospheric experience.

Personally I'd like to see SH 1 adapted to the screen. There are so many great moments, I loved SH 2, but to be honest I found it quite emotionally draining, there was little in the way of respite from the environment. SH 1 had it's transitions from bad Silent Hill, to even worse Silent Hill. At least in the 'bad Silent Hill' you felt a little less tense.

I think I've played SH 1 about a dozen times, and always always I'd start getting the extra heavy shitters when Harry steps out the back of the house and you hear the air-raid type sirens and it would suddenly be night time. Extra special bad type Silent Hill bight time, that is.

I knew I couldn't feel at ease until the whole school episode was completed and the relativey- managable sanity of Silent Hill day was restored.

Heck, I always thought it would be fun if Harry could've just kicked back and chilled out to some vids in the Katana house for a while or two, after that whole night/school/basement ordeal.

I think there's more interesting locations in SH 1, and scenarios, but I think SH 2 might be a preferred studio direction, if they're going to adapt the games at all and not create something entirely new.

What SH 2 has in it's favour-

'The letter from his dead wife.' Now that is such a great hook for a movie.

'Pyramid Head' - instant big bad classic.

'James' confused feelings' - an intersting romantic device, should he get it on with Maria just because she looks like Mary? James belief that Mary may against all reason be alive makes the situation interesting.

'Twist ending' - well not quite a twist I suppose, it's kind of telegraphed early on, but it doesn't feel forced, it actually brings a harmony to the story and restores balance to the Force. Heh.

I suppose it could be seen as downbeat, but it might come down to just how they execute it as to whether folks would feel fulfilled or suicidal.