Perhaps better silent. Or, if possible, with the dialogue cut, but moans and screams and echoes intact. I must say I did enjoy this movie, and to be honest would not have enjoyed it in the theater. At home, I could cut all the lights, sink into a chair, turn the sound mostly down and speed through just to catch cool visuals. And there are a slew of great visuals: it’s a genuinely creepy aesthetic, and there’s rarely a shot that doesn’t have some nice touch, some cool glint off a moist surface or a sharp angled line through a beautiful wide shot. The story is of course piffle, and I feel bad for Alice Krige, who I first recall from the lousy film adaptation of Ghost Story, playing there and then playing everywhere ever since a spooky evil woman. Would have been nice if this had been simply strange, instead of trying to explain… or if there was a clearer, more starkly-defined sense of urgency to the thing. Instead, it works as a not-terribly-frightening but still malicious dream.
I loved the game, which is genuinely creepy and compelling–the movie is a disappointment in its need to explain tediously every event (and in its lack of those creepy kid-sized ghouls with knives) but I agree, there are some amazing visuals, scenes vividly realized from the game. Unfortunately, in most cases these days, the videogames are far better than movies, which, as with Silent Hill, are desperate to impose conventional storytelling on a new form which resists it. At least in Silent Hill the acting is marginally better than that done by the Asian folk in their awkward voice overs. and, another thing, more creepy mandolin music!
watched this on ondemand last night. not scary at all, but some amazing imagery, as the two mikes have noted. if alice krige had not shown up this would have been a pretty decent movie.
let me ask: what is it with mothers and daughters in contemporary horror? is this simply a japanese import? a staple of the genre that i’m not clued into (being a scaredy-cat)? watching radha mitchell chase her daughter into hell last night i wondered idly if in the american manifestation this might have something to do with abortion. probably not?
ok, arnab, you just moved ship . . . why Comcast over Qwest and Directv, etc.? It is remarkably cheaper and it sounds like the fastest version of DSL is even faster than Comcast. Did you comparison shop at all? Nicola and I recently bought a new house and I’m seriously thinking about the dish. I love the two year commitment and your price will remain the same for life . . . yes, for life! And hey, is Netflix the greatest company on earth. My monthly bill just went down $3!!! That’s the kind of capitalism I like!
The reliability of the dish totally depends on where you are. We have had it go out once in more than a year–during a major thunderstorm–but my parents’ went out when the wind blew and my cousin only had it for two weeks before they scrapped it.
the dish does not offer ondemand services–from what i understand. and cable broadband is faster than all dsl, except perhaps the new fiber-optic systems, but we don’t get those down where we are. but since we don’t have a 2-year commitment to charter (not comcast) we can switch at any time.