The movie, Silent Hill, was released in 2006 and is a movie based on a video game of the same title. I know that if you are fan of the video game, then I am a tool; because it's a great representation of the game. If you are not a fan, then you have no sympathy for me and I got what I deserved for wasting my time with it. If you have a job, a life, and participate in a regular monogamous sexual relationship, then you have no idea what I am talking about. Sure-you've heard of the movie, but you really don't know what it is all about. The "plot"-I put in quotations because there really isn't one; after all, it's just a video game for lovers of gratuitous violence and another addition to a long list of movies, games, and other entertainment centered upon the values of fear, torture, and submitting to your enemies. In case you are wondering, I didn't like this film and this article is to tell you why.
Anyway, the plot is essentially this-a woman with an adopted daughter has to go to a place called Silent Hill, WV for an unknown reason. I say unknown, because I didn't see the movie from the beginning and I hope that such a thing would have been explained at the onset. So, this woman takes her adopted daughter to this town. She is not in the town very long when the daughter disappears. The woman attempts to find the girl within the town. In her search, she finds a number of strange characters including a couple women whose dress, attitude, and speech patterns indicate that they are cuckoo for canned goods. They give the obligatory warnings about leaving the town. The heroine ignores these warnings and searches for the girl. She is then pursued by strangely dressed individuals who nearly capture her, but are dissuaded by the entire scenery changing into a cheap Dante's Inferno knockoff and a group of strange creatures who appear to want to help the mother in her quest. It was at this point that I thought that this plot device was a wink at God helping this woman. I think that would be a great theme-the Church being the dragon and these manifestations helping the mother and Child as told in the book of Revelation of the Holy Bible. This, sadly, is not the case. These changes occur throughout the movie as we find out that the pursuers in the strange clothes are members of a non-descript church who follows their own teachings and not that of Christ, hence forward to be further identified as the cult. The creatures wanting to help are some type of manifestation of evil according to the cult. Once the players in this drama are revealed is when the battle gets murky. Apparently, this evil manifestation who is assisting the mother, is some type of demon or perhaps a psychic manifestation of a terminally ill girl who was declared evil , taken by this cult, and burned alive after being accused of being a witch. The captured girl-the adopted daughter-is the "good" manifestation of the terminally ill girl, although it was never explained how or why this was so. The final conflict matches the members of this cult against the evil manifestation where the manifestation had to "possess" the mother in order to defeat the cult. The cult having some type of influence which prevented this manifestation from acting on its own behalf-that is, to seek revenge for the girl. Prior to the final battle, the mother realizes what was happening although she does a poor job of revealing it to the audience. The next series of events is why this film angered me. These events are again unclear as apparently the mother commits suicide in order to release the manifestation that possessed her. The manifestation then takes care of business by slaughtering all the cult members and sending them to hell. In the final scene, the mother and daughter escape the cult and drive home. Upon arriving home, they are enveloped in a fog and are both apparently deceased. It was never explained how the child died in all this. If she was dead and only a manifestation of psychic energy, then how was it she was captured and controlled in the first place? Again it is unclear and never explained during the film. The father/husband is aware that there is a presence in the house, but can't see the apparently deceased mother and child.
What angered me about this film is there are so many murky details and doesn't explain why and how the woman and child were killed. It is never clear how this child is a "good" manifestation and how the "bad" manifestation came to be. The writer of this movie either was more interested in making clichéd insults against The Church or is just a complete idiot. I liked the conflict with the cult as I agree that most denominations are not much better than cults as they don't rely upon the Word of God or conduct the Great Commission of preaching the Word of God and loving people. I also like the theme of the mother getting her adoptive daughter and finding the details of that adoption along the way. What I didn't like was the clichéd steam punk sets, the clichéd Dante's Inferno knockoff symbolism, and the ending where the child and mother die mysteriously. If you are going to kill off the heroine and the child then set us up beforehand-that is foreshadow their deaths. I then would have much more respect for this writer even though he killed them both. They were killed off senselessly and ashamedly. They do make it home, but as apparent ghosts that haunt the house endlessly; a cowardly way out.
This movie was stupid. It didn't have any good storytelling elements. It was poorly written and used clichéd criticisms of the Church at large; albeit, criticisms with which I concur. I think that any group of people that places more honor upon its own theologies over that of the Word of God as a part of the Church should be destroyed. This film showed that this evil was more powerful than those who were trying to resist it. Albeit, that it had to use the heroine in order to accomplish this. Such has been a theme of movies since the 1970s-that The Church is by no means able to resist the manifestations of the devil and people must be fearful and submit to them; even if you attempt to resist, it will be to no avail. While this may seem true on its face, those who are true to the Bible always overcome-such is the definition of a miracle.
No comments:
Post a Comment