Tuesday

Not long into Silent Hill I thought to myself 'this seems like a video game'. The credits at the end revealed the film was adapted from a game, but this was hardly an expert analysis from myself. Apparently the director deliberately photographed scenes to remind viewers of the game. I did, however, think there was another element that gave this film away, and it exposes a fundamental difference between what a film goer and a game player expect: narrative consistency. I'm sure the director must have adapted the game somewhat, created extra characters and plot-lines, in order to try to drag the viewer along, but he just wasn't successful. Events happen, or the main character does things, that aren't explained. They seem deliberately done for style, or horror, rather than content. There is no reasonable, narrative consistency. Of course, I don't expect everything in a movie to always be explainable, but it must be consistent within the film, and a lot in Silent Hill wasn't. Is this then the reason that almost every adaptation from a video game has failed as a film? In all, twenty have been made. Did you like any of them?