Silent Hill Film Analysis

Silent Hill is a popular survival horror game based on manipulating the players mind state and toying with their grip on reality. In 2006 the game was given a film adaptation, directed by Christophe Gans from a screenplay created by Roger Avary. Through out this paper I will examine the differences and similarities between the first Silent Hill game of the series and the 2006 film version. The protagonist of the original video game was a writer named Harry Mason. Harry had a wife who died due to previous events within the game, and they had adopted a daughter together who they named Cheryl. Gans decided it would be a better direction for the film's adaptation to change Harry Mason into a woman, as he felt that the way Harry acted in the video

So, Harry Mason then became Rose DaSilva, played by the actress Radha Mitchel, but instead of her spouse being deceased like Harry’s wife was in the video game, the character of Rose’s husband, Chris DaSilva played by Sean Bean, was then created. The addition of Chris was encouraged by the studio production as they felt they wanted more male characters in the movie plot despite the director’s vision, so his inclusion acts as a sort of subplot with him searching for his wife and daughter, Rose and Sharon (Petrie). Several critics felt that this story path was unnecessary, and while I think Sean Bean does a good job, I can agree with their analysis. Alessa Gillespie, in both the video game and film adaptaion, is the daughter of Dahlia Gillespie. Alessa was horrifically burned as an infant, but is still alive and grown into an adult. The major differences of the two versions of Alessa, is that the game’s version was set on fire and burned as a result of a ritual, in order to bring upon the rebirth of a god-like deity, where as in the film, Alessa was burned in a barbaric ceremony to cleanse her soul that was performed by a mad cult. The cult was

One is a hazy fog world Harry finds himself in once he awakens in his wrecked jeep and begins looks for Cheryl. The second version is the terrifying “Otherworld”, which was created by Alessa’s rage and pain in conjunction with her super natural abilities. As you venture the game, events will cause a shift between the two worlds, and towards the end, there is a placed called “Nowhere” that you must conquer in order to finally find Alessa. In the film adaptation, there are a total of three separate versions of the town. The first being Silent Hill as it exists today in modern time, which is a version of the town that Chris visits in order to search for his wife Rose and daughter Sharon. The second version is Silent Hill covered in a thick white fog; the ash from the fire that is constantly flowing through the town. This is the version that Rose and Cybil, a police officer also dragged into the events, are caught in, along with the remaining surviving Silent Hill cult members. The final alteration is the “Otherworld”, which in the film is born from Dark Alessa, who is helping Alessa claim revenge on the cult that had burned her. In the game, surroundings can quite abruptly shift between the fog-riddled Silent Hill and the Otherworld, but with Chris being in the actual “real world” as these events take place at the same