Christophe Gans' Silent Hill is a dud of epic proportions. It is a horror film with zero thrills, suspense, tension or shocks. Everything from the premise and dialogue to the acting and computer effects are laughably bad.
It's difficult to imagine any movie released in the next eight months could possibly be worse, which makes Silent Hill the leading contender for worst film of 2006.
Rose (Radha Mitchell) and Chris (Sean Bean) adopted a vacant-eyed little girl named Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) and quickly discovered she has a dark side. She sleepwalks, draws pictures with terrifying images and keeps referring to a town named Silent Hill.
Naturally, mom drags daughter off to Silent Hill so she can face her demons. Poor dad is left to rush after them.
No sooner do they arrive at Silent Hill than daughter disappears and distraught mom has to run down deserted streets and through abandoned buildings searching for her.
All this running around might work in the video game that inspired the movie but on the big screen it quickly gets tiresome and monotonous.
See Radha run through mile-long corridors of a crumbling school or monstrous hotel.
We should mention, as does every local who tries to warn mom and dad not to go to Silent Hill, there is a fire burning under the town.
Could it be hell?
It certainly feels like it about 40 minutes into the film's inexplicable, unforgivable 125 minute running time.
When dad arrives with Officer Gucci (Kim Coates) in tow, we discover Silent Hill exists in parallel universes.
It's all bright colours and sunny skies for dad but dim, smoky vistas for mom and her helper, Officer Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), who wears a form-hugging leather outfit straight out of a bondage magazine.
Only mom and Cybil get to meet the hellish demons, creepy crawlies and faceless buxom zombies that wander around the various levels of this inferno.
There are also members of a bizarre religious cult led by Alice Krige who want to burn little Sharon as a witch.
At the height of all the monumental silliness a little demon takes time out to explain who all these bizarre characters are and why Sharon is obsessed or possessed or repressed or whatever she is.
When a horror film is this bad you just know the makers of Scary Movie 5 are going to have a field day with it.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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