Silent Hill

Following the successful PlayStation game of the same name (unleashed on gamers in 1999 and superseded by several sequels/spin-offs) Silent HIll continued a trend that brought in a few shillings for the film industry whilst simultaneously burdening the preciously limited time of viewers with an increasingly large and smelly mound of dung to wade through.  Guilty entries in the sub-genre of computer game adaptations included House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Postal and, to a lesser extent, Resident Evil (although that series can be entertaining in a switch-your-brain-off manner).  Back in the nineties it was rubbish like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (bearable maybe) and Super Mario Bros.; in the noughties it was the horror movie fan who became the target.  I wrote off Silent Hill when I caught the theatrical presentation back in 2006: too long, not enough story, style over content, Sean Bean, etc.  Despite that, however, it’s sometimes worth checking out a movie for a second viewing because it can reveal its underlying charms that way, should there be any present.  I’ve since seen it around six times at the point of writing this.

Swapping Harry from the game for a woman (in fact that’s the case with many of the characters) called Rose, the storyline otherwise remains fairly faithful to the first game: Rose and her husband Christopher have a few problems with daughter Sharon whereby she sleepwalks, unconsciously draws up nasty little images and mumbles about a place called Silent Hill that they discover is a ghost town with a horrific history.  Rose decides the only way to break the cycle (medication hasn’t worked) is to take Sharon off to this place Silent Hill to see why it’s become such an ongoing mental problem with the girl.  After coming into unwanted contact with a policewoman along the way, Rose and the cop both crash their car and bike respectively, just outside of Silent Hill itself.  Rose wakes up to find Sharon missing.  She goes in search across the misty town, a place strangely misplaced from reality, and soon realises there’s something truly frightening about the environment.  Air-raid sirens periodically announce the arrival of all-encompassing darkness, with it truly monstrous organisms that will slaughter anything vaguely human.  Meanwhile Christopher is understandably perturbed by his wife’s rash trip with their daughter and heads off to Silent Hill himself.  There he finds a police detective and team overseeing the scene of the former vehicle accident.  Both the detective and Christopher head into the town to look for Rose and Sharon, but while they seem to be all there simultaneously, they don’t actually see each other: as Chris and the detective are present in everyday reality, Rose and the female cop now exist in some alternate dimension, a limbo world inhabited by hellish creatures and the damned former inhabitants of the town.

The story of this Canadian-French production is undoubtedly quite limited, with many sequences simply following Rose as she’s exploring the town or being threatened by demonic apparitions.  The problem inherently lies with the very nature of the production, it being a game-to-film adaptation.  A writer is damned if they do or don’t in that respect: add too much story and you’re at risk of disappointing the hardcore fans of the game by not maintaining faithfulness.  Whereas, take the game literally and there’s inevitably barely enough story to stretch the onscreen action to conventional running time.  In that respect at least Silent Hill falls into the sincere camp, but it still exceeds two hours and that’s way too long in my opinion.  Dialogue is oddly dated in places, perhaps deliberately so in order to enhance the film’s affiliation with the unfamiliar (it’s hard to imagine that writer Roger Avary botched the job after his work on the likes of Pulp Fiction, True Romance, etc.) while logic is bizarre at times – despite the source I think this could have done with some work.  The other issue I really have is with Sean Bean.  Of course, he’s often extremely good at his vocation but he just doesn’t cut playing an American.  If I was American I’d think he was taking the piss, it just doesn’t work.  I never see much point in hiring an actor for a part that requires an accent so grossly at odds with their own natural tongue and here we have someone heavily northern (from Sheffield specifically) who can pull off a traditional English accent well enough, but when it comes to American he’s an embarrassment to whatever’s left of international peace.

On the positive side the film’s visuals are stunning and director Christophe Gans possesses stellar understanding of powerful composition, aided in no doubt by the vast, decaying production design of legendary Carol Spier - many of these frames could be frozen and hung on the wall (depending on the surrounding décor…), and the 2.35:1 proportions are comfortably put to use by the director and Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen.  Colour choices and contrasts are so acute it’s almost too perfect.  Similarly, the music (mostly adopted from the game) adds to the tension with originality and creepiness throughout.  Radha Mitchell does well as Rose, and though the Australian is another accent-choice anomaly she’s certainly more successful in this area than Bean.  She also looks fantastic.  Finally, the point of the film: terror.  Certain scenes are utterly nightmarish in tone and effect, there are times when proceedings escalate to such a tremendous height of insanity and absolute ghastliness they not only drag you in but also make up for the movie’s aforementioned shortcomings.  The inhuman creations that populate the world are imaginative, an appreciable cut above usual genre monsters.  Whereas I once considered Silent Hill to be an overly stylistic waste of space I eventually changed my attitude to the film.

An early Blu-ray release (and purchase, for me) in the UK from Pathé, the disc (significantly better than the Sony US edition of the same period) has stood up surprisingly well over time – stark contrasts and colours over a substrate of apparent grain that looks okay in motion although doesn’t hold up quite so well under still-frame analysis.  The reasonably pleasing image is combined with a powerful DTS HD MA Hi-Res audio track.  There’s also a reasonable supply of extras.  The same master was later utilised by Scream Factory for a special edition containing more extras and an overall higher bitrate (alongside slight differences in colour timing).  Unless you’re desperate for the extras, I wouldn’t say that it’s worth upgrading.  Perhaps more could be done with this 35mm (possibly Super 35)-shot film these days (although it was - as has become the norm - digitally mastered at intermediate stage, so that could limit possibilities if full remastering from the negative is not viable); if not, I’m happy enough with this disc.

Jeepers Creepers 3

Beginning at the conclusion of the first film, outside of the police station where The Creeper has been attacked and lost, the apparently abandoned truck is towed away, intended to be impounded.  On route, The Creeper reappears and following a couple of deaths reacquires his truck, hiding it away in an open (!) field.  It is discovered by some arrogant teens but as with the cops they can find no way of boarding the vehicle, filled as it is with booby traps.  Meanwhile some cops and a team of vigilantes head out to track and finish the monster.  Elsewhere a grandmother whose son, Kenny, was once taken by the creature now has visions of her dead son and his warnings, whilst musing over revenge.  Kenny's niece attracts the attention of the monster and all are gradually brought together in a showdown to stop his insatiable lust over human body parts.

I feel there are several flaws with Jeepers Creepers 3 that did not afflict the previous outings.  The story meanders around confusingly over a severed hand that holds the key to information, and many characters that crisscross one another as they become mixed up in the monster's activities.  The previous entries took time to build up suspense, giving the characters something to become increasingly terrified about, whereas here the action starts from the first second.  Some may see this as advantageous, however, I don't feel that it works in the film's favour.  The other aspect that presents weakness is The Creeper himself.  Again, he is ably played by Jonathan Breck, however, the creature is fully visible in sunny daylight most of the time.  No attempt is made to conceal him as was the case in parts 1 and 2, thus - despite looking pretty cool - his impact is inevitably lessened.  The film is a reasonable time-passer maybe, on the other hand a bit of a let-down following two superior chapters.  The one nifty aspect of part 3 is that it winds up being a nice bridge between the first and second parts (with a cameo from one of the first film's characters at the conclusion).

Released in the UK on Blu-ray by 101 Films, the disc reminds me of a budget acquisition in the early days of DVD - there are no extras at all (not even a trailer) and the menu simply provides the viewer with a 'Play' option, no chapter selections, nothing!  Still, the film looks nice - 2.35:1 HD, it is very sharp and detailed disadvantaged only by a bitrate/lazy encode that can't always keep up, resulting in banding where colour gradations should be smooth.  The audio defaults to stereo but can be switched to 5.1, thankfully, for a competent track that exhibits some source mixing issues.  Overall the presentation is reasonable and the barebones disc can be picked up without too much financial outlay.

Jeepers Creepers 2

Jeepers Creepers 2 prologues with a farmer witnessing his son being whisked off by 'The Creeper', a creature that awakens every twenty three years to feed (on humans) for a month.  Switching scene to a bus-load of football players (alongside a handful of cheerleaders) who are heading back home after a victory, their vehicle succumbs to what appears initially to be a tyre blow-out.  The driver finds evidence that it might have been caused deliberately (due to the embedded presence of an arcane shuriken), but they are unsure by who, or what.  Unable to get moving they try, in vain with it being quite a remote road, to radio for help.  Then one of the group is pulled off into the air by an unseen assailant.  Panic ensues, the group pile back onto the bus, which from then on offers only limited protection for them from the creature lurking outside and clearly intent on picking them off, one terrified individual at a time.

Following in the footsteps of the popular Jeepers Creepers only two years later (2003), this slightly longer sequel brings us an entirely fresh group of victims, sorry, people.  Returning, naturally, is The Creeper of course, as well as a fleeting appearance by Justin Long as Darry.  Again I think there is a well-handled, methodical build-up, outside of the prologue, with the group initially starting off as a brash, overly-confident bunch that are gradually brought back down to earth as their situation becomes starkly critical.  I love the performances throughout this film, I think the actors nail the arrogant-gradually terrified characters nicely - some fine drama/conflict ensuing along the way - and obviously Jonathan Breck pins down The Creeper's blackly humorous, simultaneously nasty character as though he was made for the role.  The stranded-bus setting, utilised for most of the story, has great power in its natural limitations, oddly claustrophobic despite the whole thing taking place aside open fields.  This entry in the series in my view matches the quality of the first film, and likewise has stood up well over time.

As with the first film, my copy is part of a double-bill Blu-ray pack (imported from the US), although extras-free for the second entry unfortunately.  Jeepers Creepers 2 has a good 2.35:1 HD transfer, adequately grainy and colourful.  The surround (DTS 5.1) track has great cinematic power, well-mixed and delivering a fine audio experience.  At time of writing the Germans have released what appears to be a superior edition of part 2 (both as special limited packaging and standard edition), although it is oddly absent on Blu-ray in the UK, so it is a case of importing it from the US or Deutschland.

Jeepers Creepers

Brother and sister duo (Justin Long and Gina Philips as Darry and Trish respectively) are travelling across country to visit parents when a maniacal truck driver nearly pushes them off road.  Not long after that they pass an old church where they believe they see the driver forcing bloody bodies down a chute.  Later on, when they notice the same strange character pass by in his truck, they (or more so, Darry) see an opportunity to head back to the church to investigate whether whoever was being dropped down the chute is still alive and needs help.  Trish is not exactly keen on this idea but goes along with it.  Reaching the church, Darry stupidly slips down the chute himself while trying to see what's down there.  He does of course find out personally - a cave full of corpses stitched together and mutilated and/or preserved.  Managing to locate a way out the perturbed Darry re-joins his sister and they both head to the nearest town to attract help.  That is not the only thing they've attracted, however, because the aforementioned driver is clearly not oblivious to their meddling, or the smell of their fear...

A surprisingly effective horror from Victor Salva, a tangible sense of mystery is built up during the first half or so of the film as the siblings embroil themselves in a troublesome scenario, the gruesome likes of which they didn't at the beginning imagine (otherwise they may have bypassed it quite voluntarily!).  The mystery element has been dampened somewhat by sequels but that shouldn't take away what was achieved here at the time (2001).  'The Creeper' himself (a mute Jonathan Breck, who would appear in the role for all three of Salva's Jeepers Creepers outings) is a fantastically macabre creation, part slasher villain, part supernatural monster, he is concealed/revealed to just about the right extent and at the right pace to keep him suitably scary.  He also has a nasty habit of consuming body parts to provide himself with physical functionality (shades of Dr Freudstein from the legendary House by the Cemetery perhaps), as well as sniffing the fear of others, amongst other habits.  Overall, Jeepers Creepers has stood up well over the couple of decades since its original release.

My copy is part of an MGM/Fox double bill Blu-ray with Jeepers Creepers 2, imported from the US.  The film is presented reasonably well, with grain visible, at 1.85:1 and backed with a DTS 5.1 audio track that is quite strong.  Extras-wise, the disc for the first film aped its previous release(s), while the encoding locks it to region A (US).  There has since been a superior release of the first film in the UK from 101 Films, essentially porting the 2016 Scream Factory edition.