Silent Hill (or, Shhh, I can't hear the flesh ripping!)

Aussie mum and Irish dad (both sporting American accents) argue about whether to take annoying adoptive American theatre child to the place she screams about in her dreams.

Drama response: No, let's sit around all movie and discuss this and explore the impact our fighting has on the kid.

Horror response: Sure, let's run away to the ghost town and get drawn into a freaky reality jam-packed with disjointed bodies and barbed wire.

Horror it is! If we are going to do horror then we'll have to add in a sexy motorcyle cop with big breasts and bleach blonde hair, a freaky arse siren, some nurses trained to twitch to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and a guy with an iron pyramid on his head.

We could also do with some ash and lots of cyclone wire fencing, and where do we get some blood?

We'll also need a very convoluted backstory and a shitload of extras who can stand around looking faux-crazy, screaming, "Burn her, Burn her!"

That should about do it. If we can muster up all that we should be able to pull together one of the more successful game-to film-adaptations of recent years, one that has a few chilling moments but will fall down in the end because we put too much time into atmospherics and not enough into substance.

Tags: movie review, horror