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Silent Hill | 2006 | R | - 5.10.5
A woman, desperate to unravel the mystery of her adopted daughter's recurring night terrors, takes her to an abandoned town in West Virginia where she finds herself trapped in an alternate dimension inhabited by strange beings. With Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Deborah Kara Unger and Kim Coates. Directed by Christophe Gans. [2:07]
SEX/NUDITY 5 - A woman's dress is pulled off by a large man with a pointed metal mask and we see the side of her bare breast and buttock. Many nurses wear short and low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage and thighs. A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage and a woman wears a tank top and boxer shorts (cleavage and bare thighs are visible). A man is shown bare-chested and in pajama bottoms.
VIOLENCE/GORE 10 - A woman with a very bloody face (from a previous beating) is tied to a ladder, a pyre is lit, she is lowered over the flames and we watch as her skin begins to blister and she bursts into flames (a girl is forced to watch and many other people cheer).
► A woman is wrapped by barbed wire around the wrists and lifted into the air (she screams and blood drips from her wounds); other lengths of wire make their way under her skirt (blood pours from between her legs), wire comes back out through her chest (blood pours and sprays and she screams) and the lengths of barbed wire pull and tear her body in half (blood pours and sprays).
► A man is wrapped by barbed wire like a spool and he splatters into bloody shrapnel; many others are tied by the wires and killed with a lot of blood spattering.
► A young woman is picked up by a large man with a pointed metal mask on his head, she writhes, and he grabs her dress and pulls it off, and then he grabs her skin, pulls that off too, and throws it against a door splattering blood on two women (we hear a splat).
► A girl is strapped to a metal frame and held over a flame: we hear her screaming and smoldering, the frame breaks away from one of the chains holding it, it swings and knocks the flame over setting the room on fire (people run from the room and scream) and we see the girl up close smoldering with black, charred skin and hear her gasping.
► A woman opens a bathroom stall door, she finds a man's twisted body wrapped with barbed wire (the skin is torn open, and the barbs have cut into his skin) and he has a piece of paper in his mouth, which she retrieves.
► Three people are "eaten" by swarms of large beetles (we hear crunching, we hear the people screaming as they flail and we see the skin being removed from their bodies).
► A woman walks through many "nurses" (they wear nurses uniforms, they have grey-tinged skin and distorted faces), who are holding knives and pointed instruments: one slashes at the woman, she ducks and the throat of another nurse is cut (blood spurts), while the nurse continues to slash several others and blood spurts and sprays.
► A woman with a gun points it at another woman, she pulls the trigger and it clicks; the woman with the gun is then beaten to a bloody pulp by three men with pipes (we see her bloody and groaning on the floor and hear crunching when she is struck).
► A woman with a stick beats three men; we hear a splat when one is struck in the head and blood spurts, while the others are briefly incapacitated. A man is stabbed in the throat.
► A large man with a pointed metal mask on his head thrusts a large blade through a door several times trying to impale women who are on the other side: the women dodge the blade, the man reaches through a hole the blade has created and tries to grab them, beetles swarm through the hole and one woman shoots the man's arm repeatedly -- the women watch everything disintegrate and float upward.
► A girl approaches a woman, reaches out her arms, they burst into flames and she says, "look at me, I'm burning." A woman is surrounded by human-looking forms that appear to be children with deeply charred skin and they are molten beneath the char; the forms scream and grab at her pulling off her coat, and then they disintegrate and float upward.
► A badly scarred person on a bed is lifted in the air, lengths of barbed wire circle around and dance (like snakes) as people in the room run in fear. We see a body hanging from it's feet with what appears to be parts of flesh missing, and it is covered in dried blood. A woman finds a dead body hanging from a fence (it looks to have been partially flayed and there are organs and blood on the floor beneath it).
► Two women are approached by a human-like form (it is grey-tinged skin with visible bone structure beneath but no head or face): it lumbers (we hear squishing sounds), one woman pulls a gun and begins to shoot it, blood spurts and it sprays a black liquid that burns what it strikes.
► A siren blares and a woman watches as the walls in the room where she is hiding begin to "melt" away and become streaked with red, and a body that is wrapped in barbed wire begins to move toward her while snarling and moaning ghoulishly; also red threads spread across the walls toward her, and the woman runs from the room.
► A woman screams and collapses, many beetles swarm toward her, someone grabs and pulls her into a room and they lock the door; a few beetles are squished (green goo spurts out of them) in the door and a woman stomps on a beetle that did not die. A woman is stabbed in the chest (we see a bloody gash), she falls to the floor, and abnormally large amounts of blood gush from the wound.
► A woman has discolored eyes and bloody cuts on her face. We see a few paintings of a woman tied to a ladder, with flames lapping at her feet.
► A girl stands on the edge of a high cliff over a waterfall, she begins to lose consciousness and tips toward the edge, and a woman knocks her back onto the ground and holds her. A girl is taken from her mother and into a room, and as the mother walks away we hear the girl screaming. An elevator speeds downward through its shaft and hits the floor at the bottom of a building (the woman inside the elevator is uninjured). A girl hugs a woman, and literally presses herself inside her (the woman gags and twitches).
► A woman drives her car fast on a dark, winding road while being chased by a police officer, she crashes through a gate (a girl in the car screams in fear), swerves when she sees a girl walking across the road and crashes into a rock wall (the woman is knocked unconscious). A woman walks across a series of metal bars, and she slips and nearly falls into a pit where it appears that there is bubbling lava.
► We see a man with a large, pointed metal mask over his head, carrying an enormous blade and he is swarmed by many skittering beetles, in a few scenes. A woman wakes up with a bloody gash on her forehead after an accident. A woman is hit in the head by a rock and we see a bit of blood on her head. Blood trickles down the forehead of a woman (she crashed her motorcycle). We see a man's palms and they are badly scarred from burns.
► Three people in dark robes try to kick a door open (a woman hides on the other side) and a woman hides when she sees three people wearing dark robes coming toward her. A woman falls through a hole in a grate and lands hard on the floor below (she is shaken but OK).
► A woman follows a girl down a dark flight of stairs, she hears a loud siren blare and the sky turns black; she lights a lighter and continues to walk through a dark and dank building. A woman follows noises through an abandoned school building. A woman searches for her daughter through an abandoned town that is filled with smoke and soot falls from the sky. A man and a woman search through dark woods to find their young daughter who is sleepwalking. A woman runs through an abandoned town and the road ends; she looks over the edge of where the road used to be and sees a sheer cliff. Many people run toward a church as the sky turns black.
► A woman throws stones at another woman. Two people hit a woman in the face, she falls to the floor, but she gets up and forces her way through an angry crowd.
► A girl enters a bathroom where a man is mopping the floor, the man looks at her, and she is frightened; it is unclear what happens next, but we hear the girl scream. A woman with grey-tinged skin and long unkempt hair talks of someone taking her daughter and "doing horrible things to her." Children throw books at a girl and chant, "burn the witch."
► A police officer holds a gun on a woman, pulls her out of a car, and puts handcuffs on her.
► A girl draws pictures of people surrounded by smoke with black birds swirling around them and flames burning. We see newspaper and website reports of "ghost towns" and one that suffered from underground coal fires that continue to burn.
LANGUAGE 5 - 7 F-words, 4 scatological terms, 10 mild obscenities, name-calling (stupid), 1 religious profanity, 12 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - A man drinks alcohol.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Adoption, putting to death suspected witches, religion, faith, evil, alternate dimensions, satisfaction, bullying, fear, control, heresy, truth, blind conviction, purification, fanaticism, symbols, end of days, grim reaper, unity, sin, innocence, apocalypse, sleep walking, burning at the stake, hate, guilt, vengeance.
MESSAGE - Fanatical beliefs driven by faith encourage people to do the most horrible things.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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