Silent Hill threatrical trailer hits the web

[Great Rumbler]

Some new info has surfaced as well as an interview with Christophe Ganz in this month's EGM.

EGM: Did the stigma of working on a videogame-based film deter you?

Christophe Gans: Of course it w as challenging, but it was impossible for me to do Silent Hill and not be serious about it. It’s much easier to adapt Doom, even if it turns out to be a disaster- as we’ve seen (recently)- then to adapt Silent Hill. If you want to adapt Silent Hill, you must be ready to face all of the complexity of the story. For a lazy director, like the one who directed Doom, Silent Hill would be too big of a piece to swallow. I dreamed of adapting this game when I first started playing the first one six years ago. I prepared for this for years, knowing that every fan in the world would wait for me with an ax. I will be sniped when I go to buy my games at my favorite store if I do a bad job. And I understand that. I’m a fan of the games myself-I admire the work of Akira and his friends, and I feel like someone who joined the group and tried to transport that amazing piece of art into a different medium. I love the fandom, and I understand these people and how tense they get when they hear, “Your favorite game is going to be adapted by some French guy.” (Laughs)

EGM: It’s impressive that you actually tackled the mythology of the games rather than creating a simpler story…was that something you intended from the project’s outset?

CG: Yes. Although, when we first decided to do Silent Hill, we wanted to base it on the second game. It was very natural, since that game is the favorite of every fan, and it’s the one with the most beautiful world, and it’s the most emotional on of all four. Ever gamer who finished the game knows what I’m talking about…it’s a very tragic and romantic game, and it’s a beautiful adaptation of the myth of Orpheus- going to hell to bring back his love, Eurydice. It was not a real Silent Hill, though; the town serves as the background to the story, but it’s not really about the mythology. So, when we decided to do the film, we realized that it was impossible to talk about Silent Hill and not talk about why this town is like that. So we realized that we had to adapt the first one.

Of course, we were facing the fact that the characters that we love so much were designed for games, and not to be played by real actors. It became readily apparent when we began to write the script and had to deal with the (main) characters, Harry Mason. We realized after two weeks in the writing process that Harry was actually motivated by feminine, almost maternal feelings. It’s not that he’s effeminate, but he’s acting like a woman. So, if we wanted to keep the character, we would have to change other aspects of him…so to be true to the character, we changed Harry into Rose. Essentially, all the people who love Silent Hill are more interested in seeing the mood and atmosphere of the games rather then if a certain character is wearing pants or a dress.

Also when we decided to adapt the characters of Cybil and Dahlia, we found it difficult, mainly because they appear only sparsely in the game. When you have to create a narrative arc for these characters, you have to work really hard to make them work on the big screen. I didn’t want to do what they did with Resident Evil: Apocalypse when they put Jill Valentine onscreen. I mean, that’s a perfect example: I love Jill Valentine…in the game, but not onscreen. I mean, I’m sorry, but just dressing a girl like her doesn’t make her the character.

EGM: Akria, what do you think of the additions Christophe has made to Silent Hill world?

Akira Yamaoka: After seeing the film, I think that Christophe has really expressed the core elements of Silent Hill, and he’s really kept the themes alive in this new medium. Silent Hill is not just a horror game; there is human drama rotted very deeply in the story, and I feel that he expressed that very well with the visuals, sounds, and atmosphere in the film. By watching the film, I Fell that you’ll get a clearer and deeper understanding of the world of Silent Hill, more so than by simply playing the games.

EGM: IT doesn’t help when a critic like Roger Ebert says that games are not art…

CG: F*** him. You know, I will say to this guy that he only has to read the critiques against cinema that the beginning of the 20th century. It was seen as a degenerate version of live stage musicals. And this was a time when visionary directors like Griffith were working. That means that Ebert is wrong. It’s simple. Most people who despise a new medium are simply afraid to die, so they express their arrogance and fear like this. He will realize that he is wrong on his deathbed. Human beings are stupid, and we often become a**holes when we get old. Each time a new medium appears, I feel that it’s important to respect it, even if it appears primitive or naïve at first, simply because some people are finding value in it. If you have one guy in the world who thinks that Silent Hill or Zelda is a beautiful, poetic work, then that game means something.

EGM: How did you tackle the concept of evil in Silent Hill?

CG: Because Silent Hill comes from a part of the world where the line between good and evil is blurred more so than in the West, it’s very interesting to deal with that. Since you haven’t seen the film, I don’t want to go too deeply into that, but I will say that for me, it was interesting to define what exactly is evil in the world of today. I think it’s an important question to raise. Until five years ago, we were living in a world that was a product of the Second World War. It was very clear that we were on the good side. But many things have happened in the last few years, and now people aren’t so sure about that.

In Silent Hill, I don’t attempt to answer these questions, but I do try to illustrate them. And I think it’s one of the most important objectives of the horror genre, to ask the right questions. Horror is actually a very political genre. Silent Hill is a very disturbing game, because you’re not just alone physically, but also alone morally. That’s the world of today. Each day, we’re forced to reevaluate our own morality.

EGM: You seem so passionate about this project…do you hope to helm a sequel?

CG: OF course, I would love to come back. And of course, Silent Hill 3 is a direct continuation of the first game’s plot…I think that it would be very possible to do a sequel to this film. As I said, Silent Hill is a complete mythology, and I did what I could in two hours, but I would love to tell much more about the Red Nurse, Claudia, and the Doctor. Plus, there is a fifth dimension of Silent Hill-how it existed in the 18th century, during the Salem witch-hunts. It’s so big and so interesting, and I would love to jump back on the horse.

SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD

Silent Hill was at WonderCon today where they screened a never before seen clip of a scene we got a glimpse of in the trailer with Rose and Cybil running up the stairs to the church to get away from "something". Here's one description of it:
There is some dialogue between Rose and Dahlia Gillespie. Rose says she has seen Alessa and she asks why Alessa looks exactly like her own daughter Sharon. It was hard to hear the dialogue clearly as it wasn't loud enough and I was sitting toward the back of the room.

The entire time the air raid siren is going in the background and people are running up the steps. One of them (a younger woman) stops and shouts something at Dahlia (it was hard to hear) and then the ground and everything around them starts to turn black. Rose runs up the steps and she and Cybil start to enter the school. Dahlia points at the younger woman and as Rose and Cybil enter the school, Pyramid Head makes it to the top of the stairs. He grabs the young woman by the neck, holds her up in the air, with a single pull tears her clothes off. Then he grabs the skin of her chest and twists it and then rips the skin off of her entire body. As Rose and Cybil slam the school doors shut, he throws the skin at them and it splatters against the door, with blood seeping underneath it.

There was an effect where some of it splatters on the camera as it splats against the door.

Movie-to-Game comparison: http://www.youtube.com/w/Silent-Hill-mov...%20trailer