Video: The video was really great. Very detailed and crisp images. Just as good as the retail DVD.
10 out of 10 stars

Audio: The audio was also great, crisp and clear. I could detect no hard cuts whatsoever, except for maybe when the “Alternate ending” breaks happen.
10 out of 10 stars

Editing: Very smooth and seamless cuts. Was very hard to tell if this movie had been altered. Sean Bean’s character was removed seamlessly and the way Rose and her daughter getting to Silent Hill was turned into a flashback, was very effective. Since there is no commercial software that does “true” seamless branching, that might have been the only time to anyone that hasn’t seen the original, the instance this movie is edited different.
9 out of 10 stars

Pesentation: Very nice effective menus, with some extras thrown in for good measure. The commentary track did it’s job well, but sometimes there was quite a few gaps of silence and also a little too much talk about playing the games. Should have been more talk of why you cut what you cut and what interested you to fan-edit the movie in the first place. Minor gripes.
9 out of 10 stars

Entertainment: I was always impressed with the visual style of this movie in the first place and this fan-edit just goes to show that by eliminating certain contrivances that weighed down the movie, a better and creepier movie exists! Very entertaining to say the least.
9 out of 10 stars

—————————–
Final Score:
9 out of 10 stars
—————————–

Can’t wait to see what you come up with next. Keep up the good work!

If this is a sign of things to come from Aztek463, I cannot wait to see what else he gives us!

All in all 8/10, great editing skills!

With that said my only gripe is the “blue ending”. Without trying to spoil anything I didn’t much care for it. Aztek mentions this is for those who are familiar with the game, and that it’s open for interpretation, but this sort of ending in any movie (or book, or television show, or game) is a cop-out. But thankfully there is the “grey ending” which, to me, is more satisifying.

Entertainment: 9
Picture: 8
Sound:10
Overall: 9

“This film contains scenes of explicit violence and gore that may be considered disturbing and cruel.”

With that as the introduction of the DVD, Aztek makes it clear quickly that he is a fan of the original games, and may be a subtle way of him letting you know that he is going to try his best to serve you a fanedit of Silent Hill that will be closer to the games. He succeeds, whether that opening was his intention or not.

The original Silent Hill movie was written by Roger Avery (Rules of Attraction) and directed by Christopher Gans (Brotherhood of The Wolf). While being lauded as possibly the best videogame adaptation to film yet, it missed quite a few marks with the core fans of Silent Hill. Being a huge Silent Hill fan myself, I left the movie when it opened feeling satisfied and cheated at the same time. While Avery did a good job adapting the theme of Silent Hill, his dialogue felt like leftovers from Pulp Fiction (which he helped to write) and his style of character development was kind of weak. Gans’ direction was fabulous, he did an excellent job of creating the feel of Silent Hill, but ultimately Gans was under the direction of a script that really wasn’t written for his style of directing.

What Aztek has done here is nothing short of amazing. The editor completely took out the entire subplot of the main character’s (Rose) husband (Chris) looking for her in the town. With this gone, the movie becomes SO much more coherent and fluid. It’s amazing how easy this was to follow (although I’m sure it wasn’t easy on Aztek). Without the confusion of Chris adding to the subtext, the story unfolded almost in real-time, allowing the viewer to follow the main plot without having to jump back and forth in between scenes. Very well done.

The movie starts with Rose waking from a car wreck to find her daughter, Sharon, missing. Moving on to the town to find her, we watch in black-and-white flashback form of why Rose brought her to Silent Hill in the first place. In the original, this was done linearly, and with much more unnecessary dialogue and painful-to-watch scenes. The new execution is brilliant. Not only is it shorter, but it also excises the bad acting that came with the original. The whole movie is littered with nice edits here and there. The fabulously ridiculous line “Fuck you, stupid cop” is gone, along with most of the original’s bad dialogue. My only gripe is the Johnny Cash song is still there. However, it’s very forgivable because as I understand it, audio editing is a bitch, and the scene that song is in is necessary to the continuance of events.

So, not only did Aztek provide us with a film that actually feels Silent Hill-y, he also took the time to give us TWO endings! Both of which are amazing, and far, far better than the concocted original. Since both endings differ from the original, I can’t tell you exactly what they are. One ending, called ‘The Blue Ending’, was a completely original idea from the mind of Aztek in which he constructed still frames from the movie and used seperate audio to assemble an ending that any film maker would enjoy and respect. The other ending, called “The Grey Ending”, is a superior edit to the original. Outstanding work.

So my final judgment? This version is the version I will go to when I want to watch this movie again. It’s that good. Gone is the incoherence that was Sean Bean’s character and that never-aged cop. Gone is the overly ridiculous dialogue that plagued the original. In is a refreshing and faster paced Silent Hill that will appeal to fans that wanted to like this movie but couldn’t. I want to personally thank Aztek for this edit, as the way this was done couldn’t have been easy. Thank you.