'Silent Hill'

Another videogame spinoff, this mindless horror flick directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) replays the cliché of the desperate parent searching for a lost child. In this case, a dim-witted mother (Radha Mitchell) tempts fate by driving her troubled daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), to the menacing, fog-shrouded old mining town whose name keeps recurring in the girl's nightmares. The kid promptly vanishes and—right on cue—assorted ghouls, fiends, and monsters begin popping out of the woodwork to scare the bejesus out of Mom. Stuffed with cheap effects and devoid of tension, this French-Japanese-U.S. co-production contributes exactly zilch to the rich film history of those three nations; the most horror-crazed teen may be hard-pressed to find any authentic thrills here. With Sean Bean as the distressed father and Alice Krige as Silent Hill's resident religious nutjob. Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary is responsible for the murky screenplay.