Something's Rotten in 'Silent Hill'

By Hanh Nguyen, Zap2It Staff Writer | February 21, 2006

Radha Mithcell, Silent Hill

Discuss this story now

Actress Radha Mitchell takes on decayed nurses

TORONTO -- It's a hot July day in Toronto, but actress Radha Mitchell isn't worried about the weather. Instead, she's trying to creep quietly through a bevy of decomposed nurses that jerk spasmodically as she passes.

It's all in a day's work for the star of "Silent Hill," director Christophe Gans' big-screen adapation of the popular video game. In the film, Mitchell plays Rose DaSilva, whose troubled daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) disappears in the abandoned town of Silent Hill. As Rose searches for her through the foggy environment, she encounters decayed buildings and eerie beings.

"The nurses are just undead, they are broken, they're not moving," explains Gans. "When Rose turns on the flashlight to see, every time the light hits the group of nurses, they begin to agitate themselves. So now she's running through the nurses in the dark and hopefully she will not be captured by these nurses because every one of them has a surgical instrument."

About 50 feet away from the action, journalists silently watch the tense scene on a monitor. Just as Mitchell is about to emerge unscathed, her skirt catches on one of the evil healthcare providers' scalpels.

"She's coming close to one, and her dress will be stuck," says producer Samuel Hadida. "Then three of the nurses are going to slash at her, trying to kill her. They can smell her."

After a surreal lunch break, during which the nurse performers peel back their rotten face flaps to reveal healthy smiles and mundane appetites, Mitchell explains the appeal of the hellish film.

"It's not your typical movie where everybody's killing the monsters. There's some of that, but it feels very real," she says. "Since we've been working on the film, every day has just been an assault on the senses, and I guess today was just a sample of that. You do have a sense of what it must feel like to be sort of stuck in this chase."

Creating that illusion involved building sets for the film's four different looks. "We have Silent Hill as in the game in the foggy world. We have Silent Hill in the darkness. We have Silent Hill as a flashback as it was once before. And then Silent Hill like it looks today," says Gans.

"In this foggy world we have light and lots of clouds, but when the darkness arrives, the corruption begins to take over the walls and everything, so there's a change in the world," adds Hadida, pointing to the dark, putrid-looking walls. "Everything becomes rusted and transformed."

Although Gans is a huge fan of the "Silent Hill" video game, Mitchell had limited success playing it while researching her role.

"It's got a real sense of poetry and melancholy and things you don't expect in a video game. And then I guess that's what's attractive to me about it," she says. "But, in relation to actually getting through the game, I'm not a very good player, to be honest. I'm always stuck on the fence."

"Silent Hill" begins its corruption nationwide on Friday, April 21.