SILENT HILL (2006) Blu-ray Review

Silent Hill (2006) d. Christophe Gans (France/Canada/Japan/USA) (125 min)

Rose (Radha Mitchell), desperate to cure her adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) of her nightmares and sleepwalking, takes her to the town of Silent Hill, WV, much to the dismay of her husband Christopher (Sean Bean). Following a violent car crash, Sharon disappears and Rose finds herself in the custody of motorcycle cop Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden) amidst an ash-covered landscape. Together, the pair descends into the center of the twisted reality of the abandoned burg’s terrible secret in search of the lost child. Pursued by grotesquely deformed creatures and townspeople stuck in permanent purgatory, Rose and Cybil begins to uncover the truth behind the apocalyptic blaze that destroyed the town 30 years earlier.

ROGUE (2007) DVD review

Rogue (2007) d. McLean, Greg (Australia) (99 min)

As a follow-up to his unvarnished, viscerally effective serial killer flick Wolf Creek, writer/director McLean continues to thwart the Australian tourist trade with this derivative but reasonably entertaining creature feature. Pitting an enormous crocodile against a riverboat full of tourists on a leisure wildlife cruise, Rogue goes through the predictable series of chompings and near-chompings... and that’s about it, finding little new to do with the milieu.