Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

Just to warn you, this isn't a review (although I do feel that this is a four star film), but it's actually a dissection of the plot, for everyone who was left scratching their heads. Naturally, this gives away EVERYTHING in the movie.

Since the very beginning the town of Silent Hill, West Virginia was run by a fanantical pseudo-christian cult. This cult held an iron fist over the town, and all of the towns public buildings proudly displayed the painted symbol of their faith. The cult burned anyone of whom they suspected of being a "witch".

One of the cult's victims was an innocent 9 year old girl named Alessa Gillespie, the neice of the cult's ringleader, Cristabella. Cristabella's sister, Dahlia, gave birth to Alessa out of wedlock. Alessa was an illegitimate child. To the fanatical townspeople, that was enough to deem that Alessa was a witch. Little Alessa was tormented every day by her peers at school while they threw things at her, chased her, and called for her burning. Despite all this, Dahlia still loved her daughter dearly, even though she herself was a member of the cult. Cristabella frequently urged Dahlia to have her daughter "purified". Dahlia was a weak woman and one day her sister, who had brainwashed and controlled so many with fear, finally broke her down.

That day was Friday, November 1, 1974. Alessa took refuge in the bathroom from her merciless classmates, only to run into Colin, the school janitor. Unfortunately for her, Colin was a pedophile. Colin forced Alessa into one of the stalls and either raped her or forced her to perform a s*x act on him. Afterwards, crying and frightened, she refused to leave the stall, and Dahlia arrived to coax her daughter out and comfort her. Cristabella arrived right behind her. We see one of the students trying to listen in, and warning Cristabella that "she's the witch". Cristabella closes the door and confronts Dahlia once again. Dahlia finally caves in and reluctantly agrees to have Alessa purified, for the good of everyone. All witches had to be burned in order to hold back the apocalypse.

That night Alessa is taken to a factory behind the Grand Hotel where the ceremony is to take place. When Cristabella asks Dahlia to leave and brings Alessa in, Dahlia becomes horrified when she comes to her senses and realizes what she has just done to her little girl. Unable to take on the cult members prepared to hold her back, she runs for help.

Inside, Alessa screams and sobs in terror as she is shackled to a metal grill and suspended over a fire. The cult recites a prayer while Alessa's screams of terror turn to screams of agony, and she begins to choke while she is literally roasted alive in front of the eager onlookers. One of the chains holding the suspended grill break, and it swings and knocks over the coals, lighting the room on fire. The cult tries to escape, but perishes in the fire. By the time Dahlia bursts in with the police, there is nothing left but a burning room and her daughter, now charred completely black and clinging to life.

The agonized, terrified child is carried to the hospital by Oficer Thomas Gucci, who severly burns his palms rescuing her. Alessa is bandaged and placed in an oxygen tent, where she lies in pain, wondering why her mother abandoned her, and feeling an intense hatred for those who hurt her. Alessa is so insane with pain, misery, and rage that when a curious nurse peeks in at her, and her eyes widen in horror at the sight of her, Alessa throws her a look of hatred that frightens the nurse. Alessa either has powers (which she may have had prior to her burning, making everyone even more certain that she was a witch, and causing the chain hodling the grill to snape, or may have developed in her extreme anguish), or a demon (or satan himself) arrives and gives her power. Dark Alessa, the creepy little doppleganger who shows up, is either a manifestation of Alessa's dark side that she has used her powers to create or has simply split from her, or is an otherworldy entity that has arrived to aid her with her revenge and claim her soul in the process. Or she may even be the evil spirit of the town. Make your own conclusions. Either way, Dark Alessa promises to help Alessa get revenge. She promises to plunge them into the child's darkest nightmare. Alessa (still burnt and bedbound) and Dark Alessa dwell in the nightmare dimension along with the nurse, who is sucked in not only as punishment for gawking in horror at Alessa, but to help care for her. The nurse has been cursed, her eyeballs destroyed as her punishment.

The nightmare world is seemingly a mixture of creatures and things from Alessa's nightmares and real, damned people. For instance, the burning children Rose meets in the alley. It's very likely that these are Alessa's classmates who tormented her, now feeling Alessa's pain for themselves. Her screams are now their screams. They don't want to hurt Rose, they want her to help them somehow, to free them from the hell they've been pulled into. Colin the janitor is doomed to live in the bathroom stall, with barbed wire stuck in his eyes as well as his feet tied to his head with it. Yep, he's the fellow Rose meets in the bathroom.

So where does Sharon come in? Well eventually, Alessa casts off her good side which is made into a newborn baby who Dark Alessa carries to the orphanage. See, Alessa's goal isn't just revenge. She wants a new life, hopefully with a better, stronger mother. So essentially her soul is kept safe until Dark Alessa (Alessa's dark side, remeber) can reunite with it and "rebirth" Alessa.

Meanwhile the cult is dead, but they don't know it. They believe that they, the faithful, survived the apocalypse, which is why they are the only ones around in the foggy purgatory-like dimension where they dwell. Dark Alessa tries to catch the cult in the nightmare dimension, but discovers that they are wise enough to use the activity of birds to tell them when the darkness is coming. When the birds panic and flee, they sound a siren mounted on the church, which is their safe haven where the darkness can't get in. Their blind faith repels the darkness, and Dark Alessa herself. Dark Alessa finally decides that she needs to let someone into the foggy alternate dimension, tell Alessa's story, and have them accept Dark Alessa and allow her to enter them and hitch a ride into the church. This is where Rose comes in. Who is more likely to feel compassion for Alessa, than Rose Da Silva, the woman who adpoted Sharon?

Dark Alessa calls to Sharon in her sleep and Rose takes her daughter to Silent Hill, the town she speaks of in her dreams (and which Rose discovers is the town Sharon came from). Rose crashes the jeep and while unconscious, Sharon sleepwalks away from the crash site, where she is found by Dahlia Gillespie, who now, 30 years later, is a broken woman after she naively led her own daughter to a terrible fate. Dahlia senses that Alessa is behind the dimension shifts. Alessa protects her mother from the monsters that lurk in the nightmare dimension, and Dahlia seems to know this. Dahlia takes Sharon in, giving her food and a warm place to sleep. When she meets up with Rose outside of the church, she can't bring herself to reveal Sharon's location. Her heart aches for Alessa, and she wants Sharon for herself, which is understandable, even if morally wrong.

Dark Alessa tests Rose's strength and courage, leading her to her hospital "lair" with clues. When she finally arrives, Dark Alessa tells Alessa's horrific story. Overwhelmed with compassion (and a concern for Sharon, the location of whom Dark Alessa somehow reveals to Cristabella in order to help motivate Rose and get her moving to the church), Rose allows Dark Alessa to enter her and she goes to the church, where she confronts the cult, revealing to them that they are, in fact, dead. That they have been deluding themselves, and that Cristabella has been using fear to control and manipulate them. That they tortured and tainted the heart of an innocent little girl. Rose goes too far when she says that they are damned and God is not with them, and Cristabella stabs her in the heart, calling her a blasphemer. Dark Alessa is released through Rose's blood while Sharon and the cult watch in horror. The darkness spreads through the church. The nightmare dimension invades. Alessa (now 39 years old and healed but horribly scarred) and Dark Alessa enter and Alessa finally gets her revenge that she has waited 30 years for. The cult gets their just desserts. When Sharon opens her eyes against her mother's stern warnings and makes eye contact with Dark Alessa, Sharon ceases to exist. Dark Alessa (Alessa's dark side) and Sharon (Alessa's good side) have merged, and the girl is now the "reborn" Alessa, with her old, pain-free, unscarred body, a new, better mother who has proven to be strong and trustworthy, and a second chance at life. While Alessa couldn't bring herself to harm Dahlia, she abandons her much the same way that Dahlia herself abanonded her that November night in 1974.

Alessa uses her power to start the jeep, unbeknowst to Rose, and they head for home. But it's not that easy. You could assume (like some people) that Rose and "Sharon" are ghosts stuck umable to enter the real world. However, it seems to me that Alessa is holding them in the foggy alternate dimension. She has no desire right now to re enter society. She has no trust for anyone but her new mother, who has successfully fought for her. She doesn't even trust Christopher. She knows he will send her away if he sees that she is no longer Sharon, when he sees that she is different. And really, she doesn't trust any man after what the janitor did to her as a little girl. She just wants to be alone with Rose. Safe with Rose. Think about it. If you were burned and horribly disfigured and then were "reborn" in your old, unscarred healthy body, would you take any chances of that ever happening again? You'd want to stay away from outsiders too. The only way they will enter the real world again is if Alessa learns to trust the outside world again. If she realizes that no one will hurt her ever again.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age