I'm drooling everywhere.

In case I've managed to keep it well-hidden up to this point, I suppose I should confess now that I'm a video game junkie. That's right- just when you thought I couldn't be any more of a geek, I go and make a statement like that. Well, hey- I'm a Gen-Xer, dude, what can I say? Ms. Pac-Man is like a stepmother to me. I was totally rude and disrespectful when she first started coming around, but now we're BFFs. Incidentally, where's the beef?

My favorite games are the horror-based ones, which should come as no surprise- particularly the Resident Evil series and the Silent Hill series. Games in the Resident Evil family are along the lines of solve-the-puzzles and kill-the-zombies, as you may know. A few scary bits here and there, but nothing that will really stick with you in the long run. Silent Hill, on the other hand...oh my. The games are some of the most immersive I've ever played, and damn if the makers don't know what's really scary. What's scary is the use of sound and darkness, which Silent Hill does like no other game. Armed at times with nothing but a flashlight and a length of pipe, exploring an abandoned hospital, hearing noises outside of your small circle of vision...knowing something's there but not knowing what...bleh! Bleh! Call me a wuss, but there have been times playing these games- all alone, lights off- when I have turned them off because I was too scared to continue. OK, yeah, that really is wussy. But it's true.

Silent Hill is a seaside resort town that becomes a nightmare-come-to-life for inhabitants and people passing through. In Silent Hill 2, the town beckons outsiders and becomes a hell to repay them for wrongs they've perpetrated. There's 2 faces to the town, both evil. One is a desolate ghost town where it's always snowing. The other is bloody, rusty, dark, noisy, and seems to be the offspring of Clive Barker and that amazing hospital sequence in Jacob's Ladder.

Twisted, sick, scary, amazing stuff.

I've always wondered if the games would translate to film well. I've even thought that if horror filmmakers would simply take some of the sensibilities of the games and apply them to films unrelated to the games, we'd get some good scares on the big screen. Well, we're all gonna get to see how the idea flies first hand when Silent Hill hits theatres in April. Directed by Christophe Gans (Necronomicon) and written by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction), the film will tell the tale of a mother searching for her sick daughter in Silent Hill.

I know how these things go, and I know I shouldn't get my hopes up- I've seen Resident Evil 1 & 2. Although I must say I did find the first Resident Evil movie enjoyable, despite the fact that it wasn't scary in the least and bore close to zero resemblance to the games. But the pictures from Silent Hill just look so damn good- they seem to really be keeping the aesthetic of the games, which is what little Stacie has always hoped for.

See? My metaphorical penis has a big metaphorical boner over the prospects. A website for the movie went live today, and while it's mainly just a how-to for entering a make-a-movie-poster contest, there's lots of other film stills in the 'downloadable art' section. Check it all out at Welcome to Silent Hill. I absolutely cannot wait for April, and I'll be checking this movie out on opening night.