When video games transition to the big screen, much of the concept gets lost in translation. This year’s newest horror film maintains all of the gritty details, right down to the creature with a pyramid for a head. Welcome to the town of Silent Hill.

As someone who has played the “Silent Hill” video games, I was both dreading and anticipating the new release.

Video games that are turned into movies have a reputation for not being the best thing on which to spend $8.75 plus fists full of popcorn and large jugs of Mountain Dew.

But gamers like me can’t resist watching the damage Hollywood does to our “Street Fighters” and “Tomb Raiders.” Imagine my surprise when I walked out of the theater at the end of “Silent Hill” uttering one word: whoa.

I was at first put off at the character change in the movie. “Silent Hill” gamers know that Harry Mason is supposed to be out looking for his daughter Cheryl. In the movie, Rose is searching for her daughter Sharon, while Rose’s husband Christopher searches for both of them.

As I watched the movie, I found myself completely caught up in the story. A friend pointed out to me how the movie had the stories of both the first and second versions of “Silent Hill” combined. In “Silent Hill 1,” a parent was looking for a child. In “Silent Hill 2,” a husband was looking for his wife. The movie had these two things going on simultaneously.

I haven’t played “Silent Hill” in a long time, and as I watched I felt as if I was holding a PlayStation 2 controller, trying to figure out where to go next in the messed-up world. Just like the game, the gun runs out of bullets very fast and – for the most part – is pretty useless, the radio serves as a signal for approaching monsters and there are weird clues to follow.

Another thing that made it feel like the game was when Rose had to remember the map she found on the hospital wall.

All fans know that maps are essential to “Silent Hill.” When the transition to the nightmare world was made there was complete darkness until the lighter or flashlight was flipped on.

All of the creatures in the movie looked eerily identical to the creatures in the video games, including fan favorite Pyramid Head, who carried around his Great Knife. Amazingly enough, none of the monsters were created with CG effects, but rather with costumes and makeup. The level of blood and gore wasn’t too great compared with recent releases such as “Saw II” and “Hostel,” but there were some things in the movie that had me staring in disbelief.

It wasn’t just the disgusting things, such as one particular scene with Pyramid Head, but things such as the transition from the real world into the nightmare world that were amazing to watch.

What I also enjoyed was the fact that the movie explained what was going on. The “Silent Hill” games are pretty tricky to understand and, at times, they leave a lot of questions unanswered, and players are left to make assumptions about what is going on. The movie, however, explained most of the story but left big plot twists, particularly the ending, open for interpretation.

Fans of the video games will be pleasantly surprised when they find out that all of the music from the “Silent Hill” games is in the movie. I was able to identify all of the tunes from the first three games. Even the song that was playing on the jukebox at the gas station in the beginning was a song from “Silent Hill.”

The girl who sat down the row from me screamed, “Yuck! That’s gross,” as she watched the movie. Fans of “Silent Hill” can all just laugh and know that it’s not gross – it’s just “Silent Hill,” and it’s great.

– Briana Lawrence is a senior in English from Chicago. She is a Daily Staff Writer.