@Warp:
Ok. First - atmosphere. Not of fear and evil, but of loneliness and isolation. Second - make it more slow and psychological. More surreal. Otherworld is main characters inner evil, is a prison for self-tortured mind.
The feeling of isolation and loneliness will always feel different between a movie and a game, so that's always going to be an issue for the movie. I understand everyone had issues with the dozens of people living inside the church, but it was meant to show that people DO live there. They had little effect on the story overall, regardless. I'll admit that this is probably the movie's biggest flaw.
Also, the factor of the Otherworld being the 'prison for self-torture and representing the main character's inner evil' is non-existent in Silent Hill 1. The dark world of Silent Hill 1 was not based on Harry's actions (who was mostly innocent), but instead, the horrible crimes committed onto Alessa….which the first movie did the same thing. The first movie was based off of Silent Hill 1, where Silent Hill wasn't being used a mirror for one's sin. So it works there.
To be honest, it's always been a combination of that. Silent Hill 2, yes, was a complete showing of James' inner sin. However, Silent Hill 3 was much more the torment of Alessa's past, not Heather's. Yes, Heather is the rebirth of both Alessa and Cheryl, but Heather is instead dragged down by that. Silent Hill 4: The Room, everyone is tormented by the sins of Walter, as majority of the monsters are monstrous representations of his victims, as well as emotional tragedy of his childhood.
Silent Hill Origins was a combination of both Alessa's sin and Travis' possible sin of being a mass murderer. Depended on your ending, really. And Homecoming (the apparent fan fiction) is based on the torment of the three children who were sacrificed and killed. By that regard, Homecoming and the movie follow those rules.
3rd There is no gods, or demons, only entities created from fear and suffering. And town isn't deserted. People that live there not aware of supernatural. Only troubled characters can enter fog.
Or characters related to Silent Hill are brought into the fog. Either way, that remains true for both the movie and Homecoming.
Homecoming follows the 'no gods/demons' thing. The entities were made from fear. The town feared and suffered from their own crime. Their sacrificing of their own children to 'stay safe'. Their own fear led to chaos as one of the four families wouldn't sacrifice their kin (Alex, as his brother was already dead). No gods. No demons. Fear and suffering for the endless lives they sacrificed.
The movie, admittedly, tried to make 'evil Alessa' actually be the devil. So I'll give you that one. Regardless, there is no explanation for that in the original Silent Hill. I'll give you that Silent Hill 2 can be purely psychological and fear based, and that Silent Hill 3 would be a combination of psychological, fear, and possible drugs. What the hell happened in Silent Hill 1? Why were both Harry and Cybil dragged into this? Harry maybe had some connection, but Cybil was innocent in both the game and the movie. So how are these two able to see anything? How would Alessa/Dahlia drag these two in?
Also, whether people live in the town normally without seeing any supernatural beings is irrelevant to any of the game plots, unless you mean the theory in which the monsters the protagonists see are actually the people living in the town. In which case, causes more questions than answers.
To make it shorter. Ideal Silent Hill plot should be about character's psychological journey, facing their own fears, sins and past. And every character that appears is on his/her own journey. (Even in SH3 Claudia was abused by father, and brainwashed by Dhalia so she was a victim as much as Heather.)
If this is your summary… If that is the case...
Silent Hill 1 is not a Silent Hill game.
1. There is no psylogical journey for Harry to make. There is a realization of the horrors that Alessa faced, yes. But Harry isn't facing his fears, sins, or past. He's facing the sins, fears, and past of someone else.
2. Cybil is an innocent and collateral damage. She had nothing to do with this what-so-ever. She should have woken up in the normal world after the accident.
3. There is no journey for Dr. Kaufman beside the final chance in which Alessa kills him using Lisa.
4. Silent Hill 1 DID use magical powers and mystical items to combat each other. Dahlia had to use it to get to Alessa.
Homecoming had this! Alex was facing the guilt of killing his brother, Lilian tormented by the lie she was forced to live, and Adam the guilt of neglecting his son.
So let's say that Silent Hill 1 is the magical exception. What game was the first movie based off of?
And thus far, nothing has been shown to say that the next movie won't follow that flow (aside from Alessa being connected with Satan or whatever). We don't know of Vincent's intentions yet. We haven't seen anything with Claudia or her father (who IS in the movie) yet. And Heather is still being forced to deal with Alessa's and Claudia's suffering.
Here we have real evil faction that uses supernatural to their advantage and brave girl who fights them.
Has the movie come out yet? Then how do you know this?
Heather goes after Claudia originally to get revenge on her for killing her father. She's going to leave for Silent Hill in the movie to either get revenge or to rescue her father (no idea if he gets killed or kidnapped yet).