“Saw” is a tidy, efficient little bundle of malice, so effective and well-made that it became an actual hit, and so far has generated two sequels, one this year. James Wan (director) and Leigh Whannell came up with a simple but gripping story, and they tell it very well. It is also extremely grim and brutal, with lots of blood spilled amidst the mayhem. It is, as they say, definitely not for the squeamish, but is a nice, hot cup of rich blood for those with a taste for the genuinely macabre. In a filthy, disused combination men’s room/lavatory, Adam (Leigh Whannell, the co-writer) wakes up, his leg shackled to a pipe. He looks around the white tiled room in confusion. Lying on the floor just out of reach is a dead body in a pool of blood, the pistol that clearly killed him nearby. On the other side of the room ...

  “Silent Hill” is another movie based on a video game; some aficionados of the game say that the film is particularly close to the game, both visually and in terms of action. That must really be saying something, because visually, “Silent Hill” is stunning: the dark-toned, brown-and-gray cinematography by Dan Laustsen is extremely effective—this is a great-looking movie. He works very well with the production design by Carol Spier, and the high definition of this Blu-Ray DVD makes this a surprisingly good-looking example of the technique. The sound design is excellent, with good use made of all of the speakers in a 5.1 system. Unfortunately, that’s about it for “Silent Hill.” The story may work well in the video game, but as a movie, it’s sloppy, unconvincing, repetitious and almost impossible to figure out. Young mother Rose (Radha Mitchell) is worried about the tendency of her daughter Anna (Tanya Allen) to sleepwalk to high ...