But one that stands out is Silent Hill. Released in 2006, the movie was a fantastic attempt at translating the surreal world of the games into live action. But its modest box office performance and lackluster critical reception, combined with the passage of time, have caused the movie to be all but a footnote in the "video game adaptation" genre. That's why it was surprising to see a promotional campaign for Silent Hill: Revelation pop up. After six years in developmental hell, I thought a second Silent Hill movie was never going to happen. I was proven wrong in that regard, but after seeing it, perhaps they should have developed it a little further.
Many years have passed since the end of the first movie. During that time, young Sharon Da Silva (Adelaide Clemens) somehow managed to escape the hellish ghost town of Silent Hill. She has no memory of of the horrors she was a part of, having only the vaguest of recollections of the town itself. But the evil religious cult that calls Silent Hill home never forgot, continuing their hunt for the innocent Sharon. Her father (Sean Bean) knows just what they'd have in store for her, and has kept himself and his daughter on the road ever since. Changing their locations and identities whenever necessary, the Da Silvas seemingly never have a moment's peace.
We pick up on the eve of Sharon's eighteenth birthday. It unfortunately won't be a happy one for her, as she's plagued by violent nightmares in which she's stalked and killed by otherworldly monsters. Her nightmares are so vivid that they soon start bleeding over into the real world and lead to the murder of a private investigator hired by the cult to find her. And this private investigator didn't help matters much anyway, as he led the cult right to the Da Silvas. They kidnap Sharon's father, leaving the message "COME TO SILENT HILL" painted in blood on the living room wall. Faced with no other recourse, Sharon must return to the town of her nightmares and face unspeakable evils if she wants to save her father.
I really enjoyed the first Silent Hill movie, so much so that I was still highly anticipating the sequel despite the rather negative reviews it's been getting. But I unfortunately walked out of that theater not excited because I'd just seen an awesome follow-up to a movie I really like, but instead a movie that felt like kind of a letdown. There are so many elements of Silent Hill: Revelation that I really dug, that really made the movie work. But then there's some things that just plain hold it back from realizing its full potential. It's not a bad movie per se, but it could have been so much better.
The movie was written and directed by Michael J. Bassett, a British filmmaker whom I'd never actually heard of previously. But I was still curious to see how he would approach a Silent Hill sequel, as I really liked the surreal, almost dreamlike world that Christophe Gans crafted in the first movie. And while he doesn't bring Gans's truly artistic flair to the movie, Bassett still does an amazing job in building the world of Silent Hill. I'll admit that he struggles somewhat, mainly because the movie's budget was less than half of its predecessor's, but it's apparent that Bassett wanted to put as much effort as possible into making Silent Hill look and sound as if it had come to life.
The special effects are amazing, with each of the various monsters, beasts, and creatures looking like they'd stepped right out of the games. Some of the CGI is a little iffy at times, though it's never enough to take you out of the movie. Bassett also puts the 3D effects to good use too. He goes for the standard "things pop out of the screen at the audience" gimmick, but he also uses it for atmospheric effect at the same time. The world feels deeper and more encompassing, almost as if it would suck you in if you sat close enough to the screen.
And while it's obvious that Bassett loves the Silent Hill games, there's one thing he forgot to add: the overall sense of soul-crushing dread that permeates both the games and the first movie. My experience with the franchise is admittedly limited, but I've seen and played enough to know that Silent Hill is home to Hell's nightmares. But it's not just all the different monsters and creatures occupying the town that make things so terrifying. A vast majority of the Silent Hill titles I've encountered have all felt like there was something dark, something sinister lying just beneath the surface. Even when some monster with no face and a bunch of claws is trying to rip your heart out, you can never escape the notion that a far more horrifying beast is in the darkness ahead of you.
And this is probably my own opinion, but Silent Hill: Revelation was lacking in that department. It had its fair share of weird, bizarre, surreal moments, but it was missing that feeling that the movie itself was going to come to life and kill you. I could blame it on Bassett's direction or the smaller budget or any number of things, but I thought it really hurt the movie's effectiveness. It had some good scares, but it would have been a lot scarier if it had that same atmosphere.
I will say, though, that Bassett's direction is better than his script. This movie's script is all kinds of awful. There's the banal dialogue, plot threads that go nowhere and are never resolved, and poor characters that make it hard to care about them. Things will come to an absolute dead stop on more than one occasion so a character can deliver lengthy expository monologues that do nothing but kill the story's momentum. That sort of thing might work for video games, but the lack of interactivity in movies means that it just throws off the pacing more than anything else.
Another thing that bugged me was that Bassett began setting up what could have been an intriguing subplot (in which Heather was wanted by the police for questioning regarding a murder), only to drop it altogether without so much as a further mention after the first act. Did I miss the resolution? Did Bassett cut out most of the subplot and accidentally leave the first act stuff in the movie? I want to know what happened to the cops! There could be a whole alternate movie here, where the police end up in Silent Hill fighting their own batch of creatures. A resolution could make for a neat bonus feature on the DVD and Blu-ray release in a few months, but the fact that Bassett seemingly started something he never finished just makes the final product look rough.
But I will applaud him for going above and beyond the call of duty when it came to staying close to the source material. He actually took the story for the third Silent Hill game and tried spinning it as a continuation of the first movie. The only problem is that the whole thing got a little muddled along the way. The fact that he's trying to appease both fans of the first movie by introducing the plot from the Silent Hill 3 game while still trying to continue the original movie's story (right down to explaining that Sharon Da Silva has changed her name to Heather Mason, for example) is too much. It sets up plot holes and inconsistencies, and it's so poorly handled that it feels like he's simultaneously doing too much and not enough. It's a bloated mess, yet nothing seems to really matter at all in the long run. I appreciate Bassett's efforts, but I just wish he could have had a co-writer to help him streamline some things.
And this brings us to the cast, a group of actors who are give or take. Sean Bean is great yet sadly underused (much like in the first movie), Kit Harington is okay (but not fantastic) in his role as Sharon's love interest, and Carrie-Anne Moss is sadly just kinda there as the leader of Silent Hill's cult. She spends the whole movie on autopilot, like she showed up on set one day and decided to mosey in front of the camera to kill a little time until another movie came along for her.
There are some standout performances, though. For starters, Malcolm McDowell is an insane amount of fun in his unfortunately brief appearance in the movie. He's obviously doing everything he can to avoid taking the movie seriously, choosing instead to be as hammy as possible. McDowell can overact with the best of them, and he's one of the most entertaining parts of the whole movie. On the other hand, Adelaide Clemens actually is taking the movie seriously, and her performance is very strong because of it. The character suffers from the weak writing, but Clemens still makes every effort to rise above it. She's strong, brave, smart, and very likable, and I don't know if they could have gotten a better actress for the part.
Silent Hill: Revelation is a movie that I desperately wanted to love. I wanted to rub Paul W.S. Anderson's nose in it and tell him that this is how you turn a "survival horror" game into a movie, instead of that Resident Evil crap he's been putting out for the last decade. Alas, I had my heart broken instead. There was much I did like that I did enjoy, but there was just as much that I thought the movie could have improved upon. Maybe my opinion will change in a few months if I give it a second chance on DVD, but right now... meh. I do want to see another Silent Hill movie, though, but considering the overwhelming number of negative reviews and the lousy box office numbers, I'm pretty sure that this one will be the last one. And honestly, that's even more disappointing than the movie itself.
Final Rating: **
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