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Movie Review: Silent Hill: Revelation

Seth Paul

The videogame-to-movie adaptation Doom bombed at the box office. One of the major factors was that the game on which it was based, a solitary marine fighting wave after wave of demons that had come to Mars through a portal from Hell, was turned into a squad of marines fighting mutants. Essentially, what made the game worth playing was completely stricken from the plot. So, is it any wonder that one of the major problems with Silent Hill: Revelation, a film based on a game series in which being alone is a major plot point, is that it is filled with people who never shut up?

Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) lives with her father Harry (Sean Bean) as they travel from town to town for reasons Heather does not quite understand…all she knows is that it has something to do with the town of Silent Hill. However, she knows she will soon find out, because Harry is kidnapped, and a message telling her to come to Silent Hill is left in blood on the wall of their apartment. With the help of another student, Vincent (Kit Harington), she travels to town and goes to find the titular revelation of her past and what her destiny means to the future of the town’s residents.

As I mentioned before, the first real issue of the movie is that it relies on the idea that no one saw the first film in the series, as it spends the first half of the movie retelling plot points and secrets as if they are all important to the plot…which really, they are not. Deborah Kara Unger (Dahlia Gillespie) reprises her role from the first film to spout stuff she already talked about then and proceeds to drop off the face of the planet. Vincent and Harry are walking fountains of exposition from minute one, and all it accomplishes is to reassure fans of the game series that, yes, things from the game are mentioned in the movie. None of it makes newcomers unfamiliar with the series able to keep up with the flood of information they are receiving, and fans of the game are going to shake their heads at how they know all this already.

Not to say it is all bad…there actually is a point where the movie remembers its source material and comes miraculously close to recreating that experience. As Heather enters the asylum, the exposition comes to a dead halt, and we are alone with her as she explores an unsettling other realm where she is searching for answers. This also leads to the one good conversation in the whole movie, when a cameo by Malcolm McDowell reminds the audience that some actors can shine in whatever garbage they find themselves. Unfortunately, this one moment is a gem surrounded by mediocrity. And the shame of it is that the movie actually remains pretty faithful to the source material while forgetting the thematic elements of what makes the game play so compelling. The ethereal, ghostly realm of the videogames, made all the more haunting by short, but memorable encounters with strange people, is turned into a world that appears to have no rules to how it operates, and is populated by way too many people who have too little of importance to say.

Adelaide Clemens in “Silent Hill: Revelation.” Photo by Kerry Hayes.

The movie is filmed in 3D, and although I did not catch the 3D version, it is obvious when the effects are used, because there are numerous examples of knives stabbing, hands reaching, and severed limbs flying that carry the whiff of gimmickry. I am in no way against it (as big a proponent as 3D as I am most of the time), and I am sure it looks fine, the trouble is that there is little compelling to see even in 2D. There is a theme here that the movie is trying to communicate, but it is lost in a main character who has little character arc and the desire to throw aside deeper meaning to get Pyramid Head onscreen for the fifth time (and without spoiling too much, it goes without saying that whatever dignity the character once had will vaporize in the film’s final minutes).

The film pretty much parallels the plot of Silent Hill 3. In all honesty, I recommend playing that more than watching this. It does a better job of developing characters, pacing its plot, and engaging the player with intelligence, which Silent Hill: Revelation simply fails to do. It has a few interesting moments, and ends on a note that signals another sequel, which actually makes me hopeful that they could finally make a movie that most closely resembles the best game in the series, Silent Hill 2, and finally strike the balance that would make the series worth movie audiences forking money over to see. Me, at least I would be happier watching Doom. At least Doom did not take itself nearly as seriously.

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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