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Casting Call: Who Should Play Heather in Silent Hill: Revelation
Whether or not you’re looking forward to the film, the original remains as of the few video game adaptations that stayed remarkably close to its source material. Yes, the story was outlandish and more than a little difficult to follow and the real scares were essentially nonexistent. It’s amazing recreation of the atmosphere, aided by the use of the games’ soundtracks, that made the franchise stand out was certainly one of the film’s strongest assets.
So you’ve probably decided on your top choice for Claudia in the upcoming Silent Hill: Revelation and now it’s time to pick out the ideal actress to portray arguably the most important role: Heather. This is tough as there’s no shortage of options out there but I feel I’ve trimmed the list to a select few I feel would make kickass Heathers, hopefully you’ll concur.
This is, without a doubt, my top choice for Heather since she’s proven herself to be an incredibly talented actress with experience in the genre (Sam Raimi’s incredible Drag Me to Hell), and certainly looks the part. Honestly, there’s not much more to say, but don’t let that keep you from checking out the rest of the candidates.
Alright, I might’ve lied a bit because Ellen Page has everything Lohman has with the added bonus of being an incredibly diverse actress. Her work in films like Hard Candy, Juno and Inception has demonstrated her ability to fill essentially every role she’s given.
If anything, Saoirse’s giant blue eyes and remarkable ability to look well beyond her years should translate well to a young girl trying to escape Pyramid Head’s rapey tendencies. She’s only 16 but I’m sure she could add on two years for the role, don’t you?
This is the only one I’m not entirely sure about because looking at her body of work, with the exception of The Reaping, she tends to stick pretty close to Disney roles. However, with a tiny bit of work she could definitely look the part and there’s a good chance after being in Race to Witch Mountain and a Tinker Bell flick she might be eager to do something a little more interesting.
Mia’s another girl that looks very much like Heather and she recently had her first major role in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, where she did an excellent job. She’s fairly new to the industry having only started in 2006 but since then Mia’s managed to go from a name no one knows to one people should watch. And for that I think she’d make for a mighty good Heather.
For a 16 year-old Dakota has done a lot. Looking at her filmography I found myself wondering just what the fuck have I done with my life? Then I remembered I have 30 followers on Twitter and I felt alight again. Dakota has some experience with thrillers having been in Hide and Seek and War of the Worlds, both would certainly help her pull off a believable ‘girl being chased by nameless monsters’.
So that as they say, is that. Well, I’m not sure who ‘they’ is and what they meant by ‘that’, but that’s a discussion for another time. Instead why don’t you trot on over to the comments and let me know who I missed.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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