| release date | October 26 2012 |
| studio | Open Road |
| director | Michael J. Bassett |
| writer | Michael J. Bassett |
| starring | Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, Carrie-Anne Moss, Malcolm McDowell |
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While this movie isn’t exactly like the games, which I wasn’t expecting, as a sequel to the first Silent Hill film it’s pretty decent. The visual effects are a little bit sketchy and some of the characters could have been “fleshed” out even more, but all in all an entertaining film.
This movie is too fast paced for its own good. Its cluttered with corny explanations and bad dialogue. There are no build ups to any scares and it just leaves you with bloody imagery. The Monsters and the films sets are awesome though. Lots of good practical effects and gore. however the movie overall is very disappointing compared to the first film.
“Silent Hill: Revelation” is a direct sequel to Christopher Gans’ 2006 film, Silent Hill, based on the game series of the same name. That, right there, is the film’s biggest flaw, as it presents the film with the opportunity to provide tons of needless exposition. “Hey, do you remember that scene in the first movie where this happened?” “Oh, of course you don’t, here’s a five minute explanation of what happened.” Every single exchange between characters either explains what just happened in the previous scene, what’s happening in the current scene or what the character needs to do in the next scene. There’s nothing remotely resembling a genuine, natural conversation, only stilted dialogue. As I sat in the theater, I struggled to find any sort of merit and could only find 3 or 4 examples, such as a well-shot scene here or there and the mannequin spider that’s so heavily featured in the trailers. But, even in that scene, there’s absolutely no tension involved, because, frankly, it’s impossible to care about anyone in the film. Malcolm McDowell shows up to, not chew the scenery, but Kirby suck it into a vacuum far beyond the edges of the Universe, where even the Devil would not dare travel. I wish I was kidding. Hell, there’s even a misguided attempt at throwing in a love story, less than a day after the two main characters, Heather (Adelaide Clemens) and Vincent (Kit Harrington) meet. Each scene manages to be worse than the one preceding it. Very slight credit must be given to the quite attractive Adelaide Clemens for, at the very least, attempting to add some nuance and depth to her character, but, between her accent slipping (albeit infrequently) and the completely incoherent script, she was doomed from the beginning. Sean Bean returns to serve as one of the film’s seemingly infinite MacGuffin’s, playing Heather’s father, now named Chris (*wink, see? We’re following the game!). His scene with Rose (Radha Mitchell, briefly reprising her role from the first film), shot in a mirror for “artistic” purposes, just might take the cake for the worst scene in the movie. That’s saying a lot. Being a major fan of the game series and generally enjoying Writer/Director Michael J. Basset’s last three films, I had moderate expectations for this film. To say it was underwhelming, would be a gross misappropriation of the word. Despite what you think of the first film, it’s impossible to argue against it being a handsomely made film. “Revelation” doesn’t even have that distinction. Cinematographer Maxime Alexander, who’s done admirable work on Alexandre Aja’s “The Hills Have Eyes” and Breck Eisner’s “The Crazies,” seems to have no idea what to do with the camera, except for a few instances, including the climax before the climax in a familiar amusement park. For the most part, however, the camera seems to have been placed in the most random of places and all it does is help disconnect the audience even further from the film. The color palette attempts to mimic the vibrancy of the original, without much success. (Interestingly, “Silent Hill” D.P Dan Lausten worked on the director’s last film, “Solomon Kane,” but did not return for this sequel. I wonder if he read the script. ) Even the gore is an outright failure. There’s a cool idea near the beginning, involving cooks shearing flesh to throw on the grill and serve to patrons, that’s ultimately rendered remarkably stupid by inept execution. The scene is shot with a ridiculous, blue filter that just looks amateurish, at best. Red Pyramid shows up to…well, to lop off a few prisoners arms and look “intimidating.” Unfortunately, the make-up now looks incredibly cheesy, almost like an oft-abused Stretch Armstrong figure. Oh, and he engages in a one-on-one sword fight with a Cenobite-reject, complete with gratuitous slo-mo shots. Yes, there is a slow motion sword fight in a Silent Hill movie. God help us all. Alright, I do have some minor compliments for the production team, so let’s get those out of the way so I can let loose on the ending. The falling ash looks quite good in 3D and there are some fleetingly cool shout-outs to the game series for the discerning viewer, though they have absolutely no bearing on the story. The costume designer did a decent job replicating Heather’s costume from the game, whatever that’s worth, and the nurses still look creepy and slightly sexy. At least a couple of people on the production team were committed to putting in some effort. Now for the ending.
*SPOILERS* (I’m not going to go into details regarding the climax, only the resolution afterwards.)
Still with me? Good. So, after being assaulted by practically non-stop stupidity and incomprehensible dialogue, the filmmakers manage to out-do themselves in 60 seconds flat. After Heather succeeds in achieving her goal of whatever-the-fuck and saving her father, he decides, in one of the worst dialogue exchanges ever committed to film, to stay in the town to look for Rose, who he “knows” is still trapped in the town, basically setting up a sequel loosely based on the second game in the series. Then, Heather and Vincent walk out of the town, hitchhiking. A very familiar semi-truck stops alongside them. They hop in. The man introduces himself. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been through this town. I’m Travis Grady,” effectively setting up a prequel based on “Silent Hill: Origins,” as well. (Travis is played by Peter Outerbridge, who Saw fans will recognize from Saw VI.) It’s the clichéd horror trope of setting up a sequel, except, no, it’s not just twice as bad, it’s THREE times as bad. Right after the truck departs, we see a convoy of police vehicles cruising towards the titular town. Among them, is a prison bus, which will prove quite recognizable to anyone who’s played the most recent console game, Downpour. Yes, the movie ends threatening 3 sequels. I’d better start writing one before Michael J. Bassett does.
“Silent Hill: Revelation” is a direct sequel to Christopher Gans’ 2006 film, Silent Hill, based on the game series of the same name. That, right there, is the film’s biggest flaw, as it presents the film with the opportunity to provide tons of needless exposition. “Hey, do you remember that scene in the first movie where this happened?” “Oh, of course you don’t, here’s a five minute explanation of what happened.” Every single exchange between characters either explains what just happened in the previous scene, what’s happening in the current scene or what the character needs to do in the next scene. There’s nothing remotely resembling a genuine, natural conversation, only stilted dialogue. As I sat in the theater, I struggled to find any sort of merit and could only find 3 or 4 examples, such as a well-shot scene here or there and the mannequin spider that’s so heavily featured in the trailers. But, even in that scene, there’s absolutely no tension involved, because, frankly, it’s impossible to care about anyone in the film. Malcolm McDowell shows up to, not chew the scenery, but Kirby suck it into a vacuum far beyond the edges of the Universe, where even the Devil would not dare travel. I wish I was kidding. Hell, there’s even a misguided attempt at throwing in a love story, less than a day after the two main characters, Heather (Adelaide Clemens) and Vincent (Kit Harrington) meet. Each scene manages to be worse than the one preceding it. Very slight credit must be given to the quite attractive Adelaide Clemens for, at the very least, attempting to add some nuance and depth to her character, but, between her accent slipping (albeit infrequently) and the completely incoherent script, she was doomed from the beginning. Sean Bean returns to serve as one of the film’s seemingly infinite MacGuffin’s, playing Heather’s father, now named Harry (*wink, see? We’re following the game!). His scene with Rose (Radha Mitchell, briefly reprising her role from the first film), shot in a mirror for “artistic” purposes, just might take the cake for the worst scene in the movie. That’s saying a lot. Being a major fan of the game series and generally enjoying Writer/Director Michael J. Basset’s last three films, I had moderate expectations for this film. To say it was underwhelming, would be a gross misappropriation of the word. Despite what you think of the first film, it’s impossible to argue against it being a handsomely made film. “Revelation” doesn’t even have that distinction. Cinematographer Maxime Alexander, who’s done admirable work on Alexandre Aja’s “The Hills Have Eyes” and Breck Eisner’s “The Crazies,” seems to have no idea what to do with the camera, except for a few instances, including the climax before the climax in a familiar amusement park. For the most part, however, the camera seems to have been placed in the most random of places and all it does is help disconnect the audience even further from the film. The color palette attempts to mimic the vibrancy of the original, without much success. (Interestingly, “Silent Hill” D.P Dan Lausten worked on the director’s last film, “Solomon Kane,” but did not return for this sequel. I wonder if he read the script. ) Even the gore is an outright failure. There’s a cool idea near the beginning, involving cooks shearing flesh to throw on the grill and serve to patrons, that’s ultimately rendered remarkably stupid by inept execution. The scene is shot with a ridiculous, blue filter that just looks amateurish, at best. Red Pyramid shows up to…well, to lop off a few prisoners arms and look “intimidating.” Unfortunately, the make-up now looks incredibly cheesy, almost like an oft-abused Stretch Armstrong figure. Oh, and he engages in a one-on-one sword fight with a Cenobite-reject, complete with gratuitous slo-mo shots. Yes, there is a slow motion sword fight in a Silent Hill movie. God help us all. Alright, I do have some minor compliments for the production team, so let’s get those out of the way so I can let loose on the ending. The falling ash looks quite good in 3D and there are some fleetingly cool shout-outs to the game series for the discerning viewer, though they have absolutely no bearing on the story. The costume designer did a decent job replicating Heather’s costume from the game, whatever that’s worth, and the nurses still look creepy and slightly sexy. At least a couple of people on the production team were committed to putting in some effort. Now for the ending.
*SPOILERS* (I’m not going to go into details regarding the climax, only the resolution afterwards.)
Still with me? Good. So, after being assaulted by practically non-stop stupidity and incomprehensible dialogue, the filmmakers manage to out-do themselves in 60 seconds flat. After Heather succeeds in achieving her goal of whatever-the-fuck and saving her father, he decides, in one of the worst dialogue exchanges ever committed to film, to stay in the town to look for Rose, who he “knows” is still trapped in the town, basically setting up a sequel loosely based on the second game in the series. Then, Heather and Vincent walk out of the town, hitchhiking. A very familiar semi-truck stops alongside them. They hop in. The man introduces himself. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been through this town. I’m Travis Grady,” effectively setting up a prequel based on “Silent Hill: Origins,” as well. (Travis is played by Peter Outerbridge, who Saw fans will recognize from Saw VI.) It’s the clichéd horror trope of setting up a sequel, except, no, it’s not just twice as bad, it’s THREE times as bad. Right after the truck departs, we see a convoy of police vehicles cruising towards the titular town. Among them, is a prison bus, which will prove quite recognizable to anyone who’s played the most recent console game, Downpour. Yes, the movie ends threatening 3 sequels. I’d better start writing one before Michael J. Bassett does.
didn’t love it as much as the 1st film but it was VERY good! Adelaide is superb in this! she’s fantastic. i can’t say enough good things about her and her performance.
PH wasn’t overused. i liked the fight between him & The Missionary at the end. Radha’s one scene was brief but very well done and emotional. i like that (SPOILER)
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Vincent was able to be with Heather at the end.
the carousel/fire/dark Alessa part was excellent. the spider mannequin was VERY good and creepy. Leonard’s monster self was nurse-ish (in the face) and VERY cool.
i give this a 8 out of 10. i gave the first movie a 9 out of 10.
Saw this last night with a friend in 3D, and being a fan of the first film I was pretty excited to watch this…… But low and behold, this film was worthless. Not only was there no tension, no good gore, and no good acting (damn it Sean Bean you can do better!), but it tries to add nonsensical plot devices that not only made the films logic disintegrate but rewrite aspects of the first film. The first wasn’t a classic by any means, but it had a different kind of pacing, amazing gore, and interesting story. This has none of those things and replaces them wih. If you want to watch a Silent Hill movie watch the first one and ignore this so-bad-it-should-have-been-direct-to-digital-download-so-no-dvds-would-be-wasted.
As a fan of all things horror I attempt to see every horror film on the big screen; even video game based ones. I say that because when it comes down to it I have yet to see a really well executed game to big screen adaption. Yes, there have been entertaining ones but to me they seem soulless. They seem to make a video game walk-through for the big screen instead of taking aspects of the game and creating a film.
I did not have high exceptions for this film going in and was really just going for the visual effects. But it was the uneven storyline and tacked on dialog that made sitting through this film tiring. I will not go into details because I don’t want to spoil anything here. Lets just say its bad and leave it at that. Now to address what I went to see the movie for in the first place, the visual effects. The visuals are not bad and the 3D works for the most part. What doesn’t work is just using the same characters as the first one (with the exception of the manikin spider character, which makes me think of Toy Story for some reason) Well I could complain more and in slightly more disappointed detail but I doubt anyone is still reading this…Happy hunting my fellow bloody disgusting horror fiends.
Despite some flaws, I really enjoyed this sequel. Slightly better than the first film in my opinion.
Okay, since I’ve never played any of the Silent Hill games and my best friend has, I’m forced to go see this
one.
I watched the first Silent Hill two weeks ago (I was confused at some points but it was good as an overall
movie), this one left me saying, “What is this?”
I had paid to see a Horror Film but instead got a sappy love story and an overly fast-paced movie.
The Director murdered this version which pissed me off. According to my friend, the first at least followed
the concepts of the video game and made the camera angle the same as if you were playing and Rose, the
mother, played an excellent job portraying actual fear when little monsters came out.
This girl, Heather, doesn’t have a single expression in her body.
I always relate movies to myself. I would run, not walk. I would not stare in awe at monsters, but hid as if
I’m hiding from a monsters not the police.
Ugh…. And to top it off, Vincent, who was supposed to be ten years older than her and help her in the
game, happened to be a weird boy who thought she was better than the evil.
Pssh, are we watching High School Musical?
And lastly, my all time favorite character, Pyramid Head, looked like a drunken sailor with the worst scar
marks on his chest and back. Was I in a lame version of Scream Town where they can’t provide good
graphics?
Anyway, Pyramid is not Alessa’s guardian but instead had to do with the Second Silent HIll video game.
I don’t want to even go into that.
Also, the acting killed me. Literally, I’m have a wound.
I’m at a loss on how to describe this film. – I thought the first film was passable in the visuals and music department, but utterly butchered the original story, along with terrible dialogue. Then this film came along and made the first look like a masterpiece. I actually regret my negativity towards the first film now.
While there wasn’t any dialogue as cringe worthy as ‘silent hill! silent hill!’, the creature designs are mostly terrible (mannequin-type spider creature that looked incredibly bad, with eye-popping 3D!), the set pieces lack any real depth that the first film got right (or that could be the fact that they’d rather focus on ‘look! scary face in floor/pop out scares!) instead of any type of depth for the shots, and everything is so rushed, yet somehow so terribly boring, that when it’s over you’re thinking ”really?”
This series deserves so much more than this. The games, especially the first 4, had incredible depth and story development – and for this film to tarnish the name as much as it has – seems unforgivable.
It’s still a mess narratively, it moved way too fast through the story and definitely the ending needed a lot of help. The cast was pretty decent (except for Vincent, he wasn’t that good) but you don’t really go to Video game movies expecting perfection, it’s a common fact that video games are difficult to translate on the big screen. Despite the story problems and some special effects that seemed unfinished, I still had a good time watching this one.
I wanted to like this movie so much. I loved the first one and still retained hope when they announced Roger Avery wouldn’t be writing this sequel. Silent Hill Revelation is full of cliches and bad acting. Kit Harrington seems to be having an internal struggle with whether to play his character Vincent with an irish accent or not. the dialogue mimics the video games in that it’s choppy and not entirely believable. I’m a huge fan of the game franchise but this was just terrible. The only parts I found myself actually enjoying was at the very end where Travis Grady comes, referencing Silent Hill: Origins, and the prison buss from Silent Hill: Downpour. Also the fight scene between pyramid head and the cenobite rip off was dumb as fuck.
I’m not savvy in the storyline of the Silent Hill games at all, so I can’t say how true it is to that. However, I can say I enjoyed Silent Hill Revelation more than the first. Not saying the first is awful, but I felt it was longer than it needed to be. SH2 however is fast-paced (maybe a bit too much), but it gets to the point. I loved Heather as a character, she was a strong and smart female lead. It gives us more details on the origins of Silent Hill (even if it is spoon fed). The acting is decent, and it has some awesome sequences, especially the showdown between Heather and Alessa, and Pyramid head and the Missionary. The nurse scene was pretty intense and Malcom McDowell’s cameo was great. At this point I kind of hope for a 3rd and final film. The 3D is great by the way. Sony is one company that knows how to use 3D well.
Silent Hill: 6/10
Silent Hill Revelation: 7/10
CommentIn my opinion if you are a fan of the game series you will probably like it and despite some god awful reviews that are clearly written by people who are not familiar with the games and should not have even been in the theater to see this in the first place which makes them unworthy to write a bad review thisbis a film made for Silent Hill fans and thats all just for fun
As far as sequels go I enjoyed this one. It’s a good follow up to the first one and brings the Alessa/Sharon story to a close, which I’m sure wasn’t easy to do since all the games have different antagonists. I’m glad to see some old faces like Dahlia and Rose and also some new and creepy creatures. Pyramid Head is my favorite and enjoyed the brutal kills. It had the eerie vibe of Silent Hill but cannot outdo the first one, but who cares it’s at least something to do with the Silent Hill series. I hope there’s another one. I liked the hintings at the end of of the movie to Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill 6. I’d be interested in seeing both storylines getting the movie treatment. This return to Silent Hill for me was worth it. I hope to see more.
*protagonists*
I love the first movie! Its one of my all time favorites. And I was so excited about this movie…and…I dont think ive been as disappointed in any other movie this year. The story and acting are just atrocious. It has huge holes in the story, it strayed much farther away from the game than the 1st movie did, but I really cant get over the fucking story. Its just nonsense. Including the ending. I will probably see it again to make sure I didn’t miss something but from first view its a horrible film. But no matter how many times I see it it will still be a horrible disappointment of a Silent Hill film. Stick to the amazing 1st movie until they actually make one worth while. But again love the 1st film.
I liked this movie; the story line tied in well with the first film, the ideas for this film were good, the acting wasn’t bad, and more. However, I think there could have been more in depth details and the ending could have been better. Overall this was a good movie.
I feel the movie was really good for the most part it was entertaining the story matched with the previous movie the characters were pretty interesting, as a fan of the game I was quite pleased with the sequel
I almost want to say that I wish this were longer and slower-paced, but that would mean that I’d have to spend more time watching this. And that’s definitely not something I’m interested in doing. Ever.
Now, I’ll say that Silent Hill 3 is my least favorite game in the series, so I pretty much went into this film not caring very much about whether or not the story would be butchered. And that’s a good thing, because the story WAS butchered. At its core, this is the closest game to film adaptation I’ve seen (definitely closer than the first Silent Hill film) and there were a lot of moments that made me go “oh, I remember that.” But unfortunately, those moments were overshadowed by unbelievably bad ones.
Going back to my initial statement, the film is far too short and too faced paced. You don’t care about any of the characters or what happens to them. The writing is choppy and you’re often moving from one place to the next without any explanation or even a good reason to do so. The CGI was WAY over done, and almost all opportunities to create genuine scares were wasted on jump ones.