Silent Hill: Revelation

Silent Hill: Revelation is Really Stinky!

By Kristin Battestella

When we settled in for a marathon of both Silent Hill films, we debated some of the plot holes and designs from the first film, sure, but nonetheless, Silent Hill is an enjoyable and scary little movie. Unfortunately, the 2012 sequel Silent Hill: Revelation is a retconned mess of running thru the motions and bad 3D escapades.

18-year-old Sharon (Adelaide Clemens) and her father Chris Da Silva (Sean Bean) have been on the run under assorted assumed names since Sharon escaped from Silent Hill as a young girl – although her mother Rose (Rahda Mitchell) remains trapped in the alternate reality.  The Order of Valtiel pursues Sharon in her latest incarnation as Heather Mason, along with her fellow new in town boyfriend Vincent (Kit Harington). The Order soon abducts her father, forcing Sharon to return to Silent Hill where she must unite the Seal of Metatron and do battle with Priestess Claudia Wolf (Carrie-Anne Moss). 

Yeah, I confess I gave up on trying to do a decent plot summary. Understandably, Silent Hill’s Oscar winning writer Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) was unavailable to pen a sequel thanks to his vehicular manslaughter conviction. However, new writer and director Michael J. Bassett (Deathwatch) wastes all the intriguing possibilities of Silent Hill and instead creates a weird, unnecessary, near remake in his rewriting of the original film’s history. Silent Hill: Revelation is neither a sequel to the first film nor a sensical adaptation of the video game franchise, and I’m seriously thinking that writers and directors should no longer be one and the same – we have some George Lucas midi-clorians single moms here!  And let’s not forget the all new, entirely different from the first film cult, oh yes. Revelation would have its zealots using mystical relics to summon gods instead of burning witches at the stake. Pieces from the first Silent Hill are awkwardly kept or reintroduce thru clips, flashbacks, and new scenes, but these elements feel like a trailer to something completely different. It’s as if Silent Hill: Revelation is meant for teens that would happen to take in this scary movie at the cinema, for this audience isn’t expected to know or care about the first film.  What the hell kind of sequel is that?  The task of fulfilling both the previous film and the video game series is already near impossible, but the bad dialogue and very poor script here are not happening for either purpose. Considering how the first Silent Hill concluded, I’m not sure how this story could possibly be its successor. The maturity quotient of a mother searching for her child as in the first film has become a completely moot point in this picture about a teenager. It’s totally obvious that everything possible was done to make Revelation a fast paced teenquel, regardless of what either the film or game precursors needed. Can’t we have movies about adults instead of kids for a change? Even if you dislike the first Silent Hill, I think everyone would have preferred seeing a step up of its atmosphere, continued horror maturity, and scary video game graphics possibilities before…this.

I freely admit my bias for the newly Bafta nominated Sean Bean, and he was the only thing that kept me tuned in here.  How he can do such magic like Accused and then this drivel is beyond me! A sequel to Silent Hill with Bean starring as a father researching the alternate dimension of Silent Hill and pursuing his lost in the town’s abyss wife ala the second video game seems like a far, far more interesting movie than the piss poor Revelation take on the Silent Hill 3 game. Here, Bean ends up chained beneath a squatting Atlas-esque demon god statue for most of the film after his daughter does the stupid thing he expressly says not to do and sets all the crappy in motion. I’m glad that he’s playing unique or fatherly characters and he still looks great, but I’ll be damn Bean has made a few ten minute appearances in some serious clunkers recently and his accent is all over the place here. Fellow Game of Thrones House Stark Kit Harington is also one walking cliché after another. This Vincent has an obvious inside cult connection, yet he’s willing to die for a girl he’s only known for two days- although she has to save the boy who’s supposed to be helping her. Silent Hill: Revelation actually doesn’t collapse into an excuse for make outs and sex scenes, thankfully. However, this boy toy ridiculousness would be bad enough, except for the fact that our couple is related!

Unfortunately, stellar performers like Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), and brief appearances by the returning Rahda Mitchell and Deborah Kara Unger are absolutely wasted.  I don’t think any one of them has more than 5 minutes of screen time before being replaced by a lame monster or inexplicably disappearing altogether. Why was this massive accumulation of talent, the scary game design, and monster action quest for adults potential wasted for a retcon for teenagers? Even if one let’s go of the erroneous approach, Revelation is not that good of a teen horror film. The relatively tame gore and imagery and one ridiculous count of nudity warrant an R rating? Hardly, and I must say Adelaide Clemens (Love My Way) is decidedly unimpressive.  Granted, she keeps her clothes on and is neither a sexy bimbo or bad ass bitch. However, she’s also like every other girl or boy unknown lead taking over in these newer horror films – indistinguishable from the pack.  The mish mash of source pieces from the first film and the video games only create a more muddled mess of character motivations, and the players can’t stand out. The viewer is supposed to care about an evil cult in an alternate dimension, yet these utmost evil people need to hire Martin Donovan (Weeds) as their PI? This weird mix of characters from the first Silent Hill and the video games just does not work.

Now, about those graphics.  Where the first film may have positively or negatively divided audiences due to its video game-esque design, Revelation looks like every other horror movie made this decade.  Actually, it sort of resembles a high end haunted house tour – from a demented circus and merry go round and a cannibal burger joint to a people turned mannequins shop run by some sort of body parts spider, a slice and dice asylum, and finally a monster Ultimate Fighting Championship. These scenes are pointless and disjointed, merely going thru the motions of each set piece in order to fill up the expected 90 minutes. Every death, blood splatter, elevator, and overturned piece of furniture is utilized for a 3D angle.  Despite the latest design and 3D effects work, Silent Hill: Revelation doesn’t look good on blu-ray and the multi dimensional attempts are obvious, ridiculous fakery. This is my precise problem with 3D film making.  Maybe Avatar had groundbreaking graphics and state of the art animation, sure. Unfortunately, in the rush for everyone to copy the formula, this new 3D has quickly returned to the exact same desperate fling things at the camera 3D of old.  Too many times during Revelation I was reminded of Jaws 3 or Friday the 13^th Part 3 – not good company! 

Perhaps it is unfair to compare and Silent Hill wasn’t a perfect movie, but it had good scares and was most definitely watchable.  Silent Hill: Revelation, on the other had, is not. I don’t normally fiddle with the remote during a show, but we kept checking the running time and hoping it was padded with credits!  While fans of the cast can enjoy their individual clips, Silent Hill: Revelation unfulfills on its predecessor and the gaming franchise – to say the least. 

Silent Hill

Silent Hill an Entertaining Horror Treat

By Kristin Battestella

 I like the 2006 video game-based horror film Silent Hill, yes, it’s true. However, I suspect the convoluted plot and unconventional video game-esque effects may be divisive to audiences expecting a more simplistic slice and dice pursuit.  Gamers and fans of the Silent Hill franchise, on the other hand, will delight.

Rose (Rahda Mitchell) and Chris Da Silva (Sean Bean) are concerned by the increasingly disturbing behavior of their young adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). In addition to horrific artwork, the girl sleepwalks and dreams of a place called Silent Hill.  Against Chris’ wishes, the desperate Rose researches an abandoned town of the same name and takes Sharon to this mysterious Silent Hill. There, a coal fire continues to burn underground and the nightmarish darkness brings forth deadly monsters, fiery hysterias, and cultish quests.

Director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) provides a great, hefty atmosphere – both in the darkened threats and ash falling bizarre of Silent Hill and the real world desolate and desperations. Of course, with some of the abysmal video game movie adaptations abound, we might not expect so much despite a story from Oscar winning writer Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction, Rules of Attraction). The who is who, why fors, and evil dream world ala purgatory back story is muddled at best and certainly confusing at times. Though the tale benefits from those lowered video game expectations and provides above average horror, the plot suffers from this increasingly obvious trend of making your scary set up and horror graphics more important than a clear story resolution.  Implication and speculation are nice, yes, as are the flashback expositions here. However, the cool, old fashion reel camera effects can’t hide the plot holes hampering the script. Religious iconography, sin, fire, and hell motifs sometimes come off as a lot of double talk. When chicks end up throwing stones at other chicks, you wonder why nobody just came out said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’  These potentially high concept Inquisition parallels, anti religion, and fanaticism hints never receive their due revelations in Silent Hill. 

 

Fortunately, we have a talented cast to help us forgive Silent Hill’s flaws. Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black, Man on Fire) is very likeable as a mother searching for her daughter. Yes, she makes some stupid mistakes in her search- including bringing her daughter back to exactly the place she isn’t supposed to be. However, Rose is understandably desperate for her child, realistically strong in her search, and believable enough for the action.  We don’t need her to be uber badass, and I’m glad Silent Hill didn’t become some sort of Rambo chick cliché. Besides, Laurie Holden (The Walking Dead) fits the bill as Rose’s semi-warrior woman and bitchy cop sidekick Cybil – although her haircut, mannerisms, and attitude do feel a little stereotypically butch at times. I don’t understand Cybil’s weird offshoot Mother is God mama love fest vibe, either.  She’s action good, effective in her police work, and there’s a teamwork build between her strong and Rose’s sensitive. Enough is happening in Silent Hill – we don’t need these extra feminine examinations littering the story if there is no follow thru for them. Thankfully, Cybil doesn’t go off the Xena deep end, as there aren’t many cool for the sake of cool weapons uses or outlandish CGI stunts here.  Most of the time, our gals are only armed with flashlights and six bullets, and its refreshingly frightening.

Although, there are more female arch types to be had in Silent Hill – it seems like one of each thanks to the zealous Alice Krige (Star Trek: First Contact) and a bad mother pariah Deborah Kara Under (The Game). Both gals are on form as always and fun to watch, but unfortunately, they aren’t given much to do beyond sin and dark, who is right and who is wrong backtalk before the special effects take over for the finale. Likewise, the obligatory horror I was there! investigator Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy) is sadly not given more to do with the historical pieces. Today, a film based upon a video game could have been set solely in the past, and Jodelle Ferland (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) is asked to do some freaky stuff for her alternate reality, past and present multi faceted role. Unlike those other early 21^st century blonde American woman with a creepy kid horror pictures, Sharon and her incarnations are neither annoying or goofy and unintentionally humorous.  In fact, the audience is both concerned and freaked as Sharon’s history unfolds.

Of course, Silent Hill is also a bit of role reversal for Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings) as Chris.  This film’s dynamic is special in that it is a mother and daughter quest – as opposed to the much more often seen husband, father, or all around man hero. Chris is a dad on the sidelines, butting heads with police and getting fraught in his research montage. He’s the out of the loop stay at home wife who’s side tangent doesn’t exactly do anything to help. It’s also interesting that this plot was added to Silent Hill not from the gaming source but rather as a studio insistence to break up the chick fest for the mostly male dominated viewing demographic.  Not so long ago, a leading lady was the one shoehorned in as a mere wife or required romance.  Although Bean also played a similar role in The Dark the same year as Silent Hill, it’s nice to see a leading lady have a realistic, supporting husband – and in a horror movie no less!  Besides the Bean factor, I like Silent Hill because it doesn’t go for today’s horror brand of naked teens in peril with a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Even with its video game approach and patchy writing, there is a familial maturity and close-knit fear to keep the audience on the edge of our seats.

Pleasing cast notwithstanding, I do however fear the special effects in Silent Hill may polarize modern audiences.  Despite our big and expensive CGI 3D hysterias, the smart uses of darkness, light, sounds, and derelict dangers here still make for a great mood and atmosphere. The creepy, stilted slice and dice mobs add to the scares, too. However, some scenes and visual shots expressly look and feel just like a video game. Perhaps it is only noticeable to those who pay attention to movie effects and watch a lot of video games being played, but this design will be either ‘These effects look so crappy like a video game’ or ‘Awesome visuals like a video game!’ for the viewer. Rose has to unlock doors in a school, jump over grates and holes in the floor, find hidden hotel rooms, and weave thru frozen undead nurse monsters. Although these scenes advance the plot of finding Sharon, they also feel like quests done in a video game, and thus make Silent Hill seem thinner as it goes on. Are these critical events or mere checkpoints needed to accomplish your search? Are we playing a game or watching a movie? Likewise, Cybil feels like a non-playable helper in these sequences, another piece to help one along the way. Though this simplistic style is relatively harmless, occasionally character motivations are sacrificed because one has to do an action rather than stick to his or her persona. For some serious horror fans, Silent Hill won’t be worthwhile thanks to these repetitive searches, staged accomplishments, or running to and fro scenes. Then again, to the 18 to 34 gaming demographic, Silent Hill plays like a freaky movie and supersized video game combination.  As video games have become increasingly realistic and as well designed as films thanks to motion capture and mainstream voice talent, maybe Silent Hill isn’t dated in its game design, but a bit ahead of its time. Outside of some archaic cell phones, one wouldn’t know this wasn’t a more recent picture.

If the focus of Silent Hill had been the horrific errors and transgressions of the plot at hand and not it’s very scary looking build up of video game action and effects, this could have been a seriously good and freaky piece for this talented ensemble. As is, Silent Hill is a little bit of both – an action horror picture with sweet effects and better than expected characterizations, maturity, and casting.  Ideally, Silent Hill should have decided to be one or the other – a scary period piece or an all game horror action – but this creepy and unusual mix of both is still entertaining if you accept the movie for what it is. Despite a confused vision and the resulting flaws, fans of the cast, atmospheric horror audiences, and gaming lovers can delight in this surprisingly special video game turned movie.