Return to Silent Hill: The Third Film, Based on the Second Game

The Konami videogames never explicitly identified Silent Hill’s state, but it was generally understood to be somewhere in New England, even though it was inspired by the real-life ghost town, Centralia, PA, which was evacuated due to toxic coal mines fires that continue smoldering decades later. However, the first two films located the nefarious burg in West Virginia. Now, the third installment geographically shifts the ominous town to Maine, more in keeping with game lore. Regardless, Silent Hill is a nice place to be from—far from. Nevertheless, James Sunderland revisits his late wife's hometown after several years away, when he receives a mysterious letter from her in Christophe Gans’s Return to Silent Hill, which opens today in theaters.

Presumably, Mary Crane died during the environmental disaster that devastated Silent Hill, but the details were sketchy, so Sunderland still holds out hope. Of course, the letter’s inexplicable arrival clearly suggests a sinister force is luring the grieving artist into Silent Hill’s supernatural peril.

Obviously, this is not the picturesque Silent Hill Sunderland remembers. The air is now foul and cloudy, while monsters roam the ruins, definitely including Pyramid Head, who has been slightly redesigned since the previous two films. Yet, we can tell from flashbacks, evil always lurked below the surface in Silent Hill. That was especially true of the sinister cult founded by Crane’s father, who acted like they had been evicted from the Dakota Building (a.k.a. The Bramford in Rosemary’s Baby).

Naturally, Sunderland eventually finds his way to the Silent Hill hospital, because faceless nurses are an iconic element of the games. Along the way, he encounters Maria, a human survivor, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Crane, except she carries herself in a much more provocative manner. Indeed, she seems torn between helping and seducing Sunderland.

Return to Silent Hill is set in the same cinematic world as the first two films, but it adapts the storyline of the second game release—relatively faithfully. Unfortunately, the most notable deviations devised by Gans and co-screenwriters Sandra Vo-Anh and Will Schneider are uniformly bad, because they dispel the mood and kill the tension. Arguably, the new bits might even undermine franchise mythology, depending how viewers interpret them.

It is strange Gans took such a misstep, because has always maintained a good rep with fans for his understanding of and enthusiasm for the franchise. Indeed, Return does a lot of things right from the perspective of the fanbase, especially the score penned by Akira Yamaoka, the longtime composer for the games. Loyalists will likely also appreciate seeing Evie Templeton reprise her role as Laura, the strange street waif who somehow survived the town’s horrors, from the recent remake of Silent Hill 2, the game (not the movie).

Silent Hill: Revelation—Pyramid Head Takes Another Hack

Heather Mason’s teenaged years have been difficult.  Her name is actually Sharon Da Silva, but she and her father Christopher, currently known as Harry, constantly move to new towns under assumed identities.  Supposedly, he is on the run from the law, but it is really to keep a step ahead of a bizarre death cult.  Yet, they constantly call her back to their shunned ghost town through supernatural means.  There will be a macabre homecoming in store for her in Michael J. Bassett’s Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, which opens today across the country.

Considered one of the better film adaptations of a video game, the first Silent Hill struck some chords with viewers by seriously addressing themes of faith and sacrifice.  To save her daughter, Rose Da Silva accepted banishment on the other side of Silent Hill’s dimensional portal.  Her husband has done his best to protect Sharon/Heather.  However, when Rose sends him a Candyman-style inter-dimensional warning, it may already be too late.  Sleazy gumshoe Douglas Courtland tracked down the Da Silvas before he fully appreciated the nature of his clients.  In order to save her father, Sharon/Heather resolves to give her tormentors the showdown they want.

Those who have played the survival game will know there is a complicated backstory to Silent Hill, involving Alessa, the all-powerful witch-girl, whose curse holds the cult’s powers in check.  There are also a number of monsters living in this netherworld, including fan favorite Pyramid Head.  Apparently, one of the knocks on the first film was his relative lack of screen time, so it is rather odd Revelation also uses him rather sparingly.   However, Malcolm McDowell has a long and unpleasant scene as blind bogeyman Leonard Wolf, the former cult leader committed by his own daughter.  Gee whiz, it has been quite a while since his career-defining work with Lindsay Anderson, hasn’t it?

Frankly, it is pretty easy for non-gamers to follow Revelation’s first two acts, but once Sharon/Heather arrives at Silent Hill, all bets are off.  Sure, there is a clear narrative chain of events, but the underlying logic of the how’s and why’s is rather vague.  In fact, it is rather like watching someone playing a videogame when you do not understand the rules.

Adelaide Clemens is perfectly credible horror heroine, even delivering a promo-reel worthy speech early in the film.  Of course, Sean Bean certainly knows his way around a special effects-driven production by now.  As Da Silva, he helps elevate the proceedings with his earnest everyman presence.  In contrast, McDowell and Carrie-Anne Moss do not exactly make classic villains as the Wolf family cultists.

In all honesty, Revelation still probably represents the high end of the bell curve for video game adaptations.  Good and evil have very real meaning here.  While as a gamer Bassett was reportedly already steeped in the game’s mythos, he loses control of the third act, letting the film descend into poorly lit mayhem.  There is a measure of payoff, but it comes after a head-scratching sojourn through the titular town’s sub-basements.  Only for diehards franchise fans, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D opens today (10/26) in New York at the AMC Kips Bay and Regal E-Walk, obviously scheduled with Halloween in mind.