Silent Hill: Revelation (3D)
I hope to have my other full length review up as soon as Channel 24 posts it, but for now, here is my review of yet another terrible video game movie.
Also up at Channel 24
Also up at Channel 24
What it's about
Heather
and her father have spent most of her young life on the run, but on
the eve of her 18th
birthday, her father goes missing but to find him she first has to
come to terms with who she really is, what her horrific dreams mean
and why she needs to stay away from the place called Silent Hill.
What we thought
Before tackling
this second film in what will undoubtedly now be a franchise, I felt
it probably behoved me to track down the first film, released way
back in 2006, to try and get some context in which to judge Silent
Hill: Revelation. Much to my surprise, though it is noticeably
flawed, I actually thought the first Silent Hill film wasn't just
easily the best video game adaptation I've seen to date, it's
actually a very solid horror film that made brilliant use of the
video game's visual style and creepy soundtrack to make a chiller
that was actually quite chilling. Sadly though, after seeing Silent
Hill, I've now gone from merely disliking Silent Hill: Revelation to
actively despising it.
Aside from
Adelaide Clemens who did a good job as both the film's plucky heroin
and its Japanese-horror-inspired villain, Silent Hill: Revelation
shares all of its predecessors weak points, with virtually none of
its strengths and even when it does occasionally hit on something
good, it's almost always just a direct lift from the first film and,
presumably, the games.
Yes, once again I
have to point out that I've never played the games on which these
films are based (what can I say, I'm a 1990s gamer at heart) but,
while the first film made me want to give the video games a look, the
second makes me wish they never even existed in the first place.
Still, this is a film review so before all you gaming fanboys decide
to burn me in effigy for having the audacity to give a Silent Hill
product a bad review, might I suggest actually watching the film
before doing so. I find it hard to believe that even the most
apologetic of Silent Hill fans won't be disappointed by Revelation,
especially after such a relatively good job was done the first time
it was adapted to film.
Michael J Bassett
takes over as both writer and director from the first film's Roger
Avary and Christophe Gans respectively and, boy, is the creative
change noticeable. While I'm glad that physical effects are once
again used whenever possible and that once again the creature designs
are pretty impressive, the creepy atmosphere and mounting dread of
the first two thirds of the first film are entirely absent. What we
get instead is a visual pallet that is pretty ugly, made all the
worse by the darkening effects of those pesky 3D glasses, and a
horror aesthetic that basically entirely misunderstands what makes
good horror work.
The entirety of
the film is essentially pitched at exactly the same level as the
final act of the first film, in which all the tension that Silent
Hill had been ratcheting up explodes into a hysterical, wildly
over-the-top finale. Silent Hill's final sections were by far my
least favourite, but at least they felt earned. In Silent Hill:
Revelation however, by turning everything up to eleven from the get
go means that there is absolutely no tension in any part of the film,
no real sense of mystery and certainly none of that all important
“things are quiet but something isn't quite right here” dynamic
that makes horror films scary in the first place. Silent Hill:
Revelation is gory, it's violent and it's very, very tiresome but it
isn't scary, creepy or chilling in the slightest.
With the stuff
that worked about the first film out of the way then, all we're left
with is a film that magnifies its predecessors faults a thousand
fold. Putting aside typically weak characterization and its thematic
laziness (really, by this point, is there a squishier soft target out
there than fanatical blind faith?), the Silent Hill films suffer from
an incredibly convoluted, impenetrable plot that is made all the
worse by how it is delivered.
The main problem
with video game to film conversions is that films and video games
deal with their plots in completely different ways. Video games not
only require stories that are interactive, they also need to ensure
that the plot never gets in the way of the gameplay, which is why
they tend to use huge information dumps to drive the plot along
whenever they allow the gamer a moment or two to catch his or her
breath after a particularly troubling level, mission or section.
Films, of course, if they're even remotely good at all, deliver their
story more organically. Both Silent Hill films though - and it is
even worse in the second film – tell their stories with these
ponderous, distracting info dumps that grinds the film to a complete
stop every time it happens.
The only great
“revelation” of Silent Hill 2 is that even good video game
adaptations can have truly lousy sequels. But then, that's not really
much of a revelation, now is it?
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