Review: Silent Hill – Revelation / Cert: 15 / Director: Michael J. Basssett / Screenplay: Michael J. Bassett / Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Sean Bean, Carrie-Anne Moss / Release Date: March 18th
The first Silent Hill film, based on the video game of the same name, was a watchable but forgettable movie that managed to blend some grotesque imagery with a couple of scares, some suspense and a laughable attempt at an American accent by Sean Bean. Six years later, the story continues in Silent Hill: Revelation, which is a direct sequel to the first movie and also loosely ties in to the third game in the series.
Heather Mason (Clemens) and her father (Bean) have been on the run since the events of the first film, constantly moving from town to town in an attempt to keep ahead of the horrors they left behind them. As Heather’s eighteenth birthday approaches, however, she begins to experience terrible, unsettling nightmares that warn her not to return to Silent Hill. Predictably, when her father disappears from their home and Heather’s nightmares begin to intrude on the waking world, she is left with no choice but to revisit the town and face her past.
The first few minutes of this film start off quite well. Heather’s initial dream sequence is full of some quite disturbing images, the Blu-ray transfer is clean and the sound quality is good. Unfortunately, those first five minutes are probably the high point of the entire film. Once the movie proper starts, it doesn’t so much go downhill as go off a cliff, perishing in a mangled wreck of over-the-top acting, nonsensical plot and bad CGI effects.
All of the above could be forgiven – and yes, even the return of Sean Bean’s torturous accent, the woeful dialogue or the criminal misuse of Carrie-Anne Moss and Malcolm McDowell – if the film had anything about it that could be considered entertaining, unsettling or scary. Unfortunately, it falls short on those counts as well. Any tension is killed stone-cold dead by hefty sections of exposition and the fact that the biggest jump scare in the entire movie comes from a pop-tart says it all.
Silent Hill: Revelation is the cinematic equivalent of going round to see a friend, only to spend the next hour and a half sitting on the sofa, watching them play a bad video game over their shoulder. It takes the precious few things that worked about the first film and either ignores them or executes them so badly that you really wish that they hadn’t bothered.
Hard-core fans of the video game may find something to like about it, but pretty much everyone else would be advised to give Silent Hill: Revelations as wide a berth as possible.
Extras: Behind the scenes featurette / Trailer
