Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Silent Hill: Revelation 3D’

As you may or may not know, I’m somewhat of a Silent Hill fiend. I’ve been a huge fan of the troubled series since the first game launched in 1999, and for some reason had been really looking forward to the sequel to Christophe Gans’ first Silent Hill film.

I was so excited for the film (and heard that others were too) that I prepared a retrospective on the entire series to prepare for the now released sequel. I’d definitely give it a read if you have any interest in the iconic series of games.

Before delving into Revelation, let me be absolutely blunt. This movie was fucking awful. It was an experience that my better half didn’t want to be a part of in the first place, and you can be assured that it was an extremely silent walk to the car afterwards. Whether you’re a fan of Silent Hill or horror in general, do anything but see Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. In fact, instead of seeing this piece of crap, why not use your $10 for a certain kickstarter campaign instead?

If you’re at all familiar with the series, Revelation is a loose adaptation of 2003’s Silent Hill 3. The film tries to tie itself nicely into the end of the 2006 movie: Heather is a grown up version of Sharon from the first film. She somehow escaped the otherworld that her and her mother were trapped in at the end of Silent Hill, and Heather and her father Christopher have been on the run from the cult ever since. Heather conveniently has no memory from her first journey to the cursed town, but has recurring haunted dreams of the horrors within. Her dad gets himself kidnapped, and she heads to the town to save him, which of course is exactly what the cult members want.

The above paragraph may not make much sense, but is really the best description of the Revelation that I could come up with. The (sparse) plot is convoluted as hell at the best of times, and completely incomprehensible at the worst. Much of the time, things literally don’t make any sense whatsoever. The most terrifying part of the movie is the fact that this script somehow made it to screen: it should have been burned or thrown in the Mariana Trench at the treatment phrase. Things also don’t fully make sense in relation to the first film either. One example: Alessa killed everyone in the town at the end of Silent Hill, yet somehow in the sequel, every one of them is still there.

As I sit here trying to think of a saving grace, of something that for hardcore fans may make it worth the price of a matinee ticket, I realize that there simply isn’t one. I did not enjoy a single frame of this film. Not one frame was worth the money that it cost to make. Even Akira Yamaoka’s haunting score felt out of place in such an abysmal offering, and most of the time was overshadowed by the technical grunge of Jeff Danna.

Creature design is on a similar level to those in Silent Hill: Downpour: atrocious. Sure it was cool to see the series’ regular nurses again, and Pyramid Head looked decent enough, but anything that was created specifically for the film (the mannequin spider comes to mind) looked laughably bad. The creatures in the Silent Hill universe are supposed to make you uncomfortable and absolutely disgusted just as much as they’re supposed to scare you. The ones in Revelation were hilarious.

The CG effects in the movie however, really did bring me back to Silent Hill 3. Not because they were thematically similar or had anything to do with the game, but because they were about the same quality as you’d see in a PS2 title. Even things as simple as smoke looked like they were straight out of the 90’s. While comparing to the PS2 titles, most of the performances in the film (including that of series’ newcomer Malcolm McDowell) were about as forced and stunted as James’ in Silent Hill 2 (for those that haven’t played, that means awful).

Are you getting the picture? Silent Hill: Revelation is bad. It’s the worst movie that I’ve seen this year (by far beating out The Apparition from a couple months ago). I reiterate, do anything but see this film. Fairly quickly into Silent Hill: Revelation is a warning: “Do Not Go To Silent Hill”. In closing, I can only repeat this phrase, as it’s the best advice the movie can offer.

And with that goes another nail into the coffin of one of my favourite series’.

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D scores a terrifying 0/5.