I’ve never actually played the video game Silent Hill, though I did watch my cousin play the very first game on her PlayStation. That game scared me half to death, and I was just watching it. It helped me better understand the film adaptation Silent Hill back in 2006, starring Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean and directed by Christophe Gans. I remember liking it. I remember being scared, and I do remember talking about how much I enjoyed the experience with my friend.
So, I was a little excited to see Return to Silent Hill, since it is also directed by Christophe Gans and co-written by Gans, Sandra Vo-Anh, and Will Schneider. Based on the Konami game Silent Hill 2, Gans delivers breathtaking imagery and immerses us into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Unfortunately, its weak story and character development, as well as its continuously jumping narrative between the present day and flashbacks holds back what could have been a genuinely scary movie.
Return to Silent Hill follows the story of James (Jeremy Irvine), who meets Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson) after he accidentally runs over her bag at a highway bus stop. She misses her bus, but the two manage to see a spark that prompts James to walk Mary back to the picturesque town of Silent Hill.
The film then jumps a year later and James is now an alcoholic living in the city, who has dreams of Mary. He’s causing trouble at a bar, and his therapist (Nicola Alexis) keeps calling him to make sure he shows up for his visit as he is spiraling. But as he gets home, he finds a letter from Mary asking him to return to Silent Hill.
When he returns, he finds the town covered in ash. It’s worse than a ghost town. And when a siren wails, the world transforms into a dark, brimstone world where creatures roam freely. As James wanders the empty streets (and sometimes monster-ridden) looking for Mary, the film shifts to the past to reveal why he left her in the first place.
From the get-go, the film quickly assumes we believe in the love story of James and Mary, which is the crux of the film’s emotional core. But since the love story is revealed through flashbacks as the story unfolds, we really question the characters’ motivations and really wonder whether James really can’t let go of Mary. It doesn’t help that many of the flashbacks show the two in love – constantly kissing and embracing – but doesn’t delve into why they’re in love. It’s a love story for the sake of the plot.
Irvine and Anderson don’t have the kind of chemistry that tells its own story, so without the narrative beats of a true love story, the film feels very forced. It doesn’t help that the film takes a lot of short cuts to explain things that are happening – people suddenly appearing to serve as exposition and then quickly discarded – and then after everything has been said, the world building of how Silent Hill came to be this way was still left vague and obtuse, and not in a good way.
What the film manages to deliver, though, is gorgeous imagery. The set pieces of James walking through the empty, ash-covered town are just simply gorgeous to look at. Gans and cinematographer Pablo Rosso play with the angles so that the camera swivels up into the air to give us top shots or comes really close to give us an over-the-shoulder shot, which feels reminiscent to many video games. It also creates a tension because we know we are watching a horror film, and the long shots set up the fear that creatures will be rushing forth, or worse, in the tight shots from James’ point-of-view, when he turns a corner, will we see a creature there? This creates real dread so that three or four major jump scares feel unnecessary.
But the creature designs are also breathtaking, and the way Gans features them is quite impressive. From a bit of reading online, it seems that Gans had permission to redesign the creatures and Patrick Tatopoulos, who is credited as Creature Designer, did an amazing job with some of the monsters, most especially the Moth Lady and the Red Pyramid (who apparently is taken from the game).
It’s such a shame because the film had all the elements to deliver a good scary movie, but because I couldn’t get hooked into the characters, I couldn’t feel scared. I’m still amazed by the visuals and the direction, though it felt like it belong in a different movie.
My Rating: 2.5 Stars
Step back into the haunting world of Silent Hill with Return to Silent Hill. Check showtimes near you and experience the terror on the big screen.
