(Movies fail at the box office, and many more fail to even find release into theaters. When one of these dead on arrival titles arrives on disc they go under the knife of the forensic video-examiner, all in the hope of determining the causes of death in the marketplace. Be forewarned any who wish to see the film – this piece is entirely a SPOILER.)
Hollywood has a long and tortured history with video game adaptations. It becomes understandable why this genre is troubled and sketchy with the returns. Most contemporary video games are cinematic in scope, borrowing heavily on motion picture conventions in order to immerse a player into realms. But when a script is being crafted from this source material you end up with Hollywood adapting a product already adapted from itself, and the result of making copies from a copy is degrading quality. Yet Hollywood continues, despite this glaring fact: After two decades now of trying to find success with this product only one VG title --
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider -- has ever grossed over $100 million at the box office. To show how weak this field is,
Silent Hill: Revelation barely earned over $15 million, and it managed to land in the top-20 all time of VG-based films.
For this sequel to the 2006 original Michael J. Bassett was brought in as writer/director. It was evident that Bassett wanted to replicate many elements from the game franchise, but doing so meant bypassing many of the crucial aspects of the original film. Easy to understand how this derailed. In order to collect both fans of the first film and players of the games he used numerous scenes choked with exposition to keep everyone up to speed. This means large chunks of dialogue are used to connect scenes of disturbing visuals which serve no plot purpose. Lets slice into this crepuscular disc and see what led to its demise.
00:01:22 Locale Anesthesia A young blonde runs in slow motion around a creepy looking amusement park, trying to evade hooded figures. The writer/director is trying to tap into our collective disgust with carnies!
00:01:32 Ruptured Visual According to this film buckles are going to be the hot new fashion accessory next season.
00:03:24 Septic Introduction The girl awakens (yes, it was all a dream) and Dad – Sean Bean – comes in the room. He was in the original film. He was also in the
Lord of the Rings trilogy. You reconcile this detail.
00:04:16 Iatrogenic Direction As Dad Bean comforts Heather he becomes stabbed, then vivisected, by a hideous, surreal, saw-headed being. Heather screams and awakens once again. Opening your film with a dream-within-a-dream sequence basically excuses anyone from caring one wit about any upcoming details in the plot.
00:09:16 Plot Stimulant Basset wanted to cleave close to the realm of the video game franchise and thus needed to free himself from the plot of the first film. Some terse dialogue in a quick scene of Bean talking to his missing wife in a mirror should do the trick!
00:14:28 Iatrogenic Direction We learn that Heather is prone to having sudden, random visions of completely disturbed visuals. A vagrant becomes a creature; a school hall becomes a dungeon -- no rationale is given and thus no explanation is needed. Pretty convenient to have a light flicker and then your character becomes inserted into a different scene altogether.
00:16:13 Comedic Toxicity Their high school must be found in the heart of Downtown Subtleville.
00:20:59 Chronicle Seizure A private investigator stalking Heather approaches in the bowels of a mall to say The Order from Silent Hill sent him to find her. Now he wants to warn her, but the saw-head creature from her dream slices his fingers off as he falls into an elevator with her. Rather than help the severely wounded guy Heather instead badgers him with questions.
00:32:54 Continuity Failure Sean Bean has gone missing so Heather compels a new friend, Vincent (played by Bean’s
Game of Thrones co-star Kit Harington), to help her find him. She reads a note from Dad and his voice-over explains more plot details for us. The note on camera is shown to have completely different words.
00:33:34 Blunt-Force Dialogue While pouring through Dad’s journals more plot is spilled out for us, and Vincent offers this nugget: “Never build on ancient Indian burial grounds. I thought everyone knew that.”
00:34:44 Cranial Atrophy The journals detail the secret of Silent Hill, where a demon-child named Alessa lords over the former coal town rendered dark and evil. There is a sketch of the steel-pyramid-headed being shown in the trailers and posters, described as Alessa’s “guardian, and executioner.” Typical; a government position with two titles, but one paycheck.
00:35:24 Cliché’ Malignancy After driving all night Vincent needs them to get some sleep. The motel they choose keeps Hollywood’s tradition of faltering neon signs intact.
00:37:50 Continuity Failure Vincent makes a bold admission; He was born and raised in Silent Hill! And, he as sent to bring Heather back! He fails however to explain how a native of West Virginia coal country achieved such a pronounced British accent.
00:38:09 Cranial Atrophy There is a remarkable amount of wild contradictions within Basset’s laborious storyline:
• Vincent explained how people are able to escape Silent Hill, but that is AFTER he had said he was dispatched to find Heather.
• The Order wants Heather, who is the other half of Alessa – I guess. If Heather arrives then Alessa will become whole, yet somehow her becoming whole will then mean she can be defeated. (HUH???)
• Vincent now refuses to bring Heather to Silent Hill, because he realizes that she is actually not evil. This is after he already agreed to drive Heather most of the way there.
• Vincent tells how Alessa is keeping The Order, and Silent Hill, under her darkness. Now he wants to prevent Heather from going, which would in fact keep Alessa in power and Silent Hill under torment.
-- (All of those inconsistencies were delivered within one minute of dialogue.)
00:42:12 Weakened Impulse After repeatedly being told by numerous people throughout the story not to go there, Heather finally arrives at Silent Hill.
00:51:04 Invasive Pathos Heather wanders into a cavernous mannequin warehouse where she encounters a killer, mannequin spider. Why? Probably because Basset had an extra terabyte of hard drive space laying around – who knows?
00:59:46 Plot Stimulant Chained up in the asylum we discover Malcom McDowell as a blind in-patient. Given little more to do than provide the next story point, like we just leveled up, he is still a welcome respite.
01:01:10 Invasive Pathos Malcolm takes hold of a disc Heather has been carrying, and describes it as The Seal. This goes along with other elements we have heard about such as The Order, The Brethren, and The Sanctuary, in this thing that Basset called “The Script”.
01:08:02 Physics Arrest Deep in the asylum Vincent is strapped on a gurney and wheeled into a room populated with zombie-mutant nurses. These carotid-stripers stand motionless but react violently to movements, killing the henchmen who brought him in. Heather however is able to sneak up to the gurney to free Vincent without a reaction.
01:16:03 Weakened Impulse Arriving at the carnival of her dreams Heather meets Alessa and she hugs her, destroying the demon half of herself. So all the talk of The Order being a powerful entity wanting to destroy Alessa becomes undercut by her rather easy solution.
01:21:13 Collapsed Climax It becomes revealed the female leader of The Order is actually the saw-headed being who chased Heather around the mall, and her dreams. Pyramid-Head arrives to battle her. You feel as if her defeat is significant towards the story, but damned if this film won’t explain how. Amazing, considering all the expository passages used throughout to justify anything that was happening.
01:23:43 Iatrogenic Direction After risking everything to find and rescue her father they walk to the edge of town, then Dad lets her know that he is going to hang around Silent Hill to look for his wife. Heather reacts as if the public bathroom ran out of paper towels, and then she and Vincent walk away. Roll Credits
Post Mortem Admittedly some of the visuals and set pieces hold your attention. There is an element of nightmarish reality, however none of the arresting visuals carry any weight. You truly feel as if many ostensibly iconic scenes – the mannequin spider, zombie nurses, ect. -- were inserted simply to fill a quota. Few served the plot and most were dispatched after getting your attention. Likewise the numerous cameos from players who deliver plot details then disappear. Then Bassett does himself the biggest disservice when he has Malcolm McDowell state that there are many Silent Hills. This means there is nothing special or unique about the town depicted, and all the efforts at saving it are thus a waste of time.
Much like the movie itself.