Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012)

Movie Info

Ready for your shot?

Sharon Da Silva (Adelaide Clemens) and her father Harry (Sean Bean) are always on the run.  As Sharon (now living as Heather Mason) tries to cope with her past, the evil they are fleeing has come back.  Sharon is beginning to see things and remembering her childhood that she was told she lost in a car accident with her mother.  When her father is taken by agents calling themselves the Order, Sharon and a classmate named Vincent Cooper (Kit Harrington) must journey to Silent Hill, West Virginia to confront Sharon’s past and end the evil once and for all.

Directed by Michael J. Bassett, Silent Hill:  Revelation 3D is a video game horror thriller.  A follow-up to Silent Hill from 2006, the movie was met with mostly negative reviews and critics felt it the previous entry (though also poorly reviewed) was better.

Merry-Go-Round Broke Down

The main problem that critics had with Silent Hill:  Revelation 3D is that it didn’t match up with the original film…I didn’t find this to necessarily be true.  While I found the first film quite confusing and overly long, I thought this movie was a bit more concise and at an hour and a half, a little more enjoyable (but yes…still confusing as hell).

Silent Hill:  Revelation 3D is not a good movie, but it is an improvement because it keeps moving.  With one lead character to follow (instead of the divided cast of the first film), it gave a bit more direction.  Unfortunately, when the movie starts diving into mythos and creating background for the characters, it mostly feels like the dialogue becomes gobbledygook.  At an hour and a half vs. the two hours of the original, I did not mind this as much…It’s too bad it is just not a very good film.

Macy’s new Christmas window display is different

The acting in the movie is also quite poor. Of the main cast, only Martin Donovan is American and sounds like the character they are portraying (Carrie-Anne Moss has a small role…she is Canadian and gets the accent).  The rest of the cast is largely Australian and English…portraying people originally from West Virginia.  Kit Harrington and Sean Bean in particular struggle with the accent…it makes everything feel  a bit off.  The characters also are not as developed or rounded as the first film (it was obvious that Harrington was hiding something other than his accent).

Like the acting, the visuals don’t quite seem up to the level of the first Silent Hill.  The nice look of the ash filled city is in this entry as well, but the stark contrast of the white and dark scenes isn’t there.  The generic sets are judge dingy and the characters (like the first movie) just look like they were ripped out of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser.  With a movie that is supposed to be showing your fears, it just is not very scary, but I do feel that the visuals are more clear in this movie.  The first film was too dark, and it was sometimes hard to see what was going on.

I don’t know what is happening or why they are fighting…but cool?

Silent Hill:  Revelation 3D is slightly better than its predecessor, but I could also see how anyone could argue that it is worse.  The movie is better by default and both films underwhelm (even in second viewings).  is a slightly better follow-up to Silent Hill but simply because it isn’t as long.  The movie leaes with an opening ending and with multiple games, there is always room for a Silent Hill III…but I think I’d prefer if they dropped the franchise.  A reboot might actually work.

Related Links:

Silent Hill (2006)