Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

You know, I guess this shouldn't be that shocking of a development. It's a pretty well established rule that there is no safety from a good movie getting a bad sequel. That's because the industry really doesn't give two polished sloth turds whether or not it's going to be a good film, or do any kind of justice to what came before it. All that's important is money.

Will it have a decent shot at making its budget back? Then it's green-lit. It's as simple as that. If there's a chance that might have some trouble doing so, they just make it in 3D so that they can charge $14.00 for a ticket and make their money back artificially by having each ticket sale essentially count as two. This is not difficult math to figure out. And with the overseas market which eats up American films like they were candy, they don't have to spend a lot of money to turn a profit. Which is why sequels rarely ever have bigger budgets.

I'm not mad at this, by the way. It's a business. I understand that businesses exist to make money. That's what they do. I'm just sad. I'm sad that so little care is given to quality. It's quantity that is the important thing. Quantity as quickly as possible once some modicum of success is found.

What I don't understand about "Silent Hill: Revelation" (Ugh. See "Lessons With Professor Pat #75" for my thoughts on that title. I'm so tired of complaining about it.) is why it took so long for it to get made. It's been 6 years since "Silent Hill." You would have thought that if they waited that long to make another one it would either be either a reboot or some kind of carefully crafted follow up. But this is a direct sequel, and it comes across has having been made in about 2 weeks after a drunken bet/cocaine party.

It's clear right from the very beginning that this movie was not made with the same artistic style and subtlety (yes, damn it, subtlety) that the original was. The sets look cheap, the effects are cartoonish as opposed to gritty and surreal, everything has that same crisp, glossy sheen that you see in music videos or the "Star Wars" prequels or the Platinum Dunes remakes of "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare On Elm Street." It is so far removed from the tone of the first film that it seems less like a sequel and more like a cut-scene from one of the games as directed by some no-name hack.

Hey look. Pyramid Head is in the latest Linkin Park video. How appropriate.

Not surprisingly, the best parts of "Silent Hill: Revelation" are whenever we're watching a flashback to the far superior "Silent Hill." And the flashbacks are all from the 8 mm sequence it had, which, even though it purposefully looked grainy and cheap, looks leagues better than anything else we see in this movie. Mostly because it looked somewhat real. This movie looks more like someone smeared Vaseline on an action-figure play-set.

After the events of "Silent Hill," we see that Harry (Sean Bean) and his daughter Heather (Adelaide Clemens) are living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, going from town to town, always on the run from the cult of Silent Hill. They are constantly pursuing them in an effort to drag Heather back to the town, so that Alessa can be destroyed once and for all.

"But hold up," anyone who may have seen the first film might be saying. "Don't they mean 'Sharon' and not 'Heather?' And how in the world did she get back to Sean Bean? Didn't the end of the first movie imply that Silent Hill was like Hotel California in that you can check out but you can never leave? And where's Radha Mitchell? And aren't all the cultists dead? Wasn't that the entire point of the first film?"

I can explain some of that. The first is that Heather is indeed Sharon from the first movie, but she's changed her name so as to hide from the cultists. Why they continue to call her Heather after she's actually IN Silent Hill again I'm not so sure since at that point you're not really in Witness Protection anymore, are you? Just use your name at that point. It's confusing otherwise. This is especially so because since Radha Mitchell spent most of "Silent Hill" screaming "SHARON!!!" at the top of her lungs, I've kind of permanently associated that name with that character. Every time they call her Heather I have to mentally adjust the dialogue.

Well, on the plus side Adelaide Clemens looks so much like Radha Mitchell that she could be her daughter, so that's good casting. What? The character is adopted? Oh. Never mind.

It was also nice of them to completely obscure Jodelle Ferland's face from the numerous flashbacks they show to the first film, so that we never see her. That's fantastic. Thanks for that. I'm sure Jodelle also appreciated it since that meant you probably didn't have to pay her anything after recasting her character since she's older now. Even though there's no way that we would probably even be able to notice a difference between the new girl and Jodelle under that makeup, let alone mistake them for a different spooky little white faced girl in a purple dress who is ON FIRE. Heaven forbid this movie get confusing.

Sharon/Heather was indeed apparently able to escape from Silent Hill as explained by Rose (Radha Mitchell) via vision/hallucination to Sean Bean. From my understanding of it, somehow Rose found a way to send her back with no memories of the events of the first film, but she couldn't come back herself for some reason. That's about all the explanation you get, which is pretty much the screenwriter waving his hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi and saying "You don't need to concern yourself with that." I choose to believe Rose is a wizard, but only had enough magic for one last spell. It makes more sense that what "Silent Hill: Revelation" gave me.

As to the cultists of Silent Hill, out of all the inane, nonsensical ramblings of this film's story, that makes the least amount of sense. Even though at the end of the first film Alessa got her revenge and butchered the cultists like a Velociraptor in a room full of paraplegics, apparently now Alice Krige's character had a sister we've never heard of before, Claudia Wolf (Carrie-Anne Moss) and there's even more cultists now, despite Alessa running around free with impunity and nobody to stop her.

"Oh, we've been here the whole time. You didn't see us in the basement? We were all totally there."

So okay, fair question here: If Alessa got her revenge, who are these chuckle-heads living in Silent Hill now? How did they get there if Silent Hill was all about trapping the people who wronged her? Were they part of the original cultists, too? Why wouldn't Alessa just up and kill them since they have no sanctuary anymore? Why is this Claudia Wolf person able to operate out in the open if Alessa is unstoppable like they claim? And how is the undercover reluctant cultist Vincent (Kit Haringon) able to leave Silent Hill to go after Heather? If he can leave, why can't Rose?

And these are nitpicks, but how does the hell-scape of Silent Hill have a fully operational mental institution complete with people who must have to do paperwork and answer phones since we clearly see typed files on patients interned and answering boards lit up? Who would be calling? Do they pay people to work there? Do the demons have desk jobs sometimes? Do they have unions? Why is there even a need for a mental institution in what is essentially Hell? Everyone there is crazy. Are there people more crazy than crazy? Why is there a carnival? In fact, how does Silent Hill even have electricity?

AND WHY THE HELL IS MALCOM MCDOWELL IN THIS MOVIE!?

Seriously, Malcom? Is there anything you won't do for a paycheck? I know this is probably one of the bigger films you've been in recently, but for the love of Pazuzu you were in "A Clockwork Orange!" You are such a good actor, but you seem to only enjoy being in terrible, terrible tripe! Stop that, please! You can say "no," Malcom. You really can! I guess it doesn't really matter much. His part probably took a day to film at most. And he's unsurprisingly the best part of the whole affair despite his sole scene lasting all of 3 minutes, tops. I don't know what he got paid, but for a day's work it was probably pretty good.

So Heather and Vincent go to Silent Hill after Sean Bean gets kidnapped, Vincent turns out to be a cultist who lured her there but he is having second thoughts about it, they get captured, he gets thrown in the mental institution, she meets Malcom McDowell, there's something about this talisman that I never had the slightest clue as to the purpose of, she springs Vincent, there's a carnival, she joins with Alessa much like Rose did in the first movie, Pyramid Head comes and kills Claudia Wolf (which makes both Heather and Alessa's involvement utterly pointless since neither does anything to stop the villain), and then they leave but Sean Bean stays behind to find Rose. Foreshadow another sequel. That's the movie.

And no, I have no idea why they can freely leave Silent Hill, but Rose is somehow still trapped. That makes at least 5 people who have left the town without incident. What's Rose's hold up? Why are the rules as to when or if you can enter or leave Silent Hill apparently random? I wouldn't have as much of a problem if the rules were indeed totally nonsensical but it seems that the characters all understand what's going on like they have a pamphlet called "Silent Hill's Bullshit and You." Everyone gets it but the audience.

Some consistency is all I ask. Can I get some rules? Some order? Anything?

What's so frustrating about a movie like "Silent Hill: Revelation" is that it's clearly made with the expectation that the viewer has an encyclopedic knowledge of the games. I can't imagine it making the slightest bit of sense otherwise. But on the other hand, it's also clear based on my observations that this is most likely absolutely nothing like the games. And I can tell because I can't imagine a game having a story that made so little sense.

It's obvious that there are many, many references spread throughout, such as numbers on hotel doors given prominence and a red high-heeled shoe being in an obvious and very awkward place for no good reason other than it's clearly from the game. But all that doesn't make it an accurate adaptation. That just means there's a bunch of random stuff from the games thrown in there. There's a big difference between adapting something for the screen and just throwing nuggets of fan-service at us, and this is a movie whose narrative is completely fueled by that.

It would be akin to taking a box of "Star Wars" action figures, holding them up one by one and saying "Hey! Remember Luke Skywalker? Remember Han Solo? Remember Darth Vader? He has a red lightsaber that goes PSHFOOSHWOOOWOWOWOWOW! Nerf herder!!" and expecting that to make a cohesive narrative.

I'm guessing that pink bunny means something to someone, but all I get out of it is confusion and sadness.

I know there's probably answers to all of the questions I brought up. I know that if someone knew the games backwards and forwards they would probably be able to piece together the whys and hows. But that's no excuse for babbling incoherence. A film should be able to stand on its own merits apart from the source material. It's the same with novel adaptations. I shouldn't have to do research on what I'm watching while I'm watching it to make sense of anything. That's Screenplay 101.

And on top of everything else, it can't even make good use of its frankly outstanding cast. There are some heavy hitters in here with Bean and McDowell, and Carrie-Anne Moss is no slouch either. Plus I was really excited to see Kit Harington in something besides "Game of Thrones," as I think he's got a really promising career ahead of him after he's done being Jon Snow. But here he's just wasted talent along with the rest of them, though I did get a nerdy charge out of him saying "The dark is coming" since, you know, that and winter. Even our lead Adelaide Clemens, though she's still a relative unknown in American films, has potential I suppose. But she's certainly not given much to work with. And despite playing a grown up Jodelle Ferland, I assure you, she is no Jodelle Ferland.

I'm going to ask a very, very, VERY simple question here, by the way. In the movie, it's been 8 years since the events of the first film. In real life, it's been 6 years since "Silent Hill." Jodelle is 18 now. Same age as the character in "Silent Hill: Revelation." Why didn't they just, oh I don't know, CAST JODELLE FERLAND TO PLAY THE PART AGAIN? Does that just make too much damn sense? Plus it'd be the first film she's headlined since "Tideland" in 2005. Give the girl work!

Not that I'd want to see Jodelle in this crap, but DAMN IT, people! The person in this picture is the appropriate age to play her character again! This isn't hard!

Honestly, I don't know how I would have made this movie work. Having not played the games, I couldn't tell you if there's a good story to be made into a movie in there. There probably is, but at the very least, I can't see it involving any of these characters. Maybe if a new set of people got caught in Silent Hill there might be something to it. But then again, maybe it's best to just leave it alone for once and not make a sequel. How's that for a novel concept?

Check out the trailer and know that it's even worse than it looks.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Silent Hill: Revelation" is a mess. The story is rubbish, it looks cheap, and it squanders a pretty solid cast. Die-hard fans of the games would probably understand it better, but I can't see them enjoying it. In fact they'd probably hate it more than me because I'm guessing they screwed the source material up pretty badly. I'm neutral on it when it comes to fandom, but I do hate it for being a lousy follow-up to a movie I really liked. Boo hiss.

Silent Hill (2006)

I'm about to blow all ya'lls damn minds. You ready for this? Secure your butts firmly for the following statement: There do exist in the world good video game movies.

I know, it's crazy to contemplate but they're out there. Much like a field mouse hiding in tall grass from the sight of a circling hawk, they are shy creatures that don't pop their heads out often. Those are the good ones, anyway. The bad ones are like lemmings running off a cliff - numerous and stupid.

After the shellacking Paul W. S. Anderson gave the "Resident Evil" franchise by leaving an upper-decker starring Milla Jovovich in its bathroom, there seemed little to hope for with an adaptation of the other big survival horror video game franchise, "Silent Hill." I mean, what were we supposed to expect? Were we really supposed to believe that a French filmmaker was going to take a heavily cerebral game littered with nightmarish abominations against which there was no hope in fighting and make it into a movie that showcased helplessness and used the darkness in the human soul as the main antagonist in something that was truly terrifying? Why on earth would we think that?

Our expectations for these are at rock bottom because Paul W. S. Anderson thinks Alice needs to Matrix-kick a skinless dog. Because that's what I think of when I think "Resident Evil."

For that reason, I would not be at all surprised if you've never seen "Silent Hill." Trust me, I understand. I thought it looked like crap too. But even at the time it turned out to be a satisfyingly dark, twisted and disturbing film which I liked a good bit, and it's only gotten better over time as more and more video game movies have come out to remind us how rare it is to get one that's barely competent, let alone actually good.

"Silent Hill" is not an average video game adaptation, as there is less of an emphasis on action and more story and atmosphere going on. The few action sequences to be found are essentially made up of the characters running away from whatever is after them, as it's pretty near impossible to combat the more demonic residents of Silent Hill. And that's a perfectly logical choice to have, as it would have made far less sense for any of the characters to perform any kung-fu on Pyramid Head. And naturally, this makes the demons far more scary than a random zombie charging only to get its head blown off in a fountain of black CGI blood. Zombies get taken out all the time. The monsters here can't be. Which sounds scarier? Remember, kids, this is supposed to be a horror film.

Explaining the story of "Silent Hill" is a little bit of a challenge. After all it's based on a Japanese made video game. The stories to those never make any damn sense anyway, although this one is a little less obtuse than, say, your average "Final Fantasy" entry since VII. The main idea is that in a town called "Silent Hill," a horrible thing was done to a little girl by a group of religious fanatics. Because of that, the town burned, and the girl was split (?) into two halves - one containing all her generous amounts of rage (Alessa), and the other containing everything left in Alessa that was good and innocent, Sharon. Now, some 10 years later, the unknowing Sharon is being pulled towards Silent Hill so that Alessa can fulfill her revenge on the fanatics who still live in a kind of limbo in the town, almost like another plane of existence created by Alessa's rage.

Creating another realm of reality with your anger. That's pretty pissed off.

The religious metaphors are all over the place in this movie, so much so that I can't help but assume that most of the film is likely meant to be an allegory such as "Dante's Inferno." The imagery would certainly fit, and I know that there is a lot of symbolism to be found in the games themselves, which fans have speculated on much over the years. I started feeling like maybe the whole thing was a hidden allegory for stillbirth or the death of a child or something. Maybe it's a coincidence that there was a lot having to do with death coming out of someone's body, and maybe it's a coincidence that there's a lot of hospital imagery and even demonic nurses and undead child-monsters. And maybe it's also a coincidence that Radha Mitchell spends the whole movie running around looking for her lost daughter. But I'm not so sure.

Having only played the games for an hour or so (I was unable to get used to the controls), I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation from game to movie. But from what I've seen of the games, this is probably one of the most accurate adaptations you can find as far as tone and atmosphere goes. The camera is also used in a fashion that is incredibly similar to the games, and it's actually quite noticeable that the filmmakers took great pains to get the little details just right.

Hellooooooo nurse! Wait, no. No "Hello nurse" for those ladies.

The camerawork is really something that deserves mentioning because I've never seen a video game movie pull off the unique look of a game so well. This is so important when it comes to franchises like "Silent Hill" that use the camera to add to the tension, as it blocks points of view on occasion to let us see anything except what's directly ahead. The most obvious shots among those include when Radha Mitchell is first running along the dark streets of Silent Hill after the dark "other world" appears. This whole sequence plays out much like watching someone playing the game, all the way down to Radha's running. It's fantastically well done and really sells the look of the movie.

In addition to the camerawork are some truly horrific gore effects that had me doing a double take and saying "Well, I've never seen THAT done before." And while I've seen gorier films in reality, it's a smart enough movie, and director Christophe Gans is a smart enough filmmaker to know that sometimes subtlety is the more effective path, and leaves some of the more gruesome moments either slightly hidden or cut so quickly that your eye can't absorb it fully, and leaves it more up to your imagination.

But sometimes, you just have to show someone's face in a big close-up as they get burned at the stake in real time.

My favorite segment of the entire film is a sequence that is shot like an old, scratched up 8 mm film. It shows what happened to Alessa as she narrates over it, and it's quiet, artsy, and chilling all at the same time. It's the best highlight to show off how stylistic "Silent Hill" is, how beautiful it can be in it's horror, and how serious it's taking itself as not just a "video game movie," but a film. I guess that's what you get when you hire French directors.

So the story is solid if a bit obfuscated at times, the creature effects are disturbing and effective, the gore is shocking but tasteful, the setting is oddly beautiful, and the suspense is pins-and-needles. The only thing that is left to mention is the cast, populated by some of my favorite actors like Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean, who are both always very good. And my favorite creepy girl Jodelle Ferland plays the parts of Shannon, Alessa and what is essentially the Devil. Jodelle's role is somewhat ironic considering that six years later she'd basically be reprising her role as Alessa when she played the witch in "ParaNorman." That's pretty funny.

How are you so good, Jodelle? You're like, 12 here.

The female driven supporting cast is also quite good. It includes a bunch of actresses I haven't really seen in much else, but I liked them a lot. Laurie Holden's tough cop who helps Radha Mitchell in her quest was a strong physical presence, and has one of the most powerful and disturbing scenes in the film. Deborah Unger was really creepy as Alessa's birth-mother, who is now I guess the crazy cat-lady de jour of Silent Hill.  There was also Tanya Allen as Anna, an ill-fated resident of Silent Hill who is almost innocent in her intolerance and bigotry, and I found her to be oddly cute despite her being filthy and kind of twitchy. And finally we have Alice Krige as the cult leader, a fantastic villain in a town full of demons, somehow managing to be more evil than the thing tearing people's skin off. And it took me forever to realize that she was the Borg Queen in "Star Trek: First Contact." Guess I didn't recognize her with hair.

Seriously. There are things that spit acid out of a hole in their chest, and you're the one who's scaring me.

One of the most interesting aspects that I mentioned before is that the real "villain" in this film is the darkness inside people themselves. Like the aforementioned allegorical aspects of the story, the demons in the town seem to be more like projections of the evil that the townsfolk have crafted themselves, only to have to be unleashed and turned upon them. And as they hide in their sanctuary from the evil they created through their cruelty and fanaticism, it's clear this is a battle they can never win, and they are all lost souls forever trapped in a purgatory of their own making. And Radha Mitchell has to plunge into this Hell to save her daughter and herself, which in itself may be wholly impossible.

It's easy to go into a movie like "Silent Hill" with a lot of skepticism. But this is a deceptively good film when you can get past the fact that it's a video game movie. In the genre it occupies it can hold its head high as an artsy, beautifully disgusting piece of work that does its job admirably. And it was also nice to see a movie based on a game wrap itself up nicely as opposed to leaving it open with an unsatisfying ending just to make sure they can make a half-assed sequel later.

Wait a minute. What's next on my list?

 AW, SON OF A -

Before getting to that mess, check out the trailer for the much better movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Silent Hill" may be one of the objectively best video game adaptations ever made. It's moody, it's shocking, it's actually scary, and it even looks like the game it was based on. Don't let the genre scare you off. This is one that I really like.