Return to Silent Hill is the first time ever I dozed off in the cinema while watching a movie

Is it just me or did this movie just appear out of nowhere? When the trailer dropped I was genuinely surprised as I hadn’t even heard about another Silent Hill movie being in production. I saw the trailer and I was not sure what to think. It didn’t seem to be very promising but I tried to keep an open mind, considering that the director also directed the first Silent Hill movie from 2006, and that movie is thought to be decent and alright by a lot of people now. I should also say that while I haven’t played Silent Hill 2, I am familiar with the premise and story as I’ve seen a lot of reviews and retrospectives of the game during the years. So my focus will be more on the quality of the movie itself rather than its success as an adaptation, though that is important as well and I’m sure others who are better suited will do so.

The saddest part about this whole thing is that it doesn’t take long for me to realize what type of movie I will be watching. From the very beginning to issue make themselves present: the acting, and the dialogue. I don’t like to point out artists involved in a project and how they contribute to its failure, but it is something that has to be said. The acting put on display by the lead actor and actress, Hannah Emily Anderson and Jeremy Irvine, doesn’t necessarily bring down the movie but it doesn’t lift it up either. I think the best word to summarize their performances was “not convincing”. They both have moments where they do shine and I’m not gonna sit here and say they screwed it all up, but at the same time, something about what I was watching felt superficial. While the acting itself is not too bad, it feels worse due to the dialogue. I am not sure how much of the dialogue is stripped straight out of the the game and how much is new, either way, a lot of the dialogue felt odd and unnatural. What characters would say to each other often made no sense considering the relationship between said characters and the situation they had found themselves in. This combination of an ok performance and a poorly written dialogue does the movie no favours.

Do you know what else doesn’t do the movie any favours? Its structure. While the setup and beginning of the movie feel cohesive and alright, as the movie goes on it all falls apart more and more. A good portion of the movie is comprised of scenes ripped out of the games and just stitched together with little to no flow. That is the difficulty of adapting a video game into a movie. In the video game the player will fill the space between story beats, cutscenes and important moments with gameplay, while in a movie you have to come up with a way to connect these naturally. That is most definitely not the case in Return to Silent Hill. It is very obvious that the director is familiar with the game and its iconic moments, but these moments lose their significance when they have no build-up and often lead to nothing. For example, Pyramid Head is in this movie because of course he is. However, absolutely nothing is done with him. He just shows up, acts all scary and mean, and then he just disappears. The inclusion of an iconic character means nothing of it is empty and devoid of logic as to why he is included. The same thing applies to a lot of moments in the movie. You are following James Sunderland all the time, and despite this the movie feels disjointed and you cannot get invested as the scenery and characters are constantly changing without any sense of flow. It was such a waste to include all of the iconic enemies and locations from the game without actually doing anything with them.

The enemies and locations are created using VFX. So was that at least good? At times yes, other times no. Certain set pieces and environments were done actually decently well and were quite believable, even impressive at times. These locations and transitions can be recognized by anyone who has played the game and in this way the movie is quite faithful. That said, these moments are short lived as usually most of the environments and visual effects are not done very well. The green screen is so obvious in some scenes it just takes you out of the movie. The actors feel separate from the background of the scene and when you see it you just know something is wrong. Then there is the VFX of the monsters, which is again hit or miss. Obviously some monsters have been shown love more than others and it is not hard to guess which one. It seems as if a general theme in the whole movie is inconsistency with most of it being bad.

Then there is the story of the movie. I don’t think I am qualified to compare precisely the story in the game and in the movie as I am not 100% on the details. That said, I can tell that they have decided to change somethings and I can also tell that it hasn’t been for the better. Putting that aside, even on its own two feet, the movie handles its story terribly. We have to go back to the structure of the movie again. The “story beats” and “important revelations” often fall flat and have no impact. Even if one of these moments at least has a proper setup, something else will be there to ruin the moment. It has circulated in the internet for quite a bit now, but the fake beard that Jeremy was wearing in perhaps the most pivotal scene of the movie …… it ruins the moment. If it is not the fake beard it is bad CGI, bad line delivery, or something else. Then there is how the movie attempts to tell its story. It cannot decide how vague it wants to be. Some implications seem to be very subtle while others are very on the nose. Inconsistency yet again.

I have not painted a good picture of this movie with a lot of negatives. However, sometimes the negative of a movie can be so much that it does a 180 and it turns into a movie that’s so bad that it’s good. That is not the case. This movie worse than a bad movie that just gets on your nerves for being bad; it’s boring. Maybe a Silent Hill fan will be outraged by the movie and at least get some emotions out of it, but me I just couldn’t come to care. Even if I am tired a good movie will keep me up as I still believe in going to the movie theatre as an experience and I wanna get all I can out of it. I was struggling during this movie. I kept nodding off and I just couldn’t help it. At some point I genuinely did fall asleep, though I woke up like 10 mins after. Still, this is no small feat for a movie.

I’d say the only thing good about this movie that never changed was the music. What else would you expect? Akira Yamaoka himself made a sort remake of the soundtrack of Silent Hill 2. The most recognizable soundtracks from the game are the best parts of the movie, almost literally like shades of light in the dark. One of these soundtracks plays at the very end of the movie and it made such an impact because it meant that the movie is finally over.

I get it. This movie does not have a big budget. 23 mill is nothing today’s day and age when it comes to making movies. I understand the director had a vision he wanted to realize, no matter how little the budget. That kind of passion is something that the industry could always use more of and should be appreciated. However, it doesn’t guarantee a good movie, nor does it obligate for the audience to force themselves to like the movie just because the director really cared about it. The reality is this movie has failed in both as an adaptation and as an entertaining movie. This in no way, shape, or form should mean that people can go sending death threats to the director. That is a childish, disgusting behaviour. On the other hand, I’m not gonna pat the director on the back either and tell him it was the thought that counted.