Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) Spoiler-Filled Review/Rant: Should Have Not Revealed Itself At All...

 

Happy Halloween! To wrap up the month, I'm going to do a classic rant review for the sequel to one of the best video game adaptations. To be honest, rewatching the first "Silent Hill" and going into the sequel, I thought that it wasn't going to be as bad as people make it up to be. After all, I do go in to every movie with no expectations and giving them a chance to prove their quality. Little did I know that I was going to step into a mess of a movie that deserved all of the criticism that it got. Heavy spoilers regarding both this film and the first "Silent Hill".

Positives:

• Any moment with Pyramid Head, which is only two scenes, is simply great to watch for the icon of the franchise. I will also admit that the CGI, costumes and creature designs, for the most part, stayed consistent in quality, despite the film dropping to a $20 million budget.
• Jeff Danna and Akira Yamaoaka return to compose the score and it's the only element to recapture the quality of the first film. It's still reused tracks from the games, but that's what made the music from the first film so good to begin with.

Negatives:

• Let's begin with the story. Serving as a direct follow-up and an adaptation of "Silent Hill 3", the film follows a grown-up Sharon Da Silva, now named Heather Mason. She and her father, Christopher Da Silva/Harry Mason, have been moving all over the place as Christopher has been protecting her from a new cult organization known as the Order.  When Christopher gets abducted by The Order and Sharon is suffering from nightmares and hallucinations about the town as well as a demonic creature attempting to kill her, she makes her way to Silent Hill to save her father and put a stop to the cult. As the movie begins, the viewer is already asking too many questions, namely how the heck is Sharon with her father as the last film made it clear she and her mother are stuck in the other world created by the town and Alessa? Well, the sequel does explain it in a sloppy flashback by explaining how Rose found a magical talisman  off-screen as well as the existence of a previously unheard cult that is after Sharon, causing her to stay behind while reuniting Sharon to her father. The goal of the sequel is to be more faithful to the games than ever, as some fans weren't happy about the first film changing a few key aspects of the story and lore. However, that goal not only undermines the direction and approach of the first film, but makes the sequel even more messy. That's why the Seal of Metatron and the Order are suddenly established in the sequel without any references to them in the first film whatsoever. The story also has this unresolved sub-plot where Sharon is framed by the Order for murdering a detective, which the police were last seen at her house as they make their way to Silent Hill. The movie ends without this plot-point being resolved. For a movie that tries so hard to be faithful to the source material, it becomes both unfaithful and awful for the franchise in the process.
• The pacing switches from fast-moving to slow-as-molasses. The first film was always a slow-moving film as it tries to keep the viewer enwrapped in mystery for the two-hour runtime. The sequel is a half-hour shorter, but the pacing makes it feel longer than it needs to be. The first film had the characters thrust into Silent Hill after 12 minutes. You want to know how long it takes for Sharon to finally enter the town in the sequel? 42 minutes! That means that the audience has to wait for more than half the movie to finally see the familiar town! There's also the issue of filler scenes throughout the film or the lack of sequences that can be trimmed down. There's a notorious scene that is made not to progress the story or the journey of the character, but just to scare the viewer. I will talk more about it later on. The first movie is slow by design and it's very effective for the atmosphere and the story. The sequel is on fast-forward and slow-motion just to drag the runtime out as much as possible. This is helped by one of the worst aspects of the story-telling in the sequel.
• The exposition dumps. If you thought the first film had a poor moment of catching the viewer up to speed, the sequel is practically just Sharon getting lectures from everyone. The first film was effective at keeping the mystery in suspense until Rose and the audience gets all the answers they were looking for. The scene itself went on for too long and with unnecessary narration, but it was needed for the narrative that was in the film. The sequel however wants to not have any sense of mystery at all, but instead have the viewer soak in so many questions that they try to answer them as if they were trying to make you feel dumb for not understanding what's going on. The flashback of Rose explaining how and why she's staying behind for her daughter's sake happens much too early for the film, which doesn't let the question linger for an emotional impact. Sharon should be an emotional wreck wanting and needing to know what happened to her all those years ago due to her lack of memory. However, she gets caught up by the random detective, Jon Snow, and a letter from her father that gives her the entire rundown of what she is, who are the enemies that are trying to get her as well as who are all of the people she is encountering throughout the film. You know what's the worst thing about all of this exposition? It happens before Sharon enters Silent Hill! Instead of saving all of this to build up a sense of mystery, they just overflow Sharon and the viewer all of this information that you will start to feel tired and uninterested as Sharon steps inside the town.
• The characters and acting. I will admit that Sean Bean and Erin Pritt as Christopher/Henry and Alessa are probably the best actors in the movie as they attempt to stick to the seriousness of the film and characters. However, the rest of the characters are not on that same par. First, there's Adelaide Clemens as Sharon/Heather. While Clemens nails the look of the character and tries her best at acting, the character herself is just really bland. Because of all of the exposition dumps, there's no real growth of strength for the character as she just stays scared and helpless throughout the film. The fact that they retconned Pyramid Head to be her protector just shows how bad she is as a character. Next, there's Kit Harington as Vincent Smith, or as I like to call him, exposition man. Not only does he tell Sharon all of the details of the story, but even who he is, revealing to be the son of the villain and a member of the Order. The chemistry between him and Sharon is poor to say the least. There are other side characters such as Malcom McDowell's Leonard Wolf, the grandfather of Vincent who is imprisoned by the Order and serves only as a plot device for Sharon to receive the second half of the talisman, Martin Donavan as Douglas Cartland, the detective who is killed by the Order before he gives a quick dump over why Christopher is on the run, Radha Mitchell as Rose Da Silva, the husband of Christopher who appears in the one flashback scene, and Deborah Kara-Unger as Dahlia, Sharon's biological mother who, I kid you not, appears in only one scene and not have a big moment about her reuniting with a part of her daughter. The worst thing about the cast isn't that they are exposition machines or feel utterly pointless in the long run, but the actors just seem to not care for the material they are given. With exception to Bean and Pritt, the cast just doesn't take the movie seriously at all and give out a lazy performance, which is a far cry from the cast of the original. You might have noticed I forgot to talk about the villains of the movie? Don't worry, they get their own segment.
• Claudia Wolf and the Order. Talk about a down-graded rehash of the first film. The previous film had the Brethren, an extremist cult of Catholics who seek to burn down witches in order to prevent the end of days and keep their town in harmony. The Order comes straight from the games and operate in a different level. In this movie, they were above the Brethren and allowed Alessa to be burned as a witch. Why? Because they know that her destiny was to be served as a host for an evil force that will punish all sinners, whom which the Order worship. It's kind of like a Satanist group ordering a bunch of extremist Catholics to cause the Apocalypse, which makes literally no sense for the parties involved. The issue with the introduction of the Order is that it retcons aspects of the first film. Not only is the Brethren acting out from a higher power, but Alessa as a character feels less relatable as it was supposed to be her destiny to become the Antichrist. Wasn't it the idea that she was wrongly treated and punished by a group of crazies that she got her powers and an uncontrollable sense of rage? Nope, it turns out that it was destiny. On top of all of that, Carrie-Anne Moss as Claudia Wolf, the leader of the Order, is just hamming it up, which is not as intimidating as Alice Krige's performance as Christabella. Acting aside, Claudia's character is just a bad villain. Not only does she have this random reveal to be a creature known as The Missionary, but the first scene you see her, she instantly draws her "connection" to the first film by saying that she is in fact Christabella's sister. Wow... I can't believe that they stole that plot point from "The Little Mermaid 2".
• The direction by Micheal J. Bassett. Christophe Gens was too busy to direct the sequel, so the studio decided to get Bassett instead. I don't have anything against towards this guy as his filmography is just as low as Gens and he did direct a few episodes of "Ash vs. Evil Dead", but my problem is that he clearly didn't have the same passion or vision that Gens had for the franchise. This is established by his obsession to connect everything to the games, retconning aspects from the first film, and not letting the atmosphere or dread sink in for the audience. Instead, Bassett just decided to make the film as generic of a horror film as possible. The fact that there are fake jump scares compared to the original shows how his direction is inferior to Gens.
• The cinematography by Maxime Alexander. While not bad by any means, it lacks the ambition that Dan Lausten had in trying to make ever scene shot in a unique or ambitious way. There's occasionally a well-shot scene or moment, mainly during the second half of the film, but Alexander's camerawork is really by the numbers.
• The mannequin sequence. There are a handful of scenes that I can use to describe just how bad this film can be, from Malcom McDowell's cameo to the ending that just references all of the games at once, and the unexplained moments of how Silent Hill is crossing over to Sharon's reality, but the mannequin sequence might take the cake for the most random scene in the film. As she first goes inside Silent Hill, she finds herself in a creepy room filled with mannequins. This is taken from one moment in the game that's supposed to carry this creepy atmosphere, yet the film decides to expand on it to the point of comedy. Sharon then finds a women being turned into a mannequin and another women named Suki trapped in some plastic web. Apparently, there have been some random victims who decided to go into Silent Hill fairly recently. As Sharon frees Suki, they see this horrible, CGI creation that resembles a spider with all of these mannequin heads and a Demogorgon-esque mouth. Not only is the CGI on this creature look way worse than any of the creatures in both films, but this creature doesn't look like it even belongs in the same movie or franchise. Sharon escapes, but Suki gets dragged away and killed offscreen. Not only do they just introduce this random character only for her to immediately be killed, but the scene had literally nothing to do with the story as the place she was in wasn't where she was supposed to go to get the Seal, and we never see that weird abomination again. This scene alone should give you the proper picture of why this movie is not only bad on its own merit, but just a terrible follow-up to the first film.

"Silent Hill: Revelation" is what I feared the first film was going to be like. Although Danna and Yamaoaka's composing is great as always, Bean and Pritt do their best as their characters of Christopher and Alessa, and certain creatures such as Pyramid Head and The Missionary look good with decent CGI, the rest of the movie is not only a huge downgrade from the first film, but as a stand-alone horror film as well. The story is a gigantic mess of retcons and trying to be more faithful to the source material that it just ruins what was established for the first film, the story itself has way too many questions and unresolved plot points, the pacing is all over the place and makes the two-hour runtime of the original film felt like a half-hour TV episode in comparison, the extreme use of exposition dumps in the first half are both lazy and exhausting for the viewer as it distinguishes any excitement to continue watching, Sharon is a bland character that doesn't feel strong in the film, Vincent is just a exposition machine, the side characters mainly appear in one signature scene and they usually give out an over-the-top performance, the Order's existence contradicts the Brethren from the first film, Claudia Wolf being the goofy sister to Christabella is just head-pounding stupidness, Alexander's cinematography lacks the ambition from Lausten's work in the first film, the mannequin sequence is the most WTF moment I've ever encountered in a while, and Bassett's directing fails to offer the same atmosphere, mystery and scares that Gens managed to accomplish. This is a solid contender for being one of the worst sequels in cinematic history and it's the reason why people think that the first film isn't seen as a great movie and adaptation.

Verdict: 2/10. What little quality shines is crushed by the weight of the gigantic pile of issues this sequel has. Avoid watching this and please just stick to the original.