Welcome to back to Silent Hill, a place formed by the twisted psyche of those who have suffered unimaginable horrors, an alternate dimension ruled by demonic forces…
If that sounds like the sort of place you fancy spending some time in, then Silent Hills Revelation 3D, the second movie based on the classic PlayStation game series, delivers an eye-popping 90 minutes of frightful fun.
Just don’t expect any sense of a coherent plot, set your cheesy dialogue filter to ‘on’ and sit back and let the lavishly grim visuals sweep over you.
The Silent Hill series won gamers over by its use of disturbing symbolism and psychological dream-state horror visual flair.
The problem when it comes to bringing this to the big screen is that it a very different medium – and a very different experience to watch characters being chased by freaky monsters rather then have them chasing you.
For those who have never experienced Silent Hill either in game or film form up until now, this is a story where metaphors of madness and fragility of sanity abound – pretty deep stuff.
Alas Silent Hill: Revelation 3D – which tries to shoehorn most of the third game into the sequel plot to the first film – ends up as an exercise of ‘flash visuals, shame about the film’.
Basically Sharon, who has now renamed herself Heather and is played by Adelaide Clemens, was saved from Silent Hill by her mother, who didn’t make it out.
Her dad, Sean Bean, is doing all he can to hide her from the monsters in Silent Hill but before you can say ‘cash in’ she’s back in the netherworld with Red Pyramid, a giant sword-wielding muscled executioner, and his demonic pals.
Silent Hill once again brings some seriously grisly shocks and grotesquely grim creatures to the screen, even making decent use of the 3D for some visual flourishes.
This is all well and good for horror fans and those who loved the games, but unfortunately, this follow up just doesn’t match the first one or the games in any respect other than giving more screen time to the fan favourite with the pyramid head, who even pops up after the end credits.
So this second cinematic trip to Silent Hill yields diminishing returns, and as the lights go up it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this is a film that would feel more at home on DVD, which is where most of us will catch it in any event.