Review of Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012) by Quincytheodore — 23 Dec 2012

The only scary or gruesome thing about this movie is that it might be the end of Silent Hill. Yes, it's that bad, coupled that with an awful game earlier this year, Silent Hill is in all new low. Mercilessly butchering the memory of one of the best games in last gen, Silent Hill: Revelations 3D is a poor reinterpretation which fails almost in its entirety and they make sure to stomp the franchise while it's on the ground with truly horrible 3D implementation.

Any resemblance to the game is merely cosmetic. The look of protagonist, misty town, gridiron underworld, they are all practically miming the game. This may work as a screenshot, but put them in motion, it's a travesty to the title. Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) has the hair and clothes, yet she fumbles in times, bordering on teen angst rather than the sorrowful persona of the game. It's amazing how the game digital character could exhibit more appropriate sadness, meanwhile the real life version somewhat struggles with the delivery. It's like she's in constant lousy mood and relies too heavily on screams, which practically everyone does here.

There's also an variation of the cast, Vincent (Kit Harington), who is Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, but so Twilight here. He substitutes the private investigator part, who barely has any screen time and while I welcome changes, this one is needless and a blatant bait for teen drama. The private eye had odd relationship with Heather as they were both lost in Silent Hill, Vincent doesn't add to that, he's plain, very predictable, and can be mistaken from 90's slasher movie cast.

It's strange that there are actually some quality names here; Sean Bean, Malcolm McDowell, Carrie Anne-Moss, but they only have brief screen time and not much to go with, considering how mediocre the script and screenplay are. Sean Bean does his best for the father figure, it's not a great performance, although he is believable as the parental role. And he offers a puzzle whether he continues his tradition of dying in the movie or not as Harry Mason actually died in the game.

It'd be bearable if they only mess up that far, but the brilliant minds that made this had an epiphany: 3D. Oh god, the utter failure of it.

Effect of 3D, as we all know, can also be accompanied by the blurry and blindingly dark effect. Now, add that to a movie where the bulk of it is in darkness, you have a horrifyingly bad visual. Then there are the cheap scares, so prevalently, from monsters that scream at the screen. Everything in the movie throws, stabs, yells at the screen. I've had enough of this persistent crap in my face. And when I said everything, that includes Heather. She shines the flashlight at the audience every few minutes.

Imagine a putrid dark room, you can barely see anything, and then she flashes at your fragile eyes, repeatedly. Why the bloody hell someone would think that's a good idea is beyond common sense. All of these atrocious concepts make a visual nightmare, not in its intended goal.

To be fair, it sometimes looks and sounds like the game, albeit only seldom, and a couple of scenes are almost okay. But that's buried in piles of questionable concepts and horrific execution of them, it's more of a laughable annoyance than adaptation of once a great game. What made the game so popular was the use of details to make an atmosphere. Flashlight, radio static, camera angle and the audio made an excellent terrifying world, the movie is anything but. This might be last tour in Silent Hill.