By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson and Evie Jayne Templeton
Directed by Christophe Gans
Written by Christophe Gans, Sandra Vo-Anh and William Schneider
Cineverse/Iconic Events
Twenty years ago, French director Christophe Gans turned SILENT HILL into the best video-game-based horror movie to date, and arguably till today (not a high bar to clear, but still…). Its 2012 sequel SILENT HILL: REVELATION, made by others, didn’t find much favor with fans or critics, and Gans’ return to the helm for RETURN TO SILENT HILL promised a return to superior form for the franchise. Unfortunately, while some of the atmosphere carries over from the original, dramatic interest, and the fear factor, are largely lacking.
Gans and cinematographer Pablo Rosso (who shot all four [REC] movies) do get some spooky imagery going from the early scenes, following the meet-cute prologue introduction of protagonist James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) to Mary Crane (WHAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE’s Hannah Emily Anderson). Mary, we will learn via flashbacks, became the love of James’ life, but in the movie’s present, he has lost her and become an alcoholic mess. Then he receives a letter from her (no address or postage, it just turns up), imploring him to, well, return to Silent Hill. No sooner has he passed the familiar “Welcome” sign than the familiar ash starts to fall from the sky and the sirens to sound, and James’ quest to find Mary takes him through a series of bizarre settings facing a bestiary of bizarre creatures big and small.
Some full disclosure here: I haven’t played either version of the SILENT HILL 2 game—the 2001 original or the 2024 remake—upon which RETURN is based, so I can’t speak to the movie’s faithfulness to the source. (A couple of key players have crossed over from game to film: Composer Akira Yamaoka provides a suitably eerie score, and WEDNESDAY’s Evie Jayne Templeton, who performed Laura in the second game, takes that role in the movie.) As scripted by Gans, Sandra Vo-Anh and William Schneider, however, RETURN TO SILENT HILL plays like the most simplistic kind of video game, carrying us from one gnarly encounter to another without giving us an emotional connection to what’s going on.
Part of the reason is that we don’t feel the overwhelming love for Mary that would lead James to press on through all these horrific setpieces, which would lead any reasonable person to get the hell out of town and call the authorities. Especially as we learn, via those flashbacks, that the inherent uncanniness of Silent Hill led him to leave her there in the first place. The other residents seem a little odd in these scenes even before James witnesses them putting Mary through some kind of ritual; “They’re fucking weird, Mary!” he tells her, stating the obvious. It’s not even clear whether these are memories James has possessed ever since, or whether coming back to Silent Hill has jolted them back into his psyche.
Then there are the very uneven visuals as RETURN proceeds. Some of the sets created by production designers Jovana Mihajlovic and Mina Buric are impressively and effectively grotty, while at other times, James is clearly making his way through CG environments. Same goes for the inhuman ensemble, designed by veteran Patrick Tatopoulos; certain characters, like old standby Pyramid Head (Robert Strange), are brought to life practically and have the desired effect, but many are quite evidently products of the digital team. These beings feel like they’re right out of the video game in all the wrong ways.
Indeed, RETURN TO SILENT HILL once again demonstrates the pitfalls of translating a popular property from the gaming world to the cinematic one. It has been adapted without being given the necessary reimagining the feature-film form requires; it’s got the guts, but not the spine. And as the movie heads into the home stretch, jumping with abandon between realities, the storytelling loses control just when it should be finding its focus, and by the end it has literally descended into confusion.
