Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harrington, Sean Bean, Carrie-Anne Moss, Malcom McDowell, Radha Mitchell.
Director: Michael J. Bassett.
So, funny story: Silent Hill did some modest box office success but not enough to greenlight an immediate sequel. So, six years later, they decided to make a sequel to a movie that didn't even really have a sequel hook. Christophe Gans was apparently unavailable (or knew better) and skipped helming the project. Tragically, Michael J. Bassett (director of the passable Deathwatch) came in in his place and basically did exactly one half of what Gans did: he made a fairly faithful adaptation of a video game sequel. Unfortunately, the other half-making an actually strong film-wasn't in the cards. Everything here is designed to look like the video game, but without any of the atmosphere, ingenuity or controlled insanity that made the first movie a watchable outing.
Oh, yeah, and they cast two guys from Game Of Thrones in it to help market the thing. Remember when Carrie-Anne Moss was a star? No? Yeah, me neither.
That crack about Moss was too mean. I didn't mean that. I'm sure she works very hard. You were good in Daredevil, Carrie.
Jokes on me, anyway: I spent money on this thing.
So, two catapult nightmares in a row, complete with poor CGI effects (I guess the whole 3D thing is at least partially to blame) and watered down practical ones. I also feel like Adelaide Clemens (as honest of a performance as I think she's giving) was primarily cast because she looks exactly like the character from Silent Hill 3. Adelaide seems to be capable of doing "frustrated but basically good teenage girl" but is less convincing playing her dark half in nightmares, but I could be persuaded to blame that on acting through that atrocious makeup.
Both Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean seem kind of embarrassed to be here, really. Radha gets off easily, though: one brief scene in a flashback to try and make sense of the ass-pull retcon (Sharon gets out of weird limbo because Rose had the power to, uh, get one of them out, I guess? And Sharon ISN'T possessed anymore? Anyway, Rose says her goodbyes, urges Bean to protect her and poof) and gets to just bail right out of the film. Bean doesn't stick around much, either, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure why Bean and Sharon/Heather have to move around and change names considering that the canon of the first movie doesn't suggest anyone is after them...but okay. Anyway, Heather makes an admittedly interesting little speech in her class room that both sums up who she is and what her attitude about life is with some actually well-done clarity and pathos. Adelaide is managing to keep her head above water, despite the fairly innocuous screenplay doing it's best to undermine her.
Kit Harrington, best known for his portrayal of Jon Snow in Game Of Thrones, becomes her designated love interest because he's dreamy and...well, that's about it, really. Not a lot of information is offered. Then Heather witnesses kids in clown makeup eating what I guess is supposed to be human flesh. It, like most of the scare sequences in this film, largely fall flat and seem more at home in bargain basement Hellraiser sequels.
I feel like the Private Detective could have been an interesting character to keep around, but instead he's just there to provide exposition, get his fingers cut off in a bad 3-D effect and eventually get killed off by a bad CGI effect. The original film utilized more practical effects for their humanoid monsters, but I can only assume an incredibly slashed budget created the necessity for a greater reliance on CGI, not to mention the early days of the whole 3-D fad being the only way studios would be willing to gamble on this type of property. So, to be fair, I could blame a lot of the issues here on "troubled production." I'm willing to do that, at least in part, but this poorly written screenplay is also definitely to blame.
Adelaide and Kit have very little chemistry. The blocking of their scene doesn't help anything, either: for whatever reason there's a huge amount of physical distance between them. Also, she did just watch a man get butchered by a monster: she seems pretty flirty and chatty for someone in that position. She's also really quick to just let this random guy into her house after her Dad has been kidnapped. And, if we were going for "Dad is kidnapped and held in order to get Heather to return to Silent Hill" thing...why any of the mall stuff in the narrative? Why the P.I.? Oh, wait, is there a Mall level in the game series? Is that why it's here? I'm not familiar with any of it besides the first two and the Downpour one I own. Did they just clumsily add set pieces just because they exist in the game?
Ugh, did they not have the rights to the original film? Nothing worse than expository story from a previous film that is told entirely in monologue with pictures drawn in a notebook. Pictures that Sean Bean shouldn't have known about since he never actually saw any supernatural stuff. But they could have least done some flashbacks. As Crow T. Robot once said: "Movie, how about a flashback? Y'know, this is a motion picture?" I mean, if we're going to have random nightmare sequences that don't really go anywhere we could have at least done some flashback stuff for exposition that is visually interesting. Hell, they gave us one for Harrington's stupid background. Jesus, that reveal was sloppy, too.
"Every step of the way you lied!" Heather shouts. Every step? You mean the three hours you've known him? I know a lot of trust and relationship was built awfully quickly but can we not pretend that you have some...oh, forget it. Harrington's huge information dump (always a sign of coherent screenwriting) and "Take this magic item and go find the other half" storyline...this is really sloppy work. Isn't searching for her Dad in a hell dimension enough of a plot hook? We need to add magic item side quest?
At least the familiar town imagery still works well enough. It's always an interesting visual and always will be: the fluttering ash, the white fog, the poor visibility, the detritus...it's all good looking enough stuff. Oh, hey, movie: you DO have some footage from the first film, it's just of random extras and Deborah Kara Unger. Okay. Wait, you could have used this earlier, movie. This and monster stuff. When Heather was talking in the car, we could have had a lot of this then...jesus, this whole first act is bananas. Exposition, plot dump, exposition, plot dump, exposition. That rhythm, over and over. Can we get on to some actual horror in our horror movie?
Okay, now with all that exposition out of the way we can apparently START OVER. Heather runs around Otherworld with her two tacitly connected story hooks and runs into a room full of manikins, one of whom seems to be breathing and has moving eyes. Oh, right, I think I remember this scene being actually kind of creepy. The monster that turns people into manikins. The effect isn't nearly as good as the concept deserves but it isn't bad...same thing for the monster itself, which is a fascinating design but is ultimately undermined by complex but cartoonish looking CGI. The design really is fantastic, though: very creative and imaginative. It's too bad the scene doesn't have the ability to back it up.
If there was anything to learn from the previous film, it's that cutting away from the quest through Silent Hill to examine politics and theocracy, or whatever Sean Bean's mostly ineffectual character is doing (which is somehow even less here than it was in the previous film. At least there he was gathering plot information, here he's just chained to cheap looking statuary), is not a strong narrative decision. But this movie scoffs at narrative flow like...I dunno, I'm tired, insert your own sociopolitical analogy in here for comedic effect. Something something Donald Trump and Immigrants or something. Whatever. I'm just glad I'm still awake.
It boggles the mind that when this film actually DOES use practical monster effects they look so terrible. It's really unfortunate. The scene still feels like it was tossed in because nothing had happened in the script for awhile except Heather slowly walking around in the dark. See, the "walking around in the dark" works for a first person video game experience but not so much a motion picture.
Oh, Malcom McDowell, get out of there! Please, sir...stop doing...that. There's not enough scenery in this scene for you to chew. The scene is already starving, sir. Your scenery chewing is gluttonous and there are starving scenes here at home that don't have enough to eat. You monster. Oh, okay, that works. McDowell commits suicide by protagonist to get out of this movie, and who can blame him? Wait, did he turn into the Hulk? And then she just tore the magic item out of the new asshole he tore into himself? This is an awfully convenient story.
This asylum scene, with dudes reaching out of their cells and grasping at stuff? My gay friend Rye says that it's a perfect representation of sketchy bath houses. I told him I wasn't exactly qualified to comment on gay bath houses, even with a primary source but...hey, this movie isn't offering me an awful lot of material, so I may as well use his suggestion to kill a couple of minutes. My friend was unspecific if this comparison included a massive dude with a pyramid helmet chopping guys arms off with absurdly huge and definitely unmanageable swords. I can only assume that it does.
So, wait, if the order basically now controls Silent Hill, how is it that they haven't gone down and wiped out all of the zombie nurses and other evil beasties living around here? Oh, wait, I know: it's because the Nurses were a successful scene in the original, right? And you needed to use them again? Well, why didn't you just say so? I can understand: they ARE admittedly a really good image, especially when you include the oddly sexual moaning. Like the manikin spider thing, the scenes actual concept and design doesn't pan out. The images and sounds are good, but it lacks any real tension or cohesion.
"Your Dad wouldn't want you to try and rescue him!" says Harrington.
"You don't know that!" Heather replies.
"My Dad is an Asshole!"I add for her.
Don't dead Fish usually float? Also, is the big stuffed Bunny thing a video game easter egg reference? Did the cultists just wander into range of a ring of fire attack from the nigh-omnipotent being that actually rules this hellscape? Why IS there a cult anyway? Can't Alessa just, like, poof them? This confrontation between Heather and Alessa is devoid of any real dramatic weight, primarily because I'm not entirely clear on what's actually going on. Despite Heather being essentially a simulacrum created by dark magic, she is capable of defeating the being that created her through hugging or something? Even IF the amulet works and "shows the true nature" wouldn't that still be in Alessas favor? Alessa is the original version and, as such, would be overall truth of their existence would she not? And even if Heather is triumphant, doesn't she now have insurmountable evil as a new facet of her personality? Would this newly formed Heather even care about saving her adopted Father, and instead be interested in pure unadulterated vengeance?
Guess not. Because she's the chosen one and is the incubator of a new god because she defeated Alessa and, uh, I dunno. Because reasons. The Medallion actually summons the god instead of defeats Alessa but it also shows the truth of things and Heather apparently knows exactly how to use it...and turns the Priestess chick into Vega from Street Fighter and a fight breaks out with Pyramid Head. At least I can get behind the logic of Pyramid Head being involved: if Heather has indeed merged as a complete being with Alessa, than Alessas creatures would effectively now be hers. I buy that. But, really, if Heather was a threat and the medallion was also a potential problem for her Kingdom, why didn't Alessa just take Heather out as soon as she showed up? Why did any of this have to happen?
Anyway, Sean Bean is off to find Radha Mitchell so they can live happily ever after far, far away from any further sequels. Even though with the cult and Alessa destroyed, why is there still a supernatural...oh, wait, okay, it faded. Suddenly. Why does Bean even get a choice to stay? Why isn't Radha Mitchell spit out of the otherworld now that it's dismantled...oh, forget it. Damn movie is over anyway.
Oh, and the Prison bus that drives through...think that's a reference to "Downpour." Hardy har har.
"Just take us as far from here as you can." Adelaide says...probably to her agent.
Final Thoughts: One or two creative sequences ultimately can't save this overburdened, poorly conceived and obviously underfunded production from near annihilation. The script is as sloppy and nonsensical as any I've seen in horror, with all the usual hallmarks of poor writing (in particular, characters who bump into the main character to deliver five or ten minutes of exposition and plot detail and then disappear. Where DID Deborah Kara Unger go anyway?) and clumsy pacing. Star Adelaide Clemens can mostly say she got out with her dignity intact, but everyone else hopefully got paid pretty well because they didn't gain anything else from being here. It's kind of sad, though, really: I bet that Manikin spider thing looked rad in the screenwriters head. That whole scene was probably someones baby...and then it looked like that.
Final Rating: One and a Half Stars. Barely manages to avoid being a total turd.
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