Review: Return to Silent Hill

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

As a cinematic adaptation of Konami’s Silent Hill 2, director Christophe Gans’ Return to Silent Hill fails spectacularly.

I don’t resent it for taking liberties with its source material, of course. Indeed, I’d argue that some of its changes—e.g., the revised setting of the climax—are elegantly pragmatic. Many of the more foundational alterations, however, are absolutely detrimental to the story, diminishing the thematic depth, moral complexity, and emotional resonance that fans of the original video game found so thoroughly appealing. The character of Mary, for instance, is reimagined as the estranged girlfriend of protagonist James Sunderland, rather than his explicitly deceased wife. Naturally, this has a profound impact on the stakes of the narrative; because our hero is no longer pursuing a literal phantom (initially, anyway), the conflict is deprived of its uncanny atmosphere, tragic undercurrent, and pervasive sense of impending doom.

The film’s surface-level similarities to its interactive progenitor only serve to emphasize its apparent lack of interest in meaningfully engaging with the text that allegedly inspired it. Several scenes unfold precisely as they are “supposed” to, with imagery faithfully recreated and lines of dialogue repeated almost verbatim—but divorced from the necessary context that would otherwise lend these vaguely familiar gestures dramatic weight. Consider, for example, the introduction of slovenly antagonist Eddie Dombrowski. When players first encounter him in Silent Hill 2, he’s violently vomiting—a stress-induced physical response to the psychological trauma of having recently discovered a mutilated corpse. He is also puking when James meets him in Return to Silent Hill—for no discernible reason beyond obligatory, perfunctory homage. Comparing the divergent executions of this superficially “shared” moment is akin to examining two identical bottles that contain different liquids; while they’re indistinguishable at a glance, the vast gap in quality is immediately obvious once you’ve taken a sip from each.

I confess that I didn’t exactly approach Return to Silent Hill in good faith; I saw the trailers and knew approximately what to expect when I purchased the ticket. Still, I had hoped that it would at least be endearingly incompetent—reminiscent of its predecessor, Silent Hill: Revelation (yes, singular), a masterpiece of unintentional self-parody. I cherish the memory of catching a midnight screening of that movie with my brother back in 2012, cackling at Sean Bean’s delightfully inconsistent “American” accent and marveling at the sight of Malcolm McDowell and Carrie-Ann Moss transforming into latex monsters after just three minutes of screen time apiece. Perhaps, like James Sunderland, I was merely chasing a ghost—a distorted shadow that would inevitably elude me in the absence of the good company that was so essential to my previous positive experience.

Or maybe Return to Silent Hill is simply fucking awful in every conceivable way, regardless of the personal baggage I brought to it.