Movie Review: Silent Hill Revelation

 For whatever reason, we all always associate October with scary movies.  Halloween is only one day of the month, yet the scares seem to continue for the entire month.  If you ask me, December should be a month for horror movies, or maybe February.  In what will be the final horror movie for me this month, I saw Silent Hill yesterday.  I didn’t have high expectations, the first movie was only okay, a slight image of the fantastic gaming series, but the sequel didn’t add much to the storied franchise.

The story follows Sharon, the daughter from the first movie who was returned to her father, her mother being lost within Silent Hill.  As per any horror movie, she moves to a new school, meets a new friend and loses her father all in one day.  Her father is taken by those from Silent Hill, knowing they need her to return to get out of their self-inflicted purgatory.  Sharon travels back to Silent Hill with her new friend Vincent, who she quickly discovers is someone from Silent Hill, but wants to help her, not harm her.  Once they get to Silent Hill, all kinds of crazy, scary things happen.  Unlike the other two horror movies I saw this month, none of it fazed me.

The story was utterly forgettable, the ideas unoriginal and uninspired.  What has turned into an annual occurrence for Resident Evil to be a fun movie, is not nearly as interesting for Silent Hill.  I liked the references to the game, and there were quite a few, the story just seemed stale.  The idea of Silent Hill is about disturbing reveals and terrifying environment, neither of these things occurred in this movie.  From the very beginning, I was unimpressed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Sean Bean fan, but his American accent is just comical.  I found it distracting from the moment he opened his mouth and couldn’t stop being distracted by it.  He just seemed out of place in what I can only describe as a ‘B’ movie.  What makes Resident Evil so interesting is the star power from Milla Jovovich, whereas Silent Hill has no such power and thus no charisma or draw.  The Michelle Williams look-a-like, Adelaide Clemens, was good, but not great.  I missed Radha Mitchell.  She was the perfect protagonist from the original movie, and as per most Silent Hill stories, you rarely identify with Alessa, but as someone being sucked into the lore of Silent Hill.  Of the three horror movies I’ve seen this month, this is one you can absolutely skip.