Silent Hill: Revelation 3D

Rather than plot a fresh excursion into Konami's blighted burg, writer-director MJ Bassett's Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a straight follow-up to Christophe Gans' 2006 film. This explicit connection means that Revelation is conceptually hobbled, forced to build upon a big screen scenario that had already been, bloodily, settled. So, even though the fanatical citizens of this tephra-town were previously revealed as tormented ghosts using a scarred, thwarted saviour to hang onto our reality, Bassett's take ties itself in knots to make them a plotting, physical threat, able to send out scions that flatter and cajole. Still, this is a horror sequel. Of course it picks at the bones of its predecessors rather than try something a little more daring. Unfortunately, Revelation's issues don't end there. Whereas Gans was able to conjure up an all-consuming feeling of concussed dread, Bassett's sequel defaults to a boring, syrupy skulk through a haunted house attraction. Teenager Heather Mason, as played by Adelaide Clemens, isn't as compelling as Radha Mitchell's single-minded mother either. Mitchell's interpretation of the sullen line-readings found in the early Silent Hill games was equally flat but still betrayed an unusually intense determination. The actress therefore able to communicate an idea of being spellbound and unable to turn away from the task at hand. That performance was an agreeable reading of a video game character, a state of being that demands a person consistently and willingly place themselves in incredible danger. Clemens enjoys no such detail in her direction. 

Silent Hill

Although a significant departure from the themes and events of the video games being adapted, director Christophe Gans' Silent Hill does capture something of the actual, linguistic experience of a player puzzling through this type of interactive story. Screenwriter Roger Avery even apes the structural and narrative devices employed by both Konami's Team Silent and the similar, largely Japanese development studios who specialised in survival horror during the PlayStation 2 era. To wit: expositional flashbacks instantly impose themselves on the unfolding action following the activation of some inscrutable trigger and Radha Mitchell's despairing mother, Rose, finds herself in a safe, congratulatory space after having surmounted a climactic danger. Keys are also crucial to Rose's basic progress within an environment that is smothered with low resolution textures and shifts in then out of relative safety. These solutions are scavenged and context-sensitive; premised around the tiny, everyday inventory that Rose is able to hold. Of course, these items are then immediately lost after their use. Whereas other video game adaptations work hard to translate the sprawling mess of interactive entertainment into a tight, three-act structure, Silent Hill instead attempts to emulate the dissociative quality experienced when playing Japanese video games that are themselves inspired by an American film or television series. Those messy, parapsychological doomsdays that have been transcribed and reinterpreted back-and-forth between two languages that read in completely different directions. Gans' film, which centres around a Bible Belt town's revulsion at the idea of a messiah born out of wedlock, even finds time for the listless wandering that occurs when players are unfamiliar with their brand new maze.