SILENT HILL - REVELATION (2012)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    Michael J. Bassett
Writer:       Michael J. Bassett
Producer:  Samuel Hadida, Don Carmody
Stars:     Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Deborah Kara Unger, Martin Donovan, Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean

Review Score:

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Summary:

After discovering her true identity, Heather Mason must confront the evil consuming the town of Silent Hill in order to save her kidnapped father.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Heather has a dream where she is being chased through an amusement park by cult members. She sees a black-haired version of herself on a carousel operated by Pyramid Head before she is consumed by fire. Her father is then stabbed by a creature in a dream within a dream.

In the morning, it is revealed that Heather is actually an 18 year-old Sharon from the first film and her father Harry is really Christopher. They have been on the run and changing identities. For her birthday, Harry gives Heather a white vest like the one she wore in her dream. Harry warns her about being careful in a new town before Heather leaves for school.

Harry finds pictures and writings that mention Silent Hill in Heather’s notebook. He tears them out and puts them in a box marked with a sigil from Silent Hill. A flashback reveals that while Rose stayed trapped in Silent Hill, she used a seal with a missing part to send Heather back to Harry. Heather returned without her memory and Harry told her that Rose was gone.

Outside of school, Heather sees an image of a homeless man turning into a creature. A man in a tie and fedora then asks Heather if they know each other before she runs off. Heather has an awkward introduction to her new class. In the hallway, Heather has another vision where she is now alone and she sees a little girl being tormented by classmates. The hallway suddenly becomes red rust and rundown and Heather confronts an eyeless humanoid with no arms. She is startled back to reality by Vincent, another new student who tries unsuccessfully to get to know her. Outside, Heather sees the man in the fedora again and calls her father. Harry tells Heather to meet him at Central Square Mall but he is abducted after hanging up the phone.

Waiting outside of Happy Burger, Heather has more strange visions before running from the man in the fedora. The man corners her in the basement and explains that he is Douglas Cartland, a private investigator sent to find her. He came to warn her after discovering that he was hired by the Order of Valtiel. Douglas tells her that she was once trapped with her mother in Silent Hill and the town wants her back. A monster attacks as they descend in an elevator and kills Douglas while Heather escapes.

Outside, police are wheeling out Douglas’ body and find a picture of Heather with the corpse. Vincent meets Heather on the other side of the police line and he walks with her back home. She sees cult members watching her from a bridge. Vincent claims to not see them. They take a bus ride and discuss dreams versus reality. Vincent tells Heather that he has a grandfather in an asylum who also believes there is no difference between fantasy and reality. Heather parts from Vincent and goes back home.

Heather sees a sigil and the message “come to Silent Hill” written in blood on a wall inside her house. When she yells for her father, Vincent is alarmed and comes to the door. They look through Harry’s Silent Hill memento box and she finds the seal. The police knock on the door. Vincent and Heather escape with the intention of going to Silent Hill.

During the car ride, Heather reads a letter from her father where he reveals that the people from Silent Hill want to bring her back, but he does not know why. She reads the materials Harry left behind and discovers that Silent Hill was originally a prison colony built on Native American land. “Religious zealots known as The Order of Valtiel secretly ran the town for the last 100 years. They were waiting for a child to be born to be a vessel for their god, who would then be resurrected and make the world anew.” She also reads about Alessa’s curse on the town. Pyramid Head is said to be Alessa’s guardian and executioner.

Vincent and Heather stop for the night at Jack’s Inn. Heather dreams of Alessa destroying the town. Vincent reveals that he was sent from Silent Hill to retrieve her, but he now believes she is the innocent part of Alessa and should be saved. His mother is the new cult leader and she has Harry imprisoned in a sanctuary beneath the town. The cult believes that Alessa can only be destroyed if she is first reunited with Heather. Vincent tells her she needs the other half of the amulet to save her father and she can get it from Vincent’s insane grandfather. The hotel room changes to red rust. A creature attacks Vincent and knocks out Heather.

Heather recovers back in reality. She takes the amulet and walks into Silent Hill. Dahlia greets her at a cluster of witch-burning pyres. Dahlia says that when Alessa was consumed by rage, she took the innocent part of her soul and placed it into a newborn child who was adopted and became Heather.

A siren sounds and the town transforms from fog into red rust. Heather runs into a building with creatures made of mannequin parts. Heather rescues another girl when a spider-like creature chases them and quickly kills the other girl.

Christabella’s sister Claudia Wolf, who is also Vincent’s mother, has Harry and Vincent tied up in the Order’s sanctuary. Vincent says that Heather is not evil, but Claudia says he has been corrupted. Minions take Vincent to the asylum.

Heather escapes the warehouse and makes it to Brookhaven Asylum. She fights another creature and finally meets Leonard, Vincent’s grandfather. Leonard tells her that Vincent is now in the asylum. Heather gives him the amulet and asks about the other half. Leonard says the other half is in him. He thrusts the amulet into his chest and turns into a creature. Heather defeats him and takes the completed amulet. She is then grabbed by a caged inmate. Pyramid Head arrives and cuts off all of the arms grabbing at Heather.

The men who brought Vincent to the asylum are killed by Silent Hill nurses. Heather recues Vincent and they go to Lakeside Amusement Park, where the entrance to the sanctuary is. When guards from the Order show up, Vincent runs away from Heather to provide a distraction. Heather is surrounded on the carousel, but a ring of fire consumes the cult members as Alessa appears to Heather. The two girls have a battle of wills. Heather wins and consumes Alessa before descending to the sanctuary.

In the sanctuary, Heather confronts Claudia. Claudia says that Heather is to be the incubator for their new god. Claudia wants the Seal of Metatron to summon their god. But when Heather hands it over, Claudia becomes a creature. Pyramid Head then fights Claudia and cuts off her head.

Now returned to the foggy Silent Hill, Harry decides to stay and search for Rose. Vincent and Heather hitchhike out of town and are picked up by truck driver Travis Grady. A prison bus is seen on the other side of the road traveling into Silent Hill.

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Review:

“Silent Hill – Revelation” does not improve upon the original film, but it does improve it.  What I mean is, the first “Silent Hill” film (review here) was flawed, but I appreciate it more now after seeing what a truly off mark interpretation of Silent Hill is really like.

Michelle Williams doppelganger Adelaide Clemens plays Heather Mason and Sean Bean is her father Harry.  In actuality, they are Sharon and Christopher from the first film, now on the run from the Silent Hill cult and living under assumed names.  When her father is taken captive, Heather has to return to Silent Hill and recover the memories of her past in order to save her family.

The key strength of the first film, and of the video game series the movies are based on, is mood.  Silent Hill is at its most unsettling when the atmosphere is as thick as the fog blanketing the town.  Perhaps taking the criticism of the previous film being overlong a little too seriously, “Revelation” makes its mistake by focusing more on action than on mood.  The version of Silent Hill created this time around suffers as a result.

Apparently there was a mandate that no peripheral character was to have more than three minutes of screen time.  With a stopwatch in hand and rounding up to be generous, I did a small bit of math to satisfy that theory.  Martin Donovan’s detective character came in at around three minutes of total screen time, give or take a few seconds.  Reprising her role as Dahlia, Deborah Kara Unger’s singular scene was three minutes, some of which was flashback footage.  Malcolm McDowell?  Three minutes nearly on the nose.  Carrie-Anne Moss threw off the curve by extending her scenes to three minutes and 40 seconds.  Since she is the film’s primary antagonist, I suppose this exception is warranted.  To be fair, at least two of those actors play characters that turn into monsters, so it could be argued that I am shortchanging the length of their appearances.

More ridiculous are the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances of several other characters.  At one point, Heather rescues a girl from demonic mannequins in a Silent Hill warehouse.  I was extremely grieved when she later died, as I had an entire one minute and 40 seconds to become attached to her.  And as Heather’s mother, Radha Mitchell could apparently be bothered to return for the sequel and contribute a full 50 seconds.

A fair portion of the screen time is given over to the monsters.  Patrick Tatopoulos and his shop have turned out exceptional creature designs in other films, but these particular monsters are out of place in the world of Silent Hill.  The main creature looks as though she were a cenobite that accidentally wandered over from the set of the latest Hellraiser movie.  She has a clean symmetry to her appearance that fails to capture the grotesqueness of Silent Hill’s usual body horror deformities.

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CD cenobite (Hellraiser III) + Chatterer cenobite (Hellraiser) = Silent Hill - Revelation's Missionary?

Equally out of place is the CGI animated spider made out of plastic mannequin parts.  Although the plastic parts resemble limbs, this may be the first Silent Hill creature to not be one of those deformed humanoids mentioned in the previous paragraph.  The stilted walking and jittery movements of nurses and lurkers are replaced with sleek motions and fluid animation.  The spider-thing moves like General Grievous from The Phantom Menace when it should shamble in that distinctive Silent Hill style.  It is just one more piece that misses out on emulating the brand’s distinct nature of psychological horror.

Costuming the heroine in a puffy white vest does not make her the familiar character known from the game.  Indeed, “Revelation” has a connection to Silent Hill that is as superficial as the dye Heather uses to turn her hair blonde.  A truck driver passing through Silent Hill in the final scene is named Travis Grady.  “Revelation” is throwing out a reference to the protagonist of “Silent Hill: Origins” while throwing away the fact that Silent Hill has been closed to through traffic since the underground coal fire began burning.  A prison bus driving in the opposite direction is a similar hat tip to “Silent Hill: Downpour.”  For a closed off town missing large sections of road, Silent Hill certainly sees a fair share of vehicles.

Name-dropped references that only game fans recognize are not where Silent Hill’s essence lies.  A large part of that essence comes from Akira Yamaoka’s musical score, which is as synonymous with the series as is Pyramid Head.  Although chief Yamaoka cues used in the first film reappear in “Revelation,” they are supplemented with more Jeff Danna orchestration this time around.  While it fits the action-oriented tilt, such as in the climactic battle sequence, it is noticeably opposed to Yamaoka’s hauntingly eerie tones.  The soundtrack accents the action without seeping into the psyche, where Silent Hill truly resides.

Show/Hide Spoilers

Speaking of menacing Silent Hill icon Pyramid Head, he also returns in “Revelation.” As a hero.

While their respective series’ wore on, horror villains such as Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees became anti-heroes that audiences cheered more than they feared. Mistaking his relative popularity for being in league with these other cinema slashers, Pyramid Head attempts a similar transition in only his second outing. Acting as Heather’s guardian, Pyramid Head is the one who takes out the primary antagonist. Heather may be the central character of “Revelation,” but someone else becomes the one who saves the day. Someone who in the video games has been seen raping deformities when he is not busy murdering and terrorizing. Pyramid Head is grossly misinterpreted as a creature/character that the audience can pump a fist for.

Stripped of any relation to what fans know of Silent Hill, “Revelation” is still unable to hold its own as an interesting horror story.  In a needless addition to the cursed town’s already haunted history, it is revealed that Silent Hill was built on Native American land.  (Isn’t all of America built on Native American land?)  Kit Harington’s character quickly quips about how one should “never build on ancient Indian burial grounds,” but acknowledging the cliché with a line of dialogue does not make it any less tired a concept.

Somewhere, someone went down a checklist of things people find frightening and piled them all into “Silent Hill – Revelation.”  Creepy clowns at a birthday party.  Creepy mannequins in an abandoned storeroom.  Creepy gas mask-wearing cult members in a creepy amusement park.  That last one does come from Silent Hill.  Whether or not anything else fits seems irrelevant.

Original “Silent Hill” director Christophe Gans showed a genuine understanding and respect for the elements that originally made the game a success with fans, even if parts of his execution were misfires.  “Revelation” director Michael J. Bassett provides fan service mainly through winks and nods as cursory as the forgettable characters.  “Silent Hill – Revelation” is a film that chooses its inspirational cues from an assortment of tropes more random than the plot advancements.  The end result is a bland story and an inferior vision of a cursed town that is becoming less terrifying each time it is visited.

Review Score:  35

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