Why Did or Didn't You Like It?

I both did and didn't like the movie. I haven't been a Silent Hill fan for long, and I have never owned a video game player, so my experience with Silent Hill in general has been limited to watching LPs on Youtube and watching the films. And I didn't get onto the bandwagon until after Shattered Memories came out and was able to experience the release of Downpour, which is my second favorite. The games definitely tell the stories better, but from a cinematic point of view, while the films aren't exactly good films, they're not as bad as they could be. From an adaption point of view . . . yes, they're absolutely terrible.

But I did like parts of Revelation and my experience while watching the film was a very good one. I felt like it was worth my money, despite the film being a terrible adaptation and losing parts of the story of the third game that I adored. I don't watch many 3D movies, so Revelation was a planned out indulgence for me. And I had a laugh over my friends not realizing it was 3D and having had to twist their arm to see a horror movie in the first place. But the film not really being scary except for the mannequin monster sequence made them forgive me. Maybe it's my inner fangirl, but despite Pyramid Head's role in the film being completely different from what it is in the games, I thought the monster fight between him and not-Claudia was really cool and it was the sequence that made me decide that the film was worth the money I paid for it. I then squealed loudly at the very end when Travis was on the screen and it implied that Murphy's story was going to happen next.

The effects were really good, and the film looked great. But the story was sloppy, and it relied too much on very conventional horror and it lost some of the feminist flare that the first film hinted towards (but was ultimately undermined by the sexism that led to it being a more female-centric film than the game had been. Harry too feminine? Honestly?). It does make me want to write a paper with a feminist spin about the two Silent Hill films, though. (I'm a film studies scholar, don't mind me.) Parts of Heather's personality is lost in translation, and I think the film suffers from that. But the parts that got me excited about what was happening took away some of Heather's ability to take care of herself - Pyramid Head coming in to save everyone, for instance - and parts where Heather did get to save everyone were, in the end, boring at best.

The beginning is much more funny than it is scary. The only scary part is the mannequin monster, which is a weird conglomerate of three different monsters from the game coming together to make an all-new monster. And the film didn't really become enjoyable until the end, still with amusing moments.

And Vincent was written terribly. I'm happy that he was still part of the cult, but he was a terrible love interest and wasn't interesting at all. The blandest of bland.

And the nurses couldn't be taken seriously once I realized they were making sex noises the whole time. That was stupid. And hilarious. But mostly stupid.

I think that the humans-turning-into-monsters idea could actually serve a Downpour adaptation well. I woke up one morning with how a Downpour adaptation could work with what Revelation sets up. (I have had the insane urge to contact Open Road Films and ask if I can write and direct something like that, despite not having anything more than one short film to my name and it's not all that good.)

I saw the movie with two people who knew nothing about the games and only one of them had watched the first film. While also not scared by the film and laughing at many of the same parts that I thought were silly, they actually did enjoy the film and thought it ended well, though they didn't really understand why I was flipping out.

What do you think?

Agreed. I was very torn on it. There were things I hated and things I liked. For me, the movie failed to capture some of the best aspects of Silent Hill. The complex story and characters, the emotional drive, the dread and terror. Even the jump scares were corny and laughable, such as the ridiculous-looking mannequin in plastic who suddenly turns his head. That stuff would have been excusable if the movie was actually a decent-made film, but it was so very flawed and poorly put together, watching it in 2d was almost like watching a long episide of Twilight Zone. The movie being shot in 3d in general was a big mistake, because the budget was cut massively anyway, so why spend what is left of it on making the film in 3d, and not using it to make it a better film? There were things that just flat-out didn't make sense, and so many questions left unanswered that I just won't go into right now.

Buuuut, there was some things I liked about it. I liked how this tells the story of Silent Hill 3, way more so than I thought it would. I LOVE Heather. Honestly, she's the only character that matters in this film, and she's the only one who SHOULD matter, because this is her story and nobody else's. That's why I didn't really care if the characters were killed off so fast before they are developed. Heather is developed, and that's all that matters to me. For some reason I loved her little speech at the beginning of class. Adelaide Clemens did a much better job than I thought she would. There were some parts that were very Silent Hillish, such as when Heather first enters town and hears the screams in the air, seemingly coming from nowhere. Shows that this movie really could have had a lot of potential. I enjoyed the monsters, though none of them really have much air time, and I really liked the references from the game. I've learned to like even the bad parts of the film, in a laughable sort of heart-warming way. Just look at it as fanfiction, and it's more enjoyable that way.

I must say that I've already seen the movie through the internet, in poor quality, it's a fact, so to give it a fair judgement I'll have to wait to see it on theaters, 22 November

I am entirely unsure how I feel about Revelations.
It gave an awesome shoutout at the end to other games in the franchise, but a movie shouldn't have its absolute best moments all located immediately before the credits. There were several times when I saw things that were well done: the birthday themes throughout culminating with the lovely cake in the asylum, the sets for Silent Hill, the decision to stick with most of the original elements and movement of the game.
What I hated can be broken into two categories.

As a film fan: The movie was incredibly rushed, with too much packed into the time allotted. The writing was terrible at times, worsened by the fact that everyone seemed intent on creating an accent of Sydney-cum-Quebec via the Apathy Express. I felt like Kristen Stewart would make an appearance any moment during the Harry/Heather apartment scenes. We were promised less post production effects, and then given this movie- a confusing mix of terrible effects mingled with wonderful effects that were still overused.

As a Silent Hill fan: Vincent is smarmy, not lovable... and he is a borderline pedophile, not a lovestruck young teen. I sincerely wanted to see about 30% of the asylum in the movie: Stanley's letters, the morgue moment when his body calls out for Heather, the Store Room with the mirror, the amazing puzzles to open doors. The monsters in this movie felt like The Best of Silent Hill: Monster Mashup, not like Silent Hill 3 (think Pyramid, Scarlet- a doll-like monster covered in porcelain armor with a doll face and exposed flesh at the joints is definitely Scarlet- oversexed SH2 nurses) and Valtiel was reduced to a shrine. Harry gets to live while Douglas dies five minutes into his part. The battle of the Alessas becomes Hug It Out 2012.

Overlapping into both: What, exactly, made someone look at the textures for Alessa's face and go "This is the one!"? Why did we have to include every single level, resulting in super short runs through each level that resembled a light-sensitive seizure? Why didn't anyone give the director his messages when 1980 called and wanted its jump scares back? Why did Heather get turned into such a quiet, sulky girl, when the game offered a self-sufficient young lady filled to the brim with catty zingers? What magic did we use to make every single checkpoint line up so well that exiting an air vent in one leads directly to the front door of the next?

I don't hate this movie, but it definitely made me appreciate the first Silent Hill movie much, much more. This movie was really quite a letdown.

It was mindless fun to have with friends, but I very much agree that it's a bad movie and an absolutely horrid adaptation.

I think that the main problem with the writing and directing is because it was done by the same person, so no one could filter any of the bad out, really. That's always the tricky thing with people who both wrote and directed something - make them a producer as well and you can almost guarantee that the reason it sucks is solely their fault.

But now I have this ridiculous desire to write and direct a Downpour adaptation. It's very possible it would be crap, but it would be crap that I would love and would love doing and it's my second favorite of the games so I would try my best to keep true to the original game while still making sense as a movie and a part of this film actually inspired me one morning and I like the inspiration very much. But I'm a junior in college with no good film-making experience behind me so it's probably a bad idea.

Things I didn't like:
— Akira didn't make any new songs for movie. He did some remixes of old ones, which were cool, but nothing original which what I was hoping for.
— The details for the face make-up was poor. The memory of Alessa's make up looked liked it was hastily done at the last minute and Claudia looks like she just fell face first into a batch of flour; while the prosthetic covering Claudia's eyebrows is laughably visible when it's close up.
— The set-design felt like a cheap haunted house to me. There were alot of small things that they thought no one would notice. Much of the background details looked amateur and you can even see P-Head's stilts show through his crappy thin skirt in one scene.
— The scene when Sharron is brought back to the real world is hilarious. Sean Bean is trying to his thing, while the actor who plays Sharron did not play up to par and ruins the scene. It's like a child trying to act like a child. Sean Bean must have been screaming in his head.
— They tried to make their own creatures, but every single one was the same. Just a normal guy with a messed up bubble-gum face. The spider mannequin was okay, but every other original design were unsatisfactory .
— I guess every filmmaker feels it is necessary to cram in a love interest into their story to make it feel more intricate to them. So much so, that Basset (writer/director) decided to completely turn Vincent upside down and backwards for this purpose. He could have done so much, but didn't. This is the thing I hate most about this film.
— Also on that note, Vincent randomly gets this love interest for Heather despite only knowing her for like two days.
— The main intentions of the cult is out of place. They seemed way more concerned about getting rid of Alessa, rather than getting her to birth God despite being the whole reason behind the cult and SH3. They're like "NOOO WE MUST STOP THE DARKNESS!! ... oh and birthing God is a plus too I guess." Birthing God is rarely ever addressed in the movie and that's very puzzling.
— Travis Grady picking up the lovebirds at the end, despite just going through Silent Hill unaffected


Things I liked:
— The soundtrack was nice. Akira's remixes of old song were cool.

— I thought Douglas wasn't bad. His costume looked fair and the actor even sounded like Richard Grosse a little bit. His role is small and could have been better, but it wasn't that bad. Especially compared to Vincent.

— That Valtiel statue was nifty

So, that would be a "no" for me in my opinion... though I wasn't expecting much in the first place.

The guys with a messed-up "bubble-gum" face was actually a reference to Jacob's Ladder. Which I thought was pretty cool, that there would be a reference to the movie that inspired the franchise as a whole.

redroses2 wrote:The guys with a messed-up "bubble-gum" face was actually a reference to Jacob's Ladder. Which I thought was pretty cool, that there would be a reference to the movie that inspired the franchise as a whole.

I would have enjoyed something more original. References are nice, but not so refreshing.

True, true. But I had fun finding all the references. So it made the film kind of endearing. Despite it not being any good, it's a film that has managed to make me fond of it in spite of its (very many) flaws.

What made the movie so bad?

The short lenght, bad dialogues, shallow acting, main characters killed off and disposable ones taking their turn, meaning of the Seal of Metatron distorted, a rubber Valtiel standing on the set, just to mention a few things.

What I did like was Adelaide's and Malcolm's performance and one special scene shot for the movie portraying an ocurrence mentioned in the third game. The girl really gave her soul to be Heather and the legendary actor from 'A Clockwork Orange' made justice to his insanely driven character.

Being a fan of the series, I think Christopher Gans captured the feeling and atmosphere of Silent Hill in the first one. I'm afraid I cannot say the same about Revelation 3D because it's ofensive in many ways! I never liked that they replaced the original director; I interpreted it as a bad sign.

I think this is a fairly accurate representation of the film

I liked it for little things here and there that I recognized from the games, but didn't necessarily like the acting. Not that they were bad actors.. It just seemed to mock-ish of the games that I just couldn't get into their acting. BUT. at the end when Travis's truck pulled up I instantly knew it was him and squealed with joy as my friends looked at me like I was psycho. I also squealed when Murphy's prison bus drove by at the end, and had to explain to them what they meant.

Foggysin wrote:at the end when Travis's truck pulled up I instantly knew it was him and squealed with joy as my friends looked at me like I was psycho. I also squealed when Murphy's prison bus drove by at the end, and had to explain to them what they meant.

I did that too. Definitely my favorite part of the movie.

I have to admit to being one of those squeaking people at the end, too. There were only two other people in the theater that night besides me and the hubby, though, so it was ok to be loud.

I don't really have an opinion on the movie, but I just want to say this: redroses2, if you really have an intense desire to make a Downpour movie, DO IT. You said you made a short, so you have some experience. Make it a short, or at least write a script. If you make a short you could even possibly send it into Open Road and if they see it, and like it (longshot I know, but anything's possible) then you might just get your wish

John667 wrote:I don't really have an opinion on the movie, but I just want to say this: redroses2, if you really have an intense desire to make a Downpour movie, DO IT. You said you made a short, so you have some experience. Make it a short, or at least write a script. If you make a short you could even possibly send it into Open Road and if they see it, and like it (longshot I know, but anything's possible) then you might just get your wish

You really think so? In that case, I guess I'll get started on it. I'll let you all know how it goes in the Fan Works area of the website. At the very least, it'll be a fun fan project!

That's great! I'm actually an aspring screenwriter myself, so if you need any help in that department, I'm your guy!

Wow, that sounded really self-serving, didn't it? Sorry...