Silent Hill Revelations 3D

For years Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean), now calling himself Harry, has been on the run with his daughter Shaoron (Adelaide Clemens), who now goes by the name Heather. Since his wife Rose (Rhada Mitchell) is lost in Silent Hill, it is now solely up to the worried father to protect his daughter from the mysterious Order who are desperate to bring her back to Silent Hill. Heather has no idea of this. She is repeatedly plagued by strange nightmares, but can no longer remember the events in Silent Hill. But when her father is kidnapped from her new home on the night of her 18th birthday, and Heather finds only the message Come to Silent Hill written in blood, she knows her nightmares are a piece of reality she must face. With the help of her new school chum Vincent (Kit Harrington), Heather sets out to find Silent Hill. But what she finds surpasses even her worst nightmares.

It took six years to make the sequel to the first film adaptation of the popular video game Silent Hill. Time enough, really, to stage a cleverly constructed, suspenseful adaptation of the popular series. However, Silent Hill Revelations is neither particularly clever, nor really exciting. Both in terms of acting and look, the film feels like a cheap direct-to-video production that is only enhanced by some well-done 3D effects. Whether this is enough to justify the purchase of a movie ticket, however, may be doubted.

It is to the makers' credit that they have tried to follow up on the first part. The fact that they could win some of the actors like Rhada Mitchell or Deborah Kara Unger for small mini-appearances and also Sean Bean is back can be evaluated as positive as the appearance of some successful characters like the murderous nurses. Through such aspects at least comes the feeling that the will was there to direct a good horror movie and a worthy game adaptation.

However, it quickly becomes clear that this feeling is only very partially confirmed. There are some effective horror moments, but overall, unintentional comedy dominates, brought on by terribly flat dialogue or creatures like a spider monster made of mannequins, poor makeup, pale actors, and an enormously flat dramaturgy. The whole thing reaches a sad climax when Carrie-Anne Moss delivers an extremely bored performance that is even more colorless than her bleached mane. There is not even a hint of the menace that should be inherent in her character. The same goes for Heather's dark alter ego Alessa, who is probably supposed to be creepy by the fact that she's given black hair, black lipstick and dark clothes. How creepy!

No question, the concept of Silent Hill is actually made for an original and, more importantly, creepy horror film. However, there is little of that in this second adaptation. A few effective moments of suspense, decent 3D splatter and a very atmospheric set here and there prevent this sequel from being completely degraded to a B-movie. With some better acting and especially with more suspense the whole thing could have been really good. So Silent Hill Revelations can only be recommended to hardcore Silent Hill fans and 3D horror junkies. Everyone else should stick to what Christopher/Harry always drills into his daughter: give Silent Hill a wide berth!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp