Is this an opinion? Fact? It certainly seems more like the latter, as all we have to do is look at a film series like Resident Evil to see how silly the films can get. Having said that, the first Resident Evil was pretty decent, but not much like the games; It was the sequels that started to get really silly.
It's safe to say that the Silent Hill franchise seems to be going the same way as Resident Evil.
The film, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D follows Heather (Adelaide Clemens), who is soon revealed to be Sharon aka. the evil Alessa from the original Silent Hill film. She has since changed her name, something that's revealed she constantly does, along with her Father, Harry (Sean Bean) in order to try and hide from the evil clutches of the town, Silent Hill. Still with me? Well, that's as complex as the plot gets really, because what follows is a fairly simple search and find as Harry is taken capture in Silent Hill and it's up to Heather to try and find him before it's too late. She luckily has help from another new kid at her school, Vincent (Kit Harington)... but she actually has to end up helping him too (fat lot of good he is!) As much as Resident Evil (used to) rely on zombies, SH:R3D also relies on it's own set of recognisable characters from the games. There's Pyramid Head (with his oversized sword/knife), the blind nurses and the trapped townsfolk of Silent Hill (who according to the film series believe they are being held captured by the evil soul of Alessa.)
First off, I have to say that I'm not a massive fan of the game series. I never actually owned any of them, but I used to play them around my friends house when I was younger all the time. I remember especially being creeped out by the nurses in the hospital, so I was quite excited to see the nurses being featured in this film. It's a shame that my excitement was so short lived...
Also, this film has much more in common with the Resident Evil series than I first realised. Let me go about this in some kind of order. We first have to look at the main characters. In Resident Evil, Alice went from being a helpless "nobody" to an ass-kicking zombie machine (ever since the second film). In Silent Hill, Sharon was a young girl who was literally dependent on her Mother (she was held capture), whereas in SH:R3D, Heather aka. Sharon has now become the ass-kicking heroine that Alice has become. Albeit, Sharon isn't as cartoony as Alice, but all the way through this film she is shown to be much stronger and a hell of a lot more independent. It was good to see that relatively unknown Adelaide Clemens did a fairly decent job in carefully balancing the scared youthful girl against the strong independent woman well. It's just a shame that her supporting roles couldn't really help her out with such believable characters. In particular, Kit Harington was fairly weak as the love interest, Vincent and their relationship seemed particularly forced - it didn't help that the film felt rushed, so they didn't really have any time to blossom as a couple before Harington placed an awkward kiss on Clemens lips. Sean Bean is basically left to a cameo, much like the first film, and seemed like he was doing the filmmakers a favour by being in this one.
Next up is the use of the film's monsters. Much like zombies used to be the icons of the Resident Evil film franchise (it now seems to be the ass-kicking adventures of Alice that have taken over), the monsters of Silent Hill really are becoming the stars of the show. Just take a quick look at the film's poster and you can see that Pyramid Head is taking a position up at the forefront. Again, it's a shame that the film lets them down somewhat and in particular the writing of the film, because it just feels like it goes from one set piece to another while being tied together by the weak prospect of Heather finding her Father. What I mean by that is, one minute Heather is hiding from the mannequin monster (where a supporting character is killed off extremely quickly) and the next minute she is hiding from Pyramid Head and then she is in a room full of nurses. It felt like one of those Horror Mazes that open up during Halloween, except this time the film has gone for gore and being gross rather than being suspenseful.
Not looking good so far is it?
While we are on the topic of the film's monsters, SH:R3D also follows in the footsteps of Resident Evil: Apocalypse where it decides to throw a curveball and make it's main villain (Pyramid Head) a last minute hero to help the heroine. In RE:A it was the Nemesis that suddenly helped out Alice kill off Major Tom Cain, SH:R3D decides to make Pyramid Head help out poor Heather while she unties dear old Dad. Now, I wouldn't really have brought this up as a criticism, but in RE:A at least it was hinted at (the Nemesis being a mutated version of a former friend of Alice). In SH:R3D we are given nothing - not one little clue that Pyramid Head is going to help Heather. He just... does it. Which is also stupid, because it leaves Heather with absolutely nothing to do. For about 50% of the film's finale, she was literally sitting around and just watching what was happening. For all the time that I was being lead to believe that she was this ass-kicking heroine, she fades back into the background for the finale. Also, without giving anything away, the final battle scene is so stupid and over-the-top, it felt like I was watching a late night WWE wrestling fight with fantasy characters.
The final comparison to Resident Evil has to fall back to the film's title. Resident Evil started off using understandable subtitles (Apocalypse and Extinction) but then fell into the realms of "Why the hell are they using that?!" (Afterlife and Retribution). It seems that Resident Evil has used all the understanding subtitles, because I have no friggin' idea why Silent Hill used "Revelation" as it's subtitle for this sequel. At absolutely no point in the film is anything new revealed. Everything we are told, we already know.
Heather has an evil twin/sister/mother in the form of Alessa in Silent Hill? Yeah, we already knew that.
Heather's mother's soul is trapped in Silent Hill? Yeah, we already knew that.
The towns people believe that Silent Hill is under a deep rooted curse from Alessa? Yeah, we...
You get the picture.
The only remotely small thing that was revealed is that there is a small cult of people in Silent Hill who have been trying to get Heather back, because they believe she is the key to stopping Alessa. But it's not enough; It's a throwaway moment that isn't really built upon properly (mainly because of the weak characters and rushed plot). I remember watching the first film and having so many questions raised by what I was seeing that I was thinking about it for hours afterwards. SH:R3D is such a straight forward schlocky B-Movie horror film that I literally forgot about what I had just watched by the time I got home.
So, SH:R3D is pretty much a unnecessary extension of the first Silent Hill film. While it does have nice nods to the game series, a plot that doesn't waste time in getting to the action and some recognisable monsters, it just fails to entertain on the most basic of levels. I just wish the filmmakers would of had more guts to add some originality to their film rather than just riding on the coattails of the previous one.
* / *****
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