“Silent Hill: Revelation” is a video game-to-movie adaptation that even other video game-to-movie adaptations are ashamed of. This film is a mess, barely holding itself together. The monsters are shoehorned in, their design ripped from various “Silent Hill” titles, but implemented awkwardly and disappointingly. The acting is barely worth gracing with the title, and the story isn’t worth gracing at all. Even the venerable Sean Bean floats through each scene, as bored as the audience. Everything falls flat, even the 3D, which only serves to make things not-flat in a highly literal way. It can’t even provide a good “so bad it’s good” experience. It’s forgettable and sub-par in every imaginable way.
For someone in the audience who doesn’t know anything about the “Silent Hill” franchise, this movie only offends by wasting their time. For someone who does follow the series, long-running and downward spiraling, it’s even more disappointing.
The movie furthers the long and steady walk away from the atmosphere and tension of “Silent Hill” video games. The series devolved into a slew of jump scares and tired, overdone “scary” occurrences. There used to be such potential for intensity and legitimate fear: now the emotional evocations are associated less with terror and more with dry oatmeal.
As is becoming frustratingly predictable, the 3D effects underwhelm in a manner that would make a Bing search cringe. Aside from the obvious and poorly implemented stab-the-camera, throw-someone’s-arm-at-the-camera and scary-thing-yells-at-the-camera, this movie being in 3D serves no purpose. Those are barely reasons to make it in 3D in the first place, and thus it could have been left out entirely.
Worse than just being bad, “Silent Hill: Revelation” is boring. Boring is the worst thing a bad horror movie can be. They can have hammy acting, underwhelming effects, under-developed storylines or any number of flaws, but if they lack even the most basic entertainment value, then all is truly lost.
Ultimately there really isn’t much to say. Pointing to a redeeming quality cannot be done. Bad through and through, like a pair of denim socks.
This movie will likely fade out of thought in less time than it takes to watch it in the first place. There’s little reason to see it, especially this time of year when there are so many horror movies available, and few are less engaging than this one.
Rating: 1 star out of 5
