Return to Silent Hill (2026)
Director: Christophe Gans
Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson, Evie Templeton, Pearse Egan
Primary genre: Supernatural
Secondary genre: Psychological
Third genre: Horror
Return to Silent Hill came a bit too late to the party featuring all the wrong elements from unsuccessful videogame adaptations. This is quite mind boggling considering director Christophe Gans had already taken a successful crack at Konami’s survival horror franchise back in 2006 with well-received results. However, for a second time in a row (after the dreadful Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)), the return to the city of surrealistic terror is a dud.
“If you don’t find who you’re looking for, you can always come back and find me.”
Its biggest flaw is its lack of atmosphere and tension. While its predecessor was somewhat confusing for newcomers due to a jumbled storyline, it still worked as a psychological horror flick. Gans had an ingenious way of shooting convincingly the special effects and the various creatures which populated Silent Hill under a spectacular production design and the awesome cinematography of the legend that is Dan Laustsen. Yet, here he seems to be quite impatient to get the ball rolling by shoehorning the game’s expansive and psychological based storyline into an hour and a half movie the same way M. Night Shyamalan did in his now much ridiculed The Last Airbender (2010). Everything feels rushed and unearned; from the creature reveals to the movie’s supposedly moments of suspense, it is hard to care when all Gans is doing is to move at a hectic pace from one location to another with no dramatic meat or explanation of what is happening. There is a trio of characters, for example, which besides being bastardized from their videogame counterparts, they appear and disappear from thin air! Avid fans of the game might struggle to finish this film, given the route it chooses to take.
Speaking of bastardization, Gans and screenwriters Sandra Vo-Anh and Will Schneider have removed important pieces of James’ and Mary’s story twisting them in a rather bonkers direction which negates the premise and the game’s shocking finale. Although it is good to take some liberties with the source material to make your movie work, it’s another thing entirely to strip the game’s heart and throw it out the window altogether.
Despite having a smaller budget this time around, it is clear Gans loves the source material. In this bizarre and for-all-the-wrong-reasons-future-cult movie, he throws at every frame stylistic flashes to keep us invested: weird camera angles, zoom-ins, zoom-outs, fade-ins, fade-outs, overlaps, twirls, pans, and more. And when the actual production design begins (without the obvious CGI cuts), it is inventive enough in its decayed presentation while legendary creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos’ (Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998)) work here is still convincing even if his creations are unfortunate enough to have the bear minimum of screen presence (hello Pyramid Head).
Return to Silent Hill is unfortunately a massive disappointment; an empty motion picture lacking pathos, soul, and moments of temporarily bliss in creative kills or visually slick set pieces. Even Akira Yamaoka’s music does not stand out in this mess. It moves briskly like an early 2000s Prodigy video with a rather unremarkable protagonist. Hard to believe this is the same guy who did Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).
More like Return to Boring Hill
+Ok production design
+Tatopoulos’ zany creature designs
+Gans’ manic direction
-Gans’ manic direction
-No atmosphere
-Game’s emotional gut punch is gone
-Messy script
-Hasty film