Silent Hill: Revelation

...
Did you just realize this movie was a direct sequel to the first one ? The movies don' t share the game canon, and the first one established PH as a central piece in Sharon' s ... err ... delusion. Besides, in SH2 PH was indeed James' own manifestation but ... when I dream of birds they are my own manifestation, but that doesn' t make every bird in the world, real or dreamed, my own manifestation. There are clues in the series that point out to the possibility that neither Maria nor PH were invented from scratch by James, they may very well be an alternate version of persons/paintings he saw in the past.

Personally I was fine with Gans' explanation of what PH represents in his movie (Sharon' s perception of masculinity), so I' m not surprised to see him again in this movie nor to see Vincent turned into a potential love interest. However I' m a little confused to see PH acting like Valtiel in this trailer. I sense a "Valtiel is actually a helmet-less PH" reveal scene coming.

I think MJB explained that the producers aimed all the marketing campaign at Mr. average guy : they assume the fans who liked the first film are already sold on this one (they' re probably right) so they' d rather try to sell it as the 2012 Halloween 3D horror movie to, you know, non-nerds. Here' s hopping the movie isn' t as "in your face" as its marketing make it out to be, I' d like it to be a little subtle.

 

The latest trailer left a bad taste in my mouth. Vincent is supposed to be an insane old man, but now he's some charming, young lover boy. Seriously? Don't even get me started on the Pyramid Head whoring. He does not represent Silent Hill, he was only meant to be in one game, his purpose was directly linked with the main character. I wish he'd stop being shoehorned into anything Silent Hill related.

I guess the movie itself looks interesting, and I'll give it a fair chance, but these things irk me.

 

I pretty obviously know its a direct sequel to the first movie, but I still held some hope that they would redeem themselves. I'm not saying the first movie was bad, quite honestly one of the best video game to film adaptations yet, but it made a lot of mistakes that easily be have been avoided. And birds are a whole different story from a giant monstrous creature with a pyramid literally for a head, not Valtiel with a helmet on. I know of the executioners from the old town history too, from the paintings in 2 and some text in 3.

The main thing is, I was hoping they'd do it better this time, which would have meant no Pyramid Head, that's all.

And yeah, it's obvious to me now they really don't give a shit for the Silent Hill name. I know I'll go see it, because I really don't like to be such a cynic when I haven't even seen the movie. Right now, I'm just really disappointed is all :\

 

I dare hope that Vincent will remain just as ambiguous as in the game : in the nurses scene Heather obviously doesn' t trust him much. The thing is, in the games when we meet a character he just throws a few cryptic one-liners then goes away. The rest of the plot is conveyed through files and memos. I don' t know about you but I don' t think "Files and memos : the movie" is something I' d like to watch.

As for PH I can' t help wondering why those who bitch about it seem to have a blind spot for the other whored-out/out of place monsters. Nurses anyone ? They' d win the whored-out monster award hands down. The first movie had monsters from SH2 (not just PH), apparently so does this movie (the Lying Figure, the Scarlet-manequin-thingy), so seriously, why does PH get all the hate ? This PH is Alessa' s perception of PH, just like she has her own nurses version (those don' t burp, that' s a plus). And btw, Axis, Hayabusa, I' m curious, from a plot perspective did you like Shattered Memories and all the departures it took from the original ?

To illustrate what I said before :

[video=youtube;UMyp6fRRwr0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMyp6fRRwr0&feature=player_embedded[/video]

"And, well here it is… almost. The day the first official trailer for Silent Hill 2 is going to be released. It’s been a long time coming and I know a lot of you feel there should have been material out there months ago. But this is how Open Road have chosen to run their marketing and I respect that. I’ve only just seen a finished version myself and I’m really excited to finally get something out there for you all to dissect and analyse. And I’m not under any illusions as to how forensic you’re all going to be. But just to warn you now – I’m not going to be answering any questions about the content or story points; you’ll have to see the finished film for how it all slots together.

The whole trailer creation process has been very interesting to me; and, in truth, I’ve only been peripherally involved. Of course, I’m sent works in progress so I’m not completely in the dark about what’s coming down the pike and I’ve offered a few thoughts and ideas along the way. Sometimes they use them, sometimes they don’t. What’s been really educational is how the trailer is tested and refined to focus on engaging audiences who really don’t know much about Silent Hill at all. Things that I thought worked fine, didn’t go down too well and elements I didn’t much care for really helped overall understanding or engagement. It’s maybe not the way I’d do it but I’m fascinated by this part of the process. And then there are the MPAA rules for a green-band trailer which are just amazingly strict. I understood that we couldn’t show anything very strong here because the trailer is supposed to be for all audiences but they’re really cautious even with the most (in my opinion) inoffensive imagery. Anything aggressive, threatening, scary or just plain freaky is looked at very closely and the poor folks at Open Road have to negotiate for every moment. It’s a truly laborious process and I’m amazed anything worthwhile gets through. In the next few weeks there’ll be an international trailer made which I don’t think will stick to the MPAA rule"

Source : http://michaeljbassett.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/27th-july-update-trailer-day/

Personally I don' t expect to be scared anyway : I need to be thrown into the horror myself, as a player, and avoid a game over screen, otherwise I' m just an unconcerned spectator.

 

Yeah, I didn't expect them to tell the story exactly like the games, but it's just that (and remember, I liked the first movie for what it did right), that giant exposition near the end just made my mind scream "SHOW DON'T TELL". I wouldn't know how to do that in a film about Silent Hill, but I'm sure there are great directors and writers who could do it. I'm alright with Vincent...so far.

It's because Pyramid Head is a monster who is specifically in only one game: Silent Hill 2, and it is an integral creature to that game's plot, to serve as James's own torture of himself given form...at least, it was, until the movie came out and Homecoming was like "Yeah we're just gonna throw him in because it's cool now to have him." The Nurses aren't specific to any character, and they've been in literally every game besides Shattered Memories (as far as I know, I haven't played Downpour) so they're almost a trademark creature for the series, so its acceptable and almost expected to see them in a movie about the games (at least I think so). And the Scarlet mannequin monster is from Homecoming, one of the few monsters I really liked from that game.

I haven't played Shattered Memories so no comments from me.

And I've seen that trailer before. I know about how trailers have to be very specific and can't show just anything the editors want, but still, I'm just commenting on what they've shown us, which I believe still holds valid for at least a few points. And I don't expect to be scared by a bigger budget movie based off Silent Hill without a trusted horror director either, but I hoped they could still be more true to the series name.

 

The one question We all should think about is "how the hell did she escape the other dimension?"

 

the first silent hill movie was just too freaky for me. def not seeing this one =p.

 

Im very happy with the trailer released a while back. I'll see it the second day it comes out.

 

The movie hasn' t been released where I live, but I saw the screener online and couldn' t resist checking if it was worth paying for.
The screener quality was awful, even for a screener. Not bad enough to prevent me from noticing the cheap CGI fiesta that it is, but sometimes I couldn' t even tell what was going on so I' ll focus on the story.

It' s bad.

It' s so fast paced we never get the dream-like feeling that the games deliver (which is strange given that dream-like quality is explicitly mentioned by Vincent to describe SH). Basically this movie is a ride, Heather stays with Vincent from beginning to end and the rest of the cast gets five minutes of screen time tops. Don' t expect character fleshing for anyone but Heather.

Vincent is just laughable. Not because they changed him but because...

Spoiler

no one in his right mind could swallow that seeing Heather for two minutes would be enough to make this religious zealot of epic proportions throw all of his faith away without ever looking back.

Oh and by the way, I didn' t mind seeing those two making out in the movie but ... neither seems to acknowledge at any point that

Spoiler

they are freaking cousins.

Also, this movie keeps retconning the first one, which makes me wonder why the hell they didn' t chose to start with a clean slate instead. I realize the original game script wasn' t exactly a masterpiece either, what made it stand out was its direction, but at least it didn' t keep rewriting its predecessor. As far as I can tell from a bad screener this movie direction is rather unimaginative, 100% Hollywood. It' s like they wanted the movie to never get deeper than a poodle. Special high five to the Pokemon fight (you' ll see what I mean).

It seems many people criticize the dialogs and their delivery, but English is not my mother tongue so I' m generally blissfully ignorant regarding those details *shrugs*.

Tldr, generic PG13 horror movie. Just a mainstream SH fanfiction put to the silver screen really. Despite my ramblings I did enjoy watching it for its fan service (nice backgrounds, cameos, nods to the games etc ...), it might be enough to make me pay and watch it in a theater. Just don' t expect more than mindless fun and you might enjoy it too.

 

So...pretty much everything I expected and didn't want....sigh. Silent Hill really needs a break from all the horrible new games and movies.