Story's a mess, comedy falls flat most of the time, they showed off all their big moments in the trailer from as far as 80 minutes into the (95 minute) movie, and they managed to spoil their one big moment that wasn't in the trailer with an incredibly obvious set-up line half an hour earlier. Also, it's got the same problem as the original which is that anaconda attacks and kills get boring pretty quickly.
Rating: rubbish
Return To Silent Hill
Woooof that was bad. I genuinely do not understand the lack of competence on display, it's almost like they were trying to make it as unconvincing and unscary as possible in every way. The direction, script, editing, visual effects - all really clunky. I felt like I was watching a nu-metal music video from 2001 for two hours.
Tomorrow I might rewatch the first movie for the first time in at least a decade to see if it's as superior as I remember it (and then I may as well watch the apparently dreadful Revelations, see where that falls on the spectrum between the two).
Silent Hill
Okay, it's still great. Watching it after Return, it's striking how everything is so intentional and believable in comparison. It's got a great oppressive tension/relief and release structural cycle. I also skipped through as much of the superfluous exec-mandated (because they couldn't bear the idea of a movie with no featured male characters, apparently) Sean Bean plot thread as I could and that helped! I think a good fan edit would basically remove him from the film after the credit card scene until the final scene (plus it would cut down that 'old movie' info dump and remove most of the voiceover to make it more impressionistic, and it would replace the closing credits with something less like a VFX showreel that immediately demystifies everything you just watched). My only other criticism would be that the score does sometimes feel like they just dropped tracks from the game in there, the fluttery piano feels a bit incongruous.
Silent Hill Revelation
As awful as reported. Just schlocky horror sequel DTV dross. Overloaded, overcooked and yet empty story, creeping dread replaced with 'aren't clowns scary?', 'aren't mannequins scary?', 'aren't Cenobites scary?', terrible dialogue and acting. And they made the bizarre decision to recast Jodelle Ferland despite her being the right age and happy to return; apparently this was to stay closer to the games' visuals but instead they just threw away like half the power of the first movie.
I'd have to rate this below Return, despite an equivalent level of technical craft, just because the latter at least has integrity.
