Silent Hill 2: Revelations 3D Review

Movie: Silent Hill 2: Revelations 3D
By: Maniac E
Date: November 1, 2012

Get ready for a thrill ride through hell

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, based on the acclaimed survival horror videogame franchise by Konami, is a sequel to Hadida and Carmody's earlier collaboration, Christophe Gans' Silent Hill. The first one gave us a lot to think about but in the end lacked execution. When it comes to distorting reality, Silent Hill is a perfect fit, but has Bassett successfully blurred the lines between movie and game? Will this one be better?

For years, Heather Mason and her father have been on the run, always one step ahead of dangerous forces that she doesn't fully understand. Now on the eve of her 18th birthday, plagued by terrifying nightmares and the disappearance of her father, Heather discovers she's not who she thinks she is. The revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her in Silent Hill forever.

Unfortunately, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a mixed bag of creepy and downright captivating visual set-pieces coupled with melodramatic dialogue and an overly-complicated storyline. For every interesting creature moment that Bassett presents, there's one or two lengthy scenes of convoluted and campy exposition that, instead of heightening the tension, deliver eye-rolling exchanges and provide unintentional laughs. The result? A movie that is easy to recommend to fans of the game (Bassett nails a diverse mix of creature encounters) but fails to hit the necessary benchmarks for non-gamer mass appeal.

With that out of the way they ended up with a very clean cut movie, visuals are impressive to say the least. In this department Silent Hill 2 scores highly and the atmosphere is there. There's no short of twisted imagination on display here, especially in the make-up and 3D visual effects department But it falls short again by not being true to the source material. Demons which, in the context of the games, resonated because they were understood to be projections of a mind distraught by guilt and suffering, appear in Revelations for literally no reason except that they look interesting or scary, which is pretty flagrant misunderstanding of why they were scary in the first place.

Christophe Gans's Silent Hill, though flawed, at least attempted to translate more from its source text than merely a seductive look or feel. Its comparatively simple first act remains a good example of how to apply the horror elements of the Silent Hill games to film with a degree of elegance and wit. This part isn't in the movie which is a shame because this would really would make it a movie to recommended. Silent Hill is littered with utterly bizarre ideas like those. There are rooms filled with doll heads, women with hot bodies and deformed faces, abandoned amusement park rides, old men laughing on buses and dozens of other sick and perverted thoughts spewed out in a shotgun-like fashion. All in all you get a large variety of locations which help set the atmosphere.

Well I enjoyed the visual style, the atmosphere, and of course the nurses, but they aren't saving the movie which I hoped it would have been more in line with the first. For the people wanting more Pyramid Head you got it! I wished it would be better but it just falls short with weird choices in the script and rushed. Which shouldn't since they had 6 years to make it. A must see for fans of Silent Hill, but it could have and SHOULD have been more than this.

BLURAY REVIEW

Image quality

Revelation scares up two presentations. First, a solid 1080p/AVC-encoded 2D video transfer that, if nothing else, looks the part. It isn't flawless, or even close to ideal noise spikes rather violently here and there, skintones are occasionally a bit over-saturated, slight ringing and banding creep in at inopportune times, contrast is inconsistent, shadows are often muddy or muted, and crush wreaks a small but manageable bit of havoc -- but the image soldiers on, and sometimes even impresses. Colors show strength in spite of varying levels of bleakness and grunginess, primaries have visceral pop, reds are particularly pulpy and black levels. Revelation boasts some 3D pop and prowess early on, particularly when the lights are high, the fog is low and grimy shadows have yet to press in and consume the image.

Sound

Vicious DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is loud and grisly, just as it should be. Revelation's sound design is as subtle as its visuals, and yet there's a finesse to its jolting directional effects, aggressive rear speaker activity and eerie cross-channel pans. Low-end output sinks its teeth in as well, throwing the full weight of the LFE channel's wares behind whatever bloody supernatural bedlam Bassett unleashes on screen.

Extras

none

Overall

While the movie really isn't that great atleast the disc has its own quality. The sound is great and really pulls you into the movie. While the pallets used for the colors and mood set aren't ideally atleast they tried. E1 has a good quality disc here and uses what they can.

E1 Entertainment