An interesting little horror movie that has a nice change to the “found-footage” genre, but it still fails in the end. The plot is predictable and it’s clear who is doing it, but I still enjoyed it. We follow the detectives going through some found footage of a brutal murder scene, looking for evidence to lead them to a killer. Then of course, we see the found footage. Because of this it feels like two different movies squished into one. It works well and I found it a welcome change from plain found footage films. But as I said, if you pay attention it’s pretty clear who the killer is which leads you to having no real sense of urgency or dread for the characters. They also sometimes show you the results of a death long before it happens, so you don’t even get worried when a character makes some dumb decision.
The acting from the found footage people was as to be expected. Cheesy, over done, but not horrible to watch. The acting from the detectives was alright. I did find the female detective annoying. It was more of the writing of her character though, as opposed to the acting. The other thing about this movie that I hated was the ridiculous CSI-like techniques, particularly on images. They would zoom in about 100x beyond the possible resolution of the picture or video and manage to get a crisp clean image. I hate techniques like that and find them lazy.
Overall, the deaths are pretty decent, just ridiculous enough to be amusing, and it’s a nice background watch. Not a complete waste of time, but not one I would ever seek out to watch again or go out of my way to watch. Even this review I’m half-assing while watching the USA vs Germany World Cup game, it’s just that much of a “meh” background movie.
Part 2 – Spoilery Stuff
So, if are watching the movie as it happens, not knowing who the killer is, a number of decisions made by characters are SUPER dumb. Even knowing that the two girls were framing it all, their decisions are still SO DUMB. I guess if you’re trying to make it look like an actual horror movie, some of the dumb decisions make sense (like the director girl going with the bus driver). But, one of the dumb decisions is what gave away who the killer was for me. So, that was annoying. Anyway, here are the things I thought were dumb or annoying.
For wanting to be a director, Rachel is pretty oblivious to certain things. “No, we haven’t passed anything for miles!” when literally a mile away they passed a ton of buildings that even I saw. Considering I was watching the movie at that point from her POV, come on. She’s also an annoying idiot. “I volunteer to go with you down to the abandoned bus when there’s a killer out there!” Then she whines and is loud THE WHOLE TIME. Don’t volunteer if you can’t handle yourself chicka chicka. Especially if you are the killer anyway. Try to come off not like a whiney little bitch. But, most everyone in the movie is dumb and makes these ridiculously dumb decisions. Like screaming “who is out there?!” when all your friends are in the room. Well sweetie, if all your friends are in the room, by process of elimination, WHO MUST BE OUT THERE? The killer. Idiot. The dumbest decision was the one that gave the movie away for me. When Leanna and Tyler go looking for Rachel. They knew her and Ben were going to the bus. There was no point in them leaving the saftey of that room unless one of them was the killer. The whole scorned boyfriend thing was too obvious, so it had to be Rachel.
I’m not sure why Vicki wouldn’t tell the girls on the bus what the sons present was, saying “it’s personal”. She’s told them a lot about herself already so seems random. After the crash Vicki whips it out pretty quickly offering it up to be used, so not sure why it was so “personal.”
Also, as I said up above, Detective Burquez is an idiot. Using the ridiculous zoom and sharpen technique again, they find out that the killer had on a welding mask. She immediately says oh then it HAS to be the old man with PTSD because he used to be a machinist. She wants his face out every where and to “find him”. She tells Detective Reese that she’ll stop if he finds irrefutable evidence against (for?) the old man. Lady, you’re already putting out an APB on him and you have NO evidence against him…. maybe YOU’RE the one jumping at things.
I like how Reese just goes straight to Steven’s mouth, pulling out the memory card with no gloves on at all. Then he goes straight from bloody memory card, to wiping it (and his hands) off and shoving it right into the computer. Ridiculous CSI tricks again? Perhaps.
Overall: 5/10
Some amusing deaths, nice change to the found footage genre, but a very predictable plot and some really dumb characters.
Don’t do it. Save yourself the money. As a fan of the first movie, and as someone who has slightly dabbled in the video games (like, played a couple hours of 2, 3, and homecoming) – this was MAJORLY disappointing. Even if I hadn’t played the games, it would still be a super let down. It was just bad.
Half of the movie is trying to connect this to the first movie. The first movie was great – it took elements from some of the earlier Silent Hill films ( I think bits from 1 – 4 ) and just kind of made its own new plot. And it worked. It was great. It still felt like a video game but transferred well over to film. This movie, on the other-hand, they decided to go with the storyline from just Silent Hill (game) 3…. but wanted to connect it to the characters in the first movie. So they literally had to just keep explaining and explaining things. For example (not spoiling anything about THIS movie), clearly, the girl in this movie is supposed to be Sharon from the first movie. The way this movie explains it takes about a good 20 minutes as to how she ended up getting out of Silent Hill, and why Rose didn’t. If you would have just done different characters, you could have spent more time on the things that people like – which is the cool creatures and the “darkness” in Silent Hill.
Once the movie does finally get to Silent Hill – nothing really happens. Everything that does happen you’ve seen in the trailers. The cool looking monster made out of mannequin parts? You see it for like a minute. Pyramid head? He might get… 2 minutes. The nurse scene was released online… so yeah, nothing exciting.
It just felt way to rushed together, and there was so much forcing to get it to work with the first movie that it made the movie annoying. I wanted so much more but it didn’t deliver!
The only thing I liked were little Easter Eggs – and I’m sure I missed a lot having only played like 3 of the games. I noticed a reference to Travis Grady (Silent Hill 5) at the end, a reference to Silent Hill: Downpour (8) that is pretty blatant at the end of the movie…. ummmmm they kind of imply that the next movie could be the plot of Silent Hill 2…. and all the ones I caught were BLATANTLY obvious – so I’m sure an actual die-hard fan of the video games would get more of these Easter eggs. I liked them, but they actually made me laugh they were so forced upon you at the end, all within about 2 minutes of each other.
So yes – I wouldn’t go see it. You’ll be sad. Just go watch the first one again, it’s so much better than this crap.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis
There wasn’t really a plot. So a synopsis will do you no good. Let me just tell you the first entire half of the movie in a couple of sentences.
Supposedly, after the events of Silent Hill 1, Rose managed to find this symbol thing – that transported Sharon back to the real world. It wasn’t powerful enough to bring them both back though. So for like 6 years, Sharon and Christopher have been on the run. Now they are going by the names of Harry and Heather (so they don’t get caught). Heather doesn’t really remember what happened, but always has nightmares about Silent Hill. She even sees weird things. She starts at her new school, meets another new guy, Vincent, but tells him off….. she thinks someone is following her…. calls her dad to have him meet her….. at the house Harry is taken by unseen people. Heather waits for Harry but he never shows up. The guy she thinks is following her though tells her that he is a private investigator and was hired by a cult to find her – and now is sorry. Then some saw monster thing that looked like a cenobite (or like the cenobite hell lord thing in Cabin in the Woods, actually) comes and kills the PI. Heather runs off, takes the bus home with Vincent, who walks her home. At home there is blood written on the walls saying “Come to Silent Hill” and a strange symbol. After going through some of her dads stuff, Heather/Sharon goes through a box of her dad’s stuff and finds a letter for her. The letter explains that they’ve been running from this cult that wants Sharon – and no matter what, she should NEVER go to Silent Hill.
So, what does Sharon do? She convinces Vincent to take her to Silent Hill. And oh yeah, now she goes by Sharon, because the Heather thing only lasted like one day at school, and then also the audience will connect with her more as the same person from the first movie. Great. Ok. So Vincent drives a long time, then they stop at a hotel for the night. There, Vincent has a secret to reveal – he was sent from Silent Hill to make sure that Sharon comes back to Silent Hill. They NEED her, because she is part of Alessa – and they can’t kill Alessa unless Sharon is also there and killed. But now, Vincent realizes that Sharon is all the good parts of Alessa, and is innocent and so he doesn’t want her to go. Oh, and also, Vincent is the evil-now-head-of-the-cult-woman’s son. He had to have that weird symbol cut into his body to be able to leave Silent Hill. If Sharon, as a child managed to get out, not sure why poor Vincent had to be cut up to leave. Whatever. Then suddenly the darkness appears in the hotel – and Vincent yells that she should find his (Vincent’s) grandpa in the asylum, who will help her – and then he is gone. When Sharon wakes up the next morning, she’s in Silent Hill. Oh no. First she wanders the ashy streets, and in front of the church finds Dahlia. Dahlia, we know to be Alessa’s mother from the first movie. Dahlia explains to Sharon about the darkness, and about how they need to have Sharon and Alessa together in order to kill them – and thus stop the darkness. Then convenient timing, the darkness comes. I also can’t remember if Dahlia mentioned it or Vincent did – but Pyramidhead is Alessa’s “protector”. Yeah, we already knew that from the first movie. Thanks.
Sharon runs into a building and finds the mannequin room. She notices one of the mannequins breathing – and then hears a girl screaming from a table. She is being turned into a mannequin somehow. Reminded me of house of wax… but it was almost instantaneous. Then Sharon notices another girl tied up – who she frees, and they run as the monster made out of mannequin parts chases them. It’s about a 20 second chase, before Sharon finds a way out through a vent – but the other girl she just saved doesn’t make it in time and gets taken by the mannequin monster. Fail. Girl fail and scene fail. It was just like 20 seconds of monster. Ugh! I wanted more! At this same time we see Vincent being bitched at by his mom, Claudia, and other cult members. They are glad they got Sharon there, but clearly he needs to be “fixed” since he told her to run – so they start to cart him off to the asylum.
At the asylum, Sharon goes and finds Vincents grandpa, who is cray-cray. He is a crazy blind old man. Sharon asks if he knows where her father is. Nope. She then asks if he knows what this weird metallic symbol she has is. He takes it, explains that it’s a key… and the other half is inside him! He shoves it inside his chest – and then becomes a monster. He looks creepy, and fights Sharon for like 2 seconds, then grabs her, puts her over his shoulder, starts to carry her out – and so she just sticks her hand in his chest and pulls the now completed metallic symbol out of his chest… and then the monster dies. So this whole monster scene – like a minute. Ugh. There’s then a scene of other people in the asylum grabbing at Sharon, she cries for help, and Pyramidhead shows up, which Sharon runs from – and Pyramid head chops off the arms of the people that were sticking their hands out the bars of their cages grabbing Sharon. Remember, Pyramidhead is Alessa’s protector… and Sharon is part Alessa…. yeah. When Sharon was running, she conveniently finds Vincent, who is strapped to a bed in a room full of “nurses”. The nurses are evil little bitches that react to sound. They are the coolest creature. They are always trying to get to the sound and kill it. But, no worries, Sharon rescues Vincent. This scene was the best in the movie… and oh, it’s online. Here it is if you want to see it.
So after this, Vincent leads Sharon to the amusement park, which is where Sharon should be able to find a way to the hidden-underground-cult-liar and find her dad. Vincent distracts some guards, and Sharon runs to the merry go round. On the merry go round, which is being turned by Pyramid head, Sharon is surrounded by cult guards. Alessa appears though and burns them all. She has some weird heart to heart with Sharon, and seems to be threatening to kill Sharon, which is stupid, because if she kills Sharon, then Alessa would be more vulnerable… whatever. Then, for no real reason, Sharon hugs Alessa. In their embrace they both kind of “take parts” of each other, their expressions change a bit – and then Alessa turns to dust. So apparently, all you need to do to kill a demon is hug it. Ok.
The carousel has now lowered itself to the secret underground cult lair. Claudia is waiting for her. She explains that Sharon was destined from the day she was born to be the host of the cult’s god. All she needs now is that key thing, and they can begin the ritual. Sharon holds her hand out with the key in it – and when Claudia touches it we see her for what she really is – that saw cenobite thing from earlier. Then a fight ensues…. for like 10 seconds, but then Pyramidhead comes and saves them all. Hooray. Pyramid head kills cenobite Claudia – and Sharon releases her dad and Vincent (who I guess was caught and brought down there).
Now it’s the end of the movie. Apparently Silent Hill is all better now, and Vincent and Sharon go to leave. Harry decides to stay there and look for Rose (hello Silent Hill game number 2 plot…). Vincent and Sharon stroll right on out of Silent Hill and get picked up by a trucker, Travis Grady (Silent Hill game 5 protagonist), and drive off as a bus full of prisoners and cop cars head toward Silent Hill (Silent Hill Downpour).
End.
Overall: 4.5/10
I wouldn’t see it again, even rental. It was just so disappointing on so many levels. The only “fun” parts were the easter eggs from the games, which there were tons of. But if you haven’t played the games, you won’t get them. So, maybe just drunk watch this on netflix. Otherwise, skip.
Maria's Movie Reviews 