On paper, “Silent Hill: Revelation” (2012) should not be predestined to suck, but it does. Some genius decided to hire cowriter and director MJ Bassett, who hated “Silent Hill” (2006), because director Christopher Gans and writer Roger Avery were unavailable. Even Bassett was not happy with her film, which she tried to make faithful to the video game. The second of three films in the franchise takes place six years after the first film. Eighteen-year-old high schooler Sharon Da Silva (Adelaide Clemens) is having nightmares but has no memory of her time in Silent Hill. She and her father (Sean Bean), formerly Christopher, have aliases, Heather and Harry respectively. When her father goes missing, she decides to look for him in Silent Hill with the help of her classmate, Vincent (Kit Harrington), which is exactly what the people of Silent Hill want. This sequel proves that some people’s performance is only as good as the material because this excellent cast do not shine, and most are talented actors. The real scare of this movie is how it sucks the possibility of quality from the entire movie. There are spoilers from the first film.
Clemens is not the original actor, Jodelle Ferland, who played Sharon in the first film, and Ferland was the right age for the role. Apparently, I did not appreciate Ferland enough. While it is possible that Bassett directed Clemens to play Sharon as someone who fears everything, Clemens did standout in the more regular scenarios except in a scene when she acts with herself (it makes sense if you know the lore). To be fair, if I was not familiar with Bean and Harrington’s work in a little-known series, “Game of Thrones,” I would think that they were horrible actors too so this harsh judgment is not carved in stone, but no Michael Fassbender awards for them. They are phoning it in. Bean confessed that he was confused. Harrington’s performance would not get him a small supporting role on a CW television series. Carrie-Anne Moss, who is generally a fave, gets styled as if she is Thranduil in “The Hobbit” franchise, and she is so washed out that it is almost impossible to focus on her performance. Let’s bleach the iconic raven-haired beauty. Crime against humanity. They were probably going for the evil albino look so shame on them.
Like Bean, other actors come back and reprise their roles. Red Pyramid (Roberto Campanella) is back but appears to get a slight makeover in the vein of Vincent D’Onofrio’s character in “The Cell” (2000) and no more bugs so he may be the only character who got a glow up. He gets some great fight scenes, including at the denouement, and a new motivation. It works but is not enough to save the sequel (save the world). Deborah Kara Unger maintains her ground as Dahlia, a fog townie who looks dusty and warns people, but it is more of a no sequitur cameo. Just being consistent in a movie where people like Bean are actively worse is an accomplishment. Radha Mitchell comes back to be a torso in a mirror and explain the bridge between “Silent Hill” and “Silent Hill: Revelation” for the people that did see the first film and are wondering how everyone got to this point. I’m people.
“Silent Hill: Revelation” is what happens when someone has no idea what made the original great, decides to abandon the nightmare logic and recycle a bunch of scares from the first film while looking like a straight to streaming movie. In the first film, the townies seemed like normal, horrible people. Now, characters do not need to be in Silent Hill for the fog dimension and the darkness to affect the regular world. The mythology from the first film is completely ditched though still referenced, and the writers favor borrowing the mythology from the first video game. Basically, townies can be monsters. Why? How? What? The fog townies can transform into darkness creatures thanks to a seal for reasons, but they no longer seem like ordinary people when they are not in monster drag. This society’s entire rules change, and they want a god to get born for reasons. A god has no name (Game of Thrones joke). If the new world made sense, it would not be a problem, but it does not. Relatives oppose each other even though their ideologies seem difficult to differentiate, but who cares. The mythology is such garbage that you must emphasize the two syllables in garbage as if it is a foreign language.
Even if you watched “Silent Hill: Revelation” without seeing “Silent Hill,” you would still be confused because the story casually drops some explosive information like Harry killed a guy then waits to show the flashback, which reveals nothing of substance that advances the plot or gives it momentum. Really big things happen with zero consequences. A group of townies called the Brethren are introduced, but they must be a fixture of Silent Hill Fashion Week because they are otherwise unremarkable. What do they do? What distinguishes them other than wearing masks? Dunno, but they have a fierce walk. They will not be eliminated in “America’s Next Top Model.”
On the other hand, while jump scares are the lowest form of scaring the audience, there are moments where this film’s horror goes hard though the quality of the effects is uneven: a mannequin spider creature, transforming a person into a mannequin but they are still alive and the Dark Nurses. For the latter, the scene lacks dream logic, and the Dark Nurses sound like porn stars, but despite those demerits, they are consistently unsettling and evocative. If “Silent Hill: Revelation” started blaring Robert Palmer, and Bassett had leaned into the suck instead of being as serious as a heart attack, it could have been awesome.
It is counterintuitive that a sequel with women in the creative seats prioritizes the male characters as Sharon’s crew whereas the original which had a male director and writer sidelined the men in favor of the women character. Most disappointing is the shoehorn attempt to make Sharon and Vincent into a couple that will be together forever. Vincent is barely an asset for the duration of “Silent Hill: Revelation” and keeps so many obvious secrets that I would not recommend him as a date to the prom. Unless you are one of the recent horromcom filmmakers who can pull off all the genres and make a likable couple that you actually want to watch ride off into the sunset, please never try to pair people up. It was the real scare of the movie.
“Silent Hill: Revelation” made me hope that “Return to Silent Hill” (2026) would just pretend that the second movie never happened and was a bad dream. It seems likely since Gans is back in the director’s chair, and Bassett did a better job with “Red Sonja” (2025). Also, most, if not all, of the actors have gone on to bigger and better things. Everyone has an off day, and the second film seems to be everyone’s worst day in the office. To think that this movie got released in theaters while far better ones are lucky if they make it to streaming is the real abomination. Maybe gamers see the beauty in this one, but for the rest of us, don’t waste your time on this one.
