Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) Blu-ray 3D [Region Locked]

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

Read the above again if you haven't already. I can't see how her travelling around from school to school makes sense given that she is

[Show spoiler]both Alessa and 'Heather' as they already fused at the end of the first film.

The other problem is why does Alessa care about this new cult. They didn't wrong her and she showed in the first film that she only wanted revenge on those who wronged her. This cult just comes from nowhere within the film universe and its wants are underdeveloped to say the least, as why Alessa is

[Show spoiler]still in Silent Hill if Heather isn't. Did they defuse or? Also what happened to the entity?

.

As I said, on second viewing I actually got some entertainment out of it. But it isn't a natural, logical or consistent continuation of the first film. It screams of a film maker just wanting and thus deciding to do his own thing, not caring about what came before it (like Lucas with the Star Wars prequels).

Spoilers:
The new group needed Heather as a sacrifice for their end goals. They hired the investigator and sent the son in to track her down, then even kidnapped the father to draw her in. But yeah, I'll have to watch it again to see why Alessa was so angry with her other half, other than wanting to take over everything with her hatred. Good point about the fusing from the first movie, and this not being discussed in the 2nd. Possibly a temporary blend of power that dissolved after they left Silent Hill? Not sure since Bassett didn't get into explaining it.

Off Topic:
Lucas, in his later years,

[Show spoiler]probably thought a little too much about politics and thought back to Star Wars a New Hope, which hinted at the lines in the conference room with Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, discussing the dissolution of the Republic and how they would no longer be a factor. The fear of the Death Star being the new power of the Imperials. Then Lucas infused much of his prequels with politics, forgetting that fans loved Star Wars for the original Trilogies' sense of adventure, fun interactions between Solo, Leia, Luke, Obi Wan Kenobi, C3PO, R2D2 and Chewy versus the Empire. The prequel cast had a few miststeps with the wooden performances especially of Anakin Skywalker and Leia's daughter, Padme/Amidala, excluding Ewan McGregor's great performance as Kenobi, and a few other well acted parts.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Spoilers:
The new group needed Heather as a sacrifice for their end goals. They hired the investigator and sent the son in to track her down, then even kidnapped the father to draw her in. But yeah, I'll have to watch it again to see why Alessa was so angry with her other half, other than wanting to take over everything with her hatred. Good point about the fusing from the first movie, and this not being discussed in the 2nd. Possibly a temporary blend of power that dissolved after they left Silent Hill? Not sure since Bassett didn't get into explaining it.

Off Topic:
Lucas, in his later years,

[Show spoiler]probably thought a little too much about politics and thought back to Star Wars a New Hope, which hinted at the lines in the conference room with Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, discussing the dissolution of the Republic and how they would no longer be a factor. The fear of the Death Star being the new power of the Imperials. Then Lucas infused much of his prequels with politics, forgetting that fans loved Star Wars for the original Trilogies' sense of adventure, fun interactions between Solo, Leia, Luke, Obi Wan Kenobi, C3PO, R2D2 and Chewy versus the Empire. The prequel cast had a few miststeps with the wooden performances especially of Anakin Skywalker and Leia's daughter, Padme/Amidala, excluding Ewan McGregor's great performance as Kenobi, and a few other well acted parts.

It is actually telling in one of the deleted scenes Vincent even refers to the original group from the first film and how they wanted to sacrifice her to bring about there god.... No they didn't. They felt she was a witch and wanted to cleanse her. Nothing about a sacrifice to birth a god or similar is made or suggested. The group in the second film are not protected in any way from the darkness like those in the first film, so if Alessa wanted them dead they should already be dead.

The numerous things like along with the ignoring of the end, the fact that people can't leave silent hill (yet some ritual apparently enables them to be able to....) have me question if the film maker had seen the film he was making a sequel to in recent times. Also Rose somehow gets Alessa/Sharon out of Silent Hill (as they are already fused), by a mcguffin that even the director says should never be used. Why would Alessa and the entity allow Sharon to leave. No one leaves Silent Hill unless the entity allows it. The ambiguity was also dropped, the religious symbolism, the entity that created Silent Hill etc.

The sequel quite honestly should have dropped the Alessa/Rose story line and taken ques from the second game (of course changing the character) and have Sean Bean as the main star travelling to Silent Hill to find his long lost wife and daughter. What it tried to do was just it's own thing, which maybe would have been fine if it's own thing was compelling or interesting, but it wasn't which makes it a bad sequel and a bad film.

In fact I would have to say this is even worse as a sequel then The Descent 2 and the more I think about the film the more issues I notice. Which is no easy feat to manage

[Show spoiler]especially when it is a film that ignores the first films ending, then ignores that the very existence of the monsters was meant to be ambiguous (Sarah was originally intended to be the monster and she originally starts seeing the 'monsters' in the hospital at the start, hence also why when she screams after being in the pool of blood the others hear one of the monster screams), and only real addition to the story was we saw where this monsters defecate (even though we are not meant to even be sure if they are real).

.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

It is actually telling in one of the deleted scenes Vincent even refers to the original group from the first film and how they wanted to sacrifice her to bring about there god.... No they didn't. They felt she was a witch and wanted to cleanse her. Nothing about a sacrifice to birth a god or similar is made or suggested. The group in the second film are not protected in any way from the darkness like those in the first film, so if Alessa wanted them dead they should already be dead.

The numerous things like along with the ignoring of the end, the fact that people can't leave silent hill (yet some ritual apparently enables them to be able to....) have me question if the film maker had seen the film he was making a sequel to in recent times. Also Rose somehow gets Alessa/Sharon out of Silent Hill (as they are already fused), by a mcguffin that even the director says should never be used. Why would Alessa and the entity allow Sharon to leave. No one leaves Silent Hill unless the entity allows it. The ambiguity was also dropped, the religious symbolism, the entity that created Silent Hill etc.

The sequel quite honestly should have dropped the Alessa/Rose story line and taken ques from the second game (of course changing the character) and have Sean Bean as the main star travelling to Silent Hill to find his long lost wife and daughter. What it tried to do was just it's own thing, which maybe would have been fine if it's own thing was compelling or interesting, but it wasn't which makes it a bad sequel and a bad film.

In fact I would have to say this is even worse as a sequel then The Descent 2 and the more I think about the film the more issues I notice. Which is no easy feat to manage

[Show spoiler]especially when it is a film that ignores the first films ending, then ignores that the very existence of the monsters was meant to be ambiguous (Sarah was originally intended to be the monster and she originally starts seeing the 'monsters' in the hospital at the start, hence also why when she screams after being in the pool of blood the others hear one of the monster screams), and only real addition to the story was we saw where this monsters defecate (even though we are not meant to even be sure if they are real).

.

Well explained. Thank you.

[UFAlien]

IIRC, even the earliest talks of this sequel indicated that the producers wanted it to be based on Silent Hill 3, which in any case doesn't fit with the first film's ending since the game's plot hinges on

[Show spoiler]the cult needing Heather to birth their God

.

But Gans mentioned in interviews that the cult from his movie were supposed to be a group that OPPOSED the Order. The woman burning in the painting

[Show spoiler]that conceals the hidden door in the hotel

is Jennifer Carol, who in the games was actually considered a founding member/martyr of the Order. The idea was that the Order was the overtly pagan cult that wanted to cause the apocalypse to "purify" the world, while the cult in the first film was a pseudo-Christian group dedicated to preventing the apocalypse by "purifying" what they saw as witchcraft. So while both were all kinds of f***ed up, they were in direct opposition to one another. For whatever reason in Revelation the Order is pretty much declared to be, at most, a different branch of the same cult from movie 1, which makes no sense.

Of course the other problem is explaining why this cult is even still in Silent Hill. Dark Alessa says in the first movie

[Show spoiler]the reason she called Sharon back was because it was time for "this dream and the dreamers within it" to come to an end, implying she was wiping out all the people trapped in the Otherworld

. That could have been addressed better if they kept the separate cult things, I think. Perhaps the Order weren't trapped in the Otherwold back during the fire, since they hadn't actually done anything to Alessa, but they somehow learn about the Otherworld and/or

[Show spoiler]Sharon being Alessa

and that sets the events of the plot in motion?

To be honest it's pretty hard to try and figure out a way to continue the first movie's plot from where it was. It had a fairly definitive ending. It just feels like Bassett didn't particularly try and just ignored most of the plot of the first movie for convenience's sake. I'm incredibly curious as to what Gans and co. would have come up with if they made the sequel as originally planned. If the producers really were pushing for an SH3 adaptation even when Gans was attached, I feel like it still would've been at least a bit contrived... the Silent Hill movie plot and SH3's plot really just don't fit together at all.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

To be honest it's pretty hard to try and figure out a way to continue the first movie's plot from where it was. It had a fairly definitive ending. It just feels like Bassett didn't particularly try and just ignored most of the plot of the first movie for convenience's sake. I'm incredibly curious as to what Gans and co. would have come up with if they made the sequel as originally planned. If the producers really were pushing for an SH3 adaptation even when Gans was attached, I feel like it still would've been at least a bit contrived... the Silent Hill movie plot and SH3's plot really just don't fit together at all.

If anyone could make something as weird as that work I think Gans could be the person. Revelation took the hollywood slasher approach which is the complete opposite of what was needed. Sure Silent Hill gets very violent at the end, but for the most part is a slow build without the slasher kills and the kills actually have meaning beyond. I don't think any of the kills in the first film where enjoyable to watch and nor where they meant to be. Revelation seems to bask in the idea of enjoying watching silly gimmicky deaths, which is absolutely not what Silent Hill is about.

The thing people remember most about the games (minus homecoming) is the sense of isolation and despair it creates. The first film replicates this faithfully (albeit not as fleshed out as the games due to time constraints), and one thing it does better then the games is the 'cult'. Revelations barely has any scene without 'Heather' interacting with someone, nor does it have any unique twists such as Rose running past her husband when she is in Silent Hill and he is in 'our world' and he can fell/smell her.

I do wonder how many of the problems where caused by a very limited budget (the scenes in the darkness just where not as well realized as in the original film, nor where the monsters [in particular the big bad]) and what seems to have been a very rushed schedule. It makes me sad that this game adaption series ended this way. It isn't like The Descent where their really was no where left to go, their was plenty of things one could have done. Basset simply managed to completely botch the story. Still dat 3d (minus the look at me pop outs). They could have even taking cues from Silent Hill 4,

[Show spoiler]and not have the charcters in Silent Hill

.

[UFAlien]

Since it was brought up a while ago, Michael J. Bassett's Twitter is actually back up now; he rejoined last August and I never noticed.

https://twitter.com/michaeljbassett

Apparently he's still directing more episodes of Strike Back for Cinemax. Which evidently involves lots of explosions. And in case you're curious, no, he has not mentioned Silent Hill since rejoining ;-)

[Zivouhr]

That's good to see he's still working on projects.

Originally Posted by levcore

Silent Hill: Downpour arrived yesterday and i played a bit last night. I think it's absolutely fantastic so far. Great visuals and atmosphere and i love the set up. I have just gotten to the diner after the bush crash. Need to find a ticket for the skyrail thing. I've also had my first experience of the 'other side' so to speak. Even though it doesn't say anywhere on the packaging, the Xbox version is in 3D too and when i realised this and switched to 3D, it was even better. I love how the real world stuff has nice mild 3D and when everything changes and you go into the dark world, it changes to really strong 3D. Awesome. Really looking forward to playing a bit more later.

Cool. Glad to hear you're enjoying it so far. Some of the puzzles can be vague, though not every single puzzle needs to be solved to progress. That is cool the 360 version has 3D too. Glad to hear it. Though it does affect the frame rate a bit, the game was still playable and the 3D added to the sense of dread the game does a great job of conveying.

I played it again tonight and one thing to remember is, the auto save system is "all or nothing", in that once you finally reach the way out of Silent Hill's town, you can never return until you start a new game, as the auto saves overwrite all of your saves. Just a heads up to explore everything you might have missed before leaving town at the end of the game, which took me a few good weeks to complete with other priorities first.

The music is great in the game.

That early section is a nice introduction to the game. The behind the shoulder view works nicely here.

For the PS4, I'm looking forward to Silent Hills. There was a playable Teaser Demo of the game at the GamesCon in Germany I hear, where you explore a haunted building.
They also showed a shot of Norman Reedus' face, and him walking into Silent Hill at night. Can't wait to hear more about it.

The creator of Resident Evil is bringing out The Evil Within for consoles this October, which also looks like a promising horror title, though I don't think it'll be 3D.
For more horror games, Game Informer's October issue (and digital) has a Horror Issue.


On Topic, the special make up effects of the mutated faces was nicely done. One strange shot was of Heather walking into the back of the mall interior and seeing that guy hanging and getting sliced up and that guy cooking the meat in the fryer.

I like the 3D shot of Pyramid Head walking down the hall with the doors and hands, chopping them up as he goes.

[levcore]

Really enjoying the game still. Just got out of the caves and have gotten to Silent Hill proper. Loving the 3D on this and the locations and settings look amazing.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Since it was brought up a while ago, Michael J. Bassett's Twitter is actually back up now; he rejoined last August and I never noticed.

https://twitter.com/michaeljbassett

Apparently he's still directing more episodes of Strike Back for Cinemax. Which evidently involves lots of explosions. And in case you're curious, no, he has not mentioned Silent Hill since rejoining ;-)

He seems like a genuinely nice guy but what he did to Silent Hill 2 will hover over any chance he has to make another feature film. It was a brand that he will be largely blamed for running into the ground (whether it is fair or not, I think it is fair as mast of the issues come down to just inept writing which he did and mediocre direction [with amazing cinematography]).