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necrophilia) wrote2026-02-07 09:49 pm
necrophilia) wrote2026-02-07 09:49 pm
Entry tags:
cheese slices.
So. Work exploded.
Anyway, this entry is about Return to Silent Hill.
Below the cut: full spoilers for both Silent Hill 2 (the video game) and Return to Silent Hill (the movie). tl;dr — do not see this movie. Do literally anything else with your time.
I'm gonna pull a Jenny Nicholson and organise my grievances via numbered list.
1) Mary. I think they were attempting to invoke Heather/Cheryl Mason the way they gave her a backstory of her being a cult sacrifice for the town of Silent Hill, but it's just... weird and hard to get a proper bead on. It's not a plot that should have been introduced just for backstory; the writing is unable to give it the time and care it needs to feel grounded and tonally appropriate. Instead, it's just put there for... shock value? To discomfit the viewer? Also, Lauren and Angela are both personifications of different facets of Mary's trauma rather than people in their own right. Fuck that.
This sucks, because an SH2 movie entirely through Mary/Maria's perspective could have been really interesting!
2) Eddie. The story removes any indication that he was James's second kill, so his inclusion is strange. It's like the writing felt it had to include Eddie because he's a character in the game and the fans expect him, but they didn't care to interrogate or even include what Eddie means for the story. It's the world's worst example of fanservice.
3) Mary's death. All ambiguity is removed. Mary, sweet and understanding to the end, straight up asks James to kill her rather than let her die slowly of her illness. This leads into...
4) James! The whole backstory between him and Mary was just sanitised to the point of not making it clear why James ended up in a version of SH that exists to punish him; the movie didn't dare do anything to risk making its protagonist unlikeable or even ambiguous, which just made him boring as hell. At best, you could argue he felt guilty for leaving her in the Cheryl/Heather situation she's in, but that ends up being poorly formed on the movie's side. The fact that Mary's death is a clearly requested mercy kill really shows that the writing did not care to understand the game's themes or James's journey.
5) James's fucking therapist. She was one of the SH cult members who ritualistically ate Mary's blood or whatever and the movie never discusses this again.
6) Angela is not her own person and her ending is so disappointing in comparison to the game. I will just link this Polygon article, which covers my feelings on the matter perfectly.
7) It was just boring. The scares did not deliver. The atmosphere did not deliver. The actor playing James tried his best, but he simply doesn't have enough experience to carry a movie like this on his shoulders.
8) At one point, Pyramid Head brings his sword down into the stomach of a nurse. In the very next shot, the nurse has no wounds in her torso. I was so mad.
9) Akira Yamaoka got a producer credit, which was cool.
Anyway, this entry is about Return to Silent Hill.
Below the cut: full spoilers for both Silent Hill 2 (the video game) and Return to Silent Hill (the movie). tl;dr — do not see this movie. Do literally anything else with your time.
I'm gonna pull a Jenny Nicholson and organise my grievances via numbered list.
1) Mary. I think they were attempting to invoke Heather/Cheryl Mason the way they gave her a backstory of her being a cult sacrifice for the town of Silent Hill, but it's just... weird and hard to get a proper bead on. It's not a plot that should have been introduced just for backstory; the writing is unable to give it the time and care it needs to feel grounded and tonally appropriate. Instead, it's just put there for... shock value? To discomfit the viewer? Also, Lauren and Angela are both personifications of different facets of Mary's trauma rather than people in their own right. Fuck that.
This sucks, because an SH2 movie entirely through Mary/Maria's perspective could have been really interesting!
2) Eddie. The story removes any indication that he was James's second kill, so his inclusion is strange. It's like the writing felt it had to include Eddie because he's a character in the game and the fans expect him, but they didn't care to interrogate or even include what Eddie means for the story. It's the world's worst example of fanservice.
3) Mary's death. All ambiguity is removed. Mary, sweet and understanding to the end, straight up asks James to kill her rather than let her die slowly of her illness. This leads into...
4) James! The whole backstory between him and Mary was just sanitised to the point of not making it clear why James ended up in a version of SH that exists to punish him; the movie didn't dare do anything to risk making its protagonist unlikeable or even ambiguous, which just made him boring as hell. At best, you could argue he felt guilty for leaving her in the Cheryl/Heather situation she's in, but that ends up being poorly formed on the movie's side. The fact that Mary's death is a clearly requested mercy kill really shows that the writing did not care to understand the game's themes or James's journey.
5) James's fucking therapist. She was one of the SH cult members who ritualistically ate Mary's blood or whatever and the movie never discusses this again.
6) Angela is not her own person and her ending is so disappointing in comparison to the game. I will just link this Polygon article, which covers my feelings on the matter perfectly.
7) It was just boring. The scares did not deliver. The atmosphere did not deliver. The actor playing James tried his best, but he simply doesn't have enough experience to carry a movie like this on his shoulders.
8) At one point, Pyramid Head brings his sword down into the stomach of a nurse. In the very next shot, the nurse has no wounds in her torso. I was so mad.
9) Akira Yamaoka got a producer credit, which was cool.
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