Return to Silent Hill has just released in cinemas, and fans of the franchise want to know how closely it follows the beloved game and its remaster. It was marketed as being based on Silent Hill 2, and while there are plenty of references and key themes that will resonate with fans, it was, in many ways, a departure from the original story.
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Return to Silent Hill was touted to be a faithful adaptation of Silent Hill 2. However, I saw this movie in cinemas and, as an avid Silent Hill fan, there were major differences that completely shifted the meaning of the narrative. It might be a more appropriate statement to say it is a spiritually faithful adaptation of the Silent Hill series as a whole. This is a general comparison of the film to both the original 2001 game and the 2024 remake. But there are obvious elements from other games in the series.
Spoiler Alert for Return to Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2
The Aesthetic
A Mixed Bag
During many of the sections in which James is exploring the town, the similarities to the game are striking, but as things begin to escalate, it feels a bit more like an early 2000s music video than an adaptation of Silent Hill. Especially during fast-paced, dynamic visual effects sequences. Also, flashbacks to Mary and James’s relationship are vibrant and glowing, rather than hauntingly melancholy.
There are some distinct similarities. For example, everything is covered in ash, and the toilets are as terrible as always in these games. Whether intentional or not, the surreal and disjointed acting of the original voice acting is back. The cinematography appears to frame the action like a video game cutscene at the beginning, to seemingly throw that out the window in favor of a more conventionally cinematic approach.
James
The Flawed Protagonist
The tormented protagonist, James Sunderland, is as conflicted and generally unlikeable as ever. But this time, he is a tortured artist whose paintings are selling well enough for him to afford a loft painting studio and a Mustang. We also get more of a glimpse into how he is coping with Mary’s death on a daily basis before he arrives in Silent Hill.
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We also get a meet-cute between James and Mary. They end up living in Silent Hill together, which is a strange choice as it completely recontextualizes the town. It isn’t just their special place; it’s where their house is and where Mary grew up (more on that later). James’s style is also more flashy and less unremarkable than the original James. He is introduced speeding around a winding road, listening to music, and generally being pretty reckless and brattish.
Is it Silent Hill 2 or 3?
Unexpected Cult Activity
Towards the midpoint of the movie, it becomes evident that they have tried to incorporate the cultist narratives of other Silent Hill games into the narrative. Rather than a bleak character study of people undergoing extreme reactions to trauma, made all the more literal and terrifying by the Silent Hill phenomenon, it becomes a cult narrative.
James is still riddled by guilt, but it is compounded by abandoning Mary to suffer from abuse at the hands of an ambiguous Silent Hill cult. She is the daughter of a shadowy cult figure who abused her and offered her up to his followers. The cult carries on this tradition after his death. It’s a very confusing way to shoehorn the sinister religious fanaticism of the franchise into one of the games, which has no explicit focus on that aspect of the Silent Hill phenomenon.
The Order
Invasion From Another Game
The Order, which is the cult of Silent Hill, did not figure into Silent Hill 2 except via fan interpretation and community theorizing. In Return to Silent Hill, they are the overarching antagonists who groom Mary from childhood. Their practices appear to be similar to the cult of the game series. However, rather than worshiping the goddess Raven, they appear to worship Mary’s father, Joshua (or Jacob?) Crane.
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It is still framed as a matriarchal coven in many ways, with a leader who seems to be representative of Dahlia Gillespie in some ways. She seems to be in charge of the terrible practices of the cult after Crane’s death. Mary is positioned within the cult in a similar fashion, as a victim of horrific and constant abuse as part of her parents’ religious practices. It's a pretty horrific concept and one that is ingrained in the fabric of the series, so it's understandable that they wanted to incorporate it into the film. But it's not part of the story that Silent Hill 2 seemed interested in telling.
Mary
There’s Something Else About Mary
Mary and her past trauma before her fatal illness is a huge part of this film. In the game, she haunts James through tapes and the mysterious Maria. In the movie, we get to see her suffering in clear, vivid flashbacks. Return to Silent Hill depicts Mary as a survivor of horrific abuse at the hands of her father (which was originally Angela’s storyline) and violent cult practices.
The big twist of the movie is that all the human female characters that James met in the town are different representations of Mary. If the events of the film take place in James’s head, then his memories and perception of Mary have been splintered into four parts: Mary, Laura, Angela, and Maria. Mary’s death occurs as a result of prolonged exposure to a drug that her father and his followers were giving her to sedate her.
Laura
Don’t Ask About Her Doll
The resident, slightly creepy kid of Silent Hill 2, has become full-blown nightmare fuel in Return to Silent Hill. Rather than just some kid who just seems to be looking for her friend, she is a full-blown trauma hallucination or supernatural doppelgänger of Mary’s younger self. She is first discovered by James, hiding from Pyramid Head and the other monsters. At this stage, she seems like a pretty normal, if strangely dressed, child. But as the film goes on, it becomes clear that she is part of the horror rather than distinct from it.
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Every time she appears, a baby’s cries are heard, and her doll is revealed to be a grotesque, undead baby. As James chases her around the town, her movements become more unsettling and unnatural. Finally, resulting in a sequence in which she becomes supernaturally transformed. She is fully aware of her place within the narrative and taunts James about his inability to face his inner demons.
Maria and Angela
Why Not Make Everyone Mary?
Like Laura, Angela, who was a distinctive character in her own right, has become a fractured part of Mary’s personality. She appears to be the embodiment of James’s perception of his girlfriend as a victim. Or a literal doppelgänger, it’s difficult to tell. She serves a similar role to Maria in the game as someone whom James encounters who is another manifestation of his wife. Some of Angela's most powerful moments, such as her walking further into a burning building, are given to other characters.
Speaking of Maria, she’s back and in a strikingly similar outfit to the one in the game. Maria was potentially the character who was portrayed most faithfully in the game. And her fate is pretty much the same. Notably, Maria adheres to video game logic; she is stabbed by a nurse, and James manages to essentially bring her back to life with a bandage. What is a little internal bleeding when you can put a wound dressing on the outside, and it will fix everything right up!
Silent Hill 2
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87 /100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- October 8, 2024
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Language, Sexual Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Bloober Team
- Publisher(s)
- Konami
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PC
