Director Christopher Gans returns to the haunted town franchise but can’t seem to figure out what to do with it
There’s an admirable loyalty, maybe even poetry, in a film-maker returning to an unpromising, barely there movie series 20 years after his first crack became a minor hit. The horror film Silent Hill, based on a video game of the same name, has garnered a cult following in the decades since its 2006 release, but it’s not exactly a genre classic nor beloved franchise, with a single little-seen 2012 sequel to its name – until now. Return to Silent Hill brings back the first film’s director, Christopher Gans, for a new story set in the same ash-strewn ghost town, this one based on the Silent Hill 2 video game. Characters in these movies tend to wander into a place that is obviously haunted or cursed, refusing to leave even after it becomes clear that they should, and only decide to escape after it’s too late. Maybe Gans can relate.
Or maybe he’s the only man for the job because no one else will take it. That could almost describe James (Jeremy Irvine), the hapless protagonist of Return to Silent Hill. After a chance traffic-accident meeting with Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson) that unconvincingly thwarts her attempt to leave home, the two fall in love, and after a time James even moves to Mary’s oddball town; as a painter, he can go anywhere (though if there’s a reason that Mary couldn’t leave, given that she was already ready to hop a bus when they meet, I missed it). Despite the movie skipping over what makes them so instantly compatible, James is all in; someone has to be.
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