Return to Silent Hill (2026)

 I will accept that I am not a Silent Hill fan. I never played the games and now next to nothing about what is going on and what things mean. I went to see it with a mate that has played the games so he would have a better idea of what was going on.  The set up of the film is that James is a painter and is driving along when he meets Mary and they decide to visit Silent Hill. A short time later James wakes up and sometime has gone by when he receives a note from Mary asking him to return to Silent Hill. That is basically the plot and that is basically all that I understood.

There was a worrying sign when I saw the cast list for this film and saw that I didn’t recognise a single name. NO-ONE. Not even someone who used to be a big name 10 years ago and is looking at this film as a quick payday. I am happy to report that despite the lack of star power, the performances were pretty decent. I thought that Jeremy Irvine did a good job especially considering that for a good 20 minutes or so he was the only person in the film if you don't count the CGI monsters. Another good point for the film was the atmosphere. They clearly spent a lot of time making sure that the film felt like the game. Even with my limited knowledge of the games it felt like this was the highlight of the film. 

I understand that things have to happen for the film to happen but they could have been done better in working them into the film. So after James helps Mary get her luggage back in the suitcases, the coach arrives and it is clearly pulling into the side of the road to stop and yet she acts like it is about to drive off. Then moments later one of her suitcases open up and about a second later she tells the driver to move along. It would have only taken 20 seconds (if that) to get the suitcase packed again. I know an argument could be made that it was part of her plan to lure James to Silent Hill but it could have been done in a better way. Then at the end of the film they replay it again just to highlight how dumb it was.

This is by far the worst film of the year (worse than Mercy). It was better than I was expecting but given that my expectations were at rock bottom, it was always going to be easy to beat them. There are things about this film that work very well but the main problem with the film is that very little of it makes any sense. This is definitely a film aimed at fans of the series and it does feel like a standalone film but if you went into the film not knowing anything then you would be completely confused. I went on a Saturday night and there was decent number and I would bet that they were all fans of the game series and i think that if they want to make the films more successful then they need to try and make them more accessible to non-Silent Hill fans.