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"SILENT HILL: REVELATION"
(2011) (Adelaide Clemens, Sean Bean) (R)

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QUICK TAKE:
Horror: A teenage girl, haunted by dark and frightening visions and nightmares, must venture to a cursed town where demonic forces hold her father prisoner.
PLOT:
Teenage Heather (ADELAIDE CLEMENS) has been in five different schools in as many years as she and her father, Christopher (SEAN BEAN), have moved around the country trying to avoid the demonic forces who want to seize them. Soon after completing their latest move, though, a mysterious private investigator named Douglas (MARTIN DONOVAN) informs Heather that he knows her real name is Sharon and that he has been hired by the Order of the Valtiel to find her.

Douglas is eventually killed and Christopher is kidnapped and used as bait to lure Heather back to the mysterious town of Silent Hill. She must come back of her own free will so that the Order under the leadership of High Priestess Claudia (CARRIE-ANNE MOSS) can use her body as a vessel for their evil god and thwart the tyranny of the witch Alessa (also CLEMENS).

Heather is helped by Claudia's rogue son, Vincent (KIT HARINGTON), who gives her one-half of a key known as the Seal of Metatron and urges her to seek out his grandfather Leonard (MALCOLM McDOWELL) who Claudia has imprisoned in a Silent Hill insane asylum and holds the other half and possibly the secret to her family's past.

OUR TAKE: 2.5 out of 10
Our reviewing policy for films that are shown the night before theatrical release to critics is that we'll only provide two or three paragraphs about the film's artistic merits.

"Silent Hill: Revelation" is a truly tedious journey down a dark road Clive Barker already motored down years ago. I know these films have their devoted followers, and the video game they are based on has glazed over many o' eyeball. But to me, "Silent Hill" is just a stylized twist on Barker's "Hellraiser" franchise minus the clear narrative, perverse sexuality, and iconic villainy of Pinhead. As a film, "Revelation" is comprised almost entirely of one character - teenager Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) - walking slowly (and I mean sl-o-o-o-owly) through one variation of haunted house after another. I was deeply bored by the halfway point.

A big part of the problem is the almost complete lack of an emotional connection throughout. Clemens does her best, but there's really no script here -- just a lot of creepy, deadly serious characters talking endlessly about the "darkness." Oh my Lord, are these characters obsessed with the darkness! "The darkness is coming." "The darkness is upon us." "You can't escape the darkness." "In the darkness, no one can hear you scream." "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the darkness..."

OK, I made the last two up. But you get the picture. If you decide to make "Revelation" a drinking game every time some character mentions "the darkness," you're gonna be fight-the-police drunk by the one-hour mark. Either way, you'll definitely be fighting consciousness. Ugh. Send the "Silent Hill" franchise a message loud and clear. It's time to end this series. I rate it a 2.5 out of 10. (T. Durgin)




Reviewed October 25, 2012 / Posted October 26, 2012


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