Renowned psychological horror property Silent Hill is making its third venture into film with the release of “Return to Silent Hill” based on the fan favorite Silent Hill 2. Director of the first Silent Hill movie Christopher Gans is returning to direct this third adaptation.
And with all the criticisms of the first movie, that being that it was cheesy and unfaithful to the games, as well as the trailer presenting more of an action heavy feel than the dark, serious tone that made the second game stand out so much, some fans worry that these important elements may be lost.
“I was initially very worried, because Silent Hill is more of like, it’s more like melancholy, but this was a huge action movie,” junior Evan Adams said.
Some believe that the horror presented in the games was only ever best achieved with the hardware limitations and low quality graphics of the consoles that the video games were meant to be played on. This as well as the change to Silent Hill’s most iconic visual element, the dense, thick fog that shrouds the sleepy town, sort of undermines the atmosphere the property and second game specifically cultivate so well.
“I think it’s hard to match what was intended for Silent Hill 2… if we’re going by the original game standards and not the remake, I’d say the low poly models add to the horror, and the fog definitely complements that,” junior Charles Co said.
And even more important to the second game then tone or visuals is the characters, there is only around five main characters present, and the whole game centers around them and their complex traumas and individual guilts, and among just not looking like them, some think that the crucial element that is their personalities may be mishandled as well.
“I think that a lot of the adaptations of the characters are just like strange… not only do they look nothing like them, they don’t really act anything like them,” Adams said.
Regardless, curiosity is still high, and for a franchise that has been slowly losing relevance for so long, it’s exciting for some fans to see the franchise they love make it so far beyond what was initially intended.
“Its nice to see a movie adaptation of a really good horror game,” Co said.
