Let me begin this by saying that I was not very impressed by the first Silent Hill movie, which I thought was well made enough but lacked the usual kick that I was expecting from a good horror. The sequel has its good points and bad. But one thing it does have going for it is consistency with its predecessor. Too bad it was consistent with all the boring parts.

Silent Hill: Revelation takes place some 7 years after Rose da Silva (Radha Mitchell) saves her daughter from being trapped in the alternate dimension that is Silent Hill, a town that is damned by a demon child named Alessa, who has covered the town in darkness as part of her revenge on the cult who burned her because she was born out of wedlock. Sean Bean returns in his role as Christopher, Sharon’s adoptive father. But now, things are a bit different as he is now aware of the mystery behind his wife’s disappearance, and what he must do to escape the cult that wants Sharon back in Silent Hill to serve as a vessel for their new god. But with the passing of the years, the cult has grown more aggressive in pursuing father and daughter, and they kidnap Christopher to be used as bait for her daughter’s return.

I think that Silent Hill did a pretty good job in developing the continuity between the two movies, bringing in most of the same cast and characters from the original to the sequel to add a sense of familiarity overall. The feel of the first and second movies are marvelously identical in most parts.

Visually, it has all the elements of a good horror down to a science. It also has a strong storyline from the videogame and a solid fanbase that guarantees that it will be a hit, no matter what. So it should have worked, considering that they had a strong cast — Sean Bean, for one, and Kit Harington (Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of Thrones) in his first movie role. But somehow, the presence of these two stars are not enough to compensate for the movie’s biggest goof, which is casting Michelle Williams look-alike Adelaide Clemens in the main role as Sharon. I don’t know but something about her doesn’t click in this role. Perhaps, its her manner of speaking but I just thought she fell short on delivering emotions of panic, horror, and even shock at all of the things that are happening in her life in such a short amount of time. I think she needs to go to the Jennifer Carpenter horror acting workshop. She might pick up a thing or two about this genre.

Another goof is the lopsided pacing of the movie, which for the most part is sloooooow. I understand that the movie is spawned from an RPG game but because of the pace, the supposedly exciting parts of the movie felt anticlimactic. The eventual confrontation between the two versions of Alessas on the other hand, felt rushed. As was the showdown between Claudia and Red Pyramid. Such a shame.

All in all, Silent Hill: Revelation was a revelation alright. A revelation that no more sequels need to be spawned from this franchise. Leave it to the game developers. At least they know what they’re doing. Some games just need to be left alone to be awesome in their own platform.