The Best Horror Game Is Finally Getting The Movie It Deserves
Return to Silent Hill is bringing the classic PlayStation 2 game, Silent Hill 2, to movie theaters.
Nerds today have it good, from comic books dominating movie theaters to fantasy novels ruling the roost on streaming services. Still, it wasn’t until recently that video games started getting their big-budget well-written adaptations. Bloody Disgusting reports that the greatest horror game of all time, Silent Hill 2, is finally becoming a movie with Return to Silent Hill.
Released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2 by Konami, Silent Hill 2 is a sequel disconnected from the first game except for the strange, fog-filled town at the center of another mystery. Players took control of James Sutherland, a man lured to the cursed town by a letter from his dead wife, and what follows is an amazing masterpiece of pacing, storytelling, and tension that is heavily influenced by the film Jacob’s Ladder and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.
Thanks to the source material already being heavily influenced by film and tv, Return to Silent Hill has the potential to be the best film in the franchise. The first two movies were original stories disconnected from the source material; though Silent Hill brought in elements from the first four games, it was a strange patchwork quilt of monsters, locations, and plot points. The original director, Christophe Gans, is coming back for the third film, but this time, he has much more leeway to adapt the story he wants to tell.
The original film was a surprise success, even liked by fans, and today it would be doing a disservice to call it a “bad film.” Disappointing for fans of the franchise, not a Silent Hill adaptation but a solid horror film is a common complaint, but it did well enough to merit a sequel. Silent Hill: Revelation followed up from the ending of the first film as a loose adaptation of the game Silent Hill 3.
Starring Sean Bean as he reprises his role from the first film with Adelaide Clemens as his adoptive daughter, while Radha Mitchell’s Rose De Silva was killed in a car crash between films, the second movie did not have the critical praise or box office of the first. Also starring Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington and The Matrix’s Carrie-Ann Moss, Revelation was a flop that shelved the horror franchise for over a decade.
Following the success of other video game adaptations lately, including The Last of Us, it’s safe to hope that Return to Silent Hill will be as true to the game as possible. Director Christophe Gans has already promised that Pyramid Head will be making a return, and the Nurses are likely to follow. How will audiences handle one of the most disturbing bosses in video game history, the Abstract Daddy, a horrible manifestation that tries to pull the player into its body, depicted on the big screen?
While we still have to wait for Silent Hill 2 to get the movie it deserves, Return to Silent Hill will enter pre-production soon, which means the inevitable casting news. The first two films featured House Stark, so why not Richard Madden as the live-action James Sutherland? No matter who gets to experience the depths of psychological horror, it’ll be a very dark, disturbing ride, and we can’t wait.
