“Return to Silent Hill” is a Vague yet Beautiful Story of Monstrous Love
It’s hard to resist singing along with the Backstreet Boys’ #1 hit “I Want It That Way.” Regardless of your feelings about pop music in general, when that tender guitar intro starts playing, we stop what we’re doing, turn to the person next to us, and tunefully insist that, “you are … my fire.” The catchy song has become part of our collective consciousness though few of us know what the lyrics actually mean. Producer and songwriter Max Martin famously excised some of the more specific lyrics to create a more streamlined song with a broader application. We don’t know who wants what or even what “that way” really means. But the song evokes a kind of romantic longing and we subconsciously fill in the details for ourselves. The same phenomenon is at work in Return to Silent Hill, a survival horror film following an infectious yet vague love story.
Twenty years after directing the cult favorite Silent Hill, Christophe Gans returns to a world created by Konami to adapt the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2. James (Jeremy Irvine) is a lovesick artist searching for his beloved Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson) after receiving a dire voice message begging him to meet her at their “special place.” This turns out to be a mountain bus stop overlooking the town of Silent Hill where the two star-crossed lovers once had a luggage mishap/meet cute. Both seemingly aimless, they returned to Mary’s nearby hometown and began to build a life together. But just moments after meeting this painfully gorgeous couple, we learn that something has gone disastrously wrong. A disturbing image of Mary’s floating corpse gives way to a surly James drinking alone while avoiding messages from his concerned therapist.
This romantic drama leads James back to the familiar doomed town. Far from the pleasant lakeside village he occupied with Mary, James returns to a Silent Hill decimated by a mysterious disaster. Ash perpetually rains from the sky and we learn that the water has been irrevocably contaminated. The streets are empty and mutant monsters roam, attacking anyone who gets in their way. The original cinematic Silent Hill was a West Virginia mining town evacuated by a disastrous fire in the coal mines below, but this city feels more nebulous. Gans pulls imagery directly from the powerful Silent Hill 2 which is widely considered a genre high.
I will fully admit that I have never played these games and before viewing this franchise installment, my Silent Hill fandom began and ended with the 2006 film. Gamer fans will likely be delighted by side-by-side recreations of iconic sequences while frustrated with a flawed adaptation of the story’s psychological elements. But cinematic devotees will instantly recognize the post-apocalyptic environment and the periodic sirens signalling imminent danger from a mutant threat. Gans streamlines most tangential characters, choosing to focus almost exclusively on James’ relationship with Mary and a nearly identical stranger named Maria who tries to lure him away from the truth. Structurally the plot mirrors Gans’ 2006 film. We watch as James desperately tries to survive this ravaged world while meeting strangely doubled characters then try to piece together a twisting backstory with what little clues we’ve found along the way.
Gans wisely focuses most of his energy on the film’s striking visuals, creating a beautiful blend of apocalyptic disaster and ethereal grace. As James picks his way through the heavy fog, he meets a familiar humanoid mutant with arms seemingly fused to its back with acid spurting from a torso wound. Another fantastic sequence sees a horde of faceless mutant nurses chase the survivors down a crumbling hallway before tearing apart like papier-mâché. James approaches a cowering woman he believes to be Mary only to find monstrous spider legs unfolding from its decapitated body. A mix of practical effects and CGI, these creatures are simply stunning, feeling simultaneously grounded and otherworldly. Perhaps most exciting is the return of Red Pyramid (Robert Strange), a muscle-bound monster who lurches through the crumbling hallways dragging a massive blade that scrapes the ground as he walks. A pair of gruesome kills dazzle while hinting at the disturbing origin of this menacing figure.
James is an effective protagonist and Irvine manages to pull us into his emotional turmoil without detracting from the story’s visual flair. Anderson is equally compelling as both Mary and Maria, leading us by the nose through this gorgeous wasteland. While fans of the game may be frustrated by changes to the original narrative, strangers to Silent Hill lore may be confused by a lack of information. Except for hints at a sinister cult, we learn very little about who Mary is or what has happened to her doomed hometown. The film’s final act connects some dots, but Gans leaves a lot of the details up to interpretation. While ordinarily frustrating, this vague storyline combines with the horrifically dreamy atmosphere to create an overwhelming feeling of doomed romance. We feel for James and Mary even if we don’t exactly understand how or why their love went wrong.
Jenn Adams is a writer and podcaster from Nashville, TN. Find her on social media @jennferatu.