film review: ‘Silent Hill: Revelation 3D’ should not be seen or heard

Clowns, tight spaces, darkness, cliché camera angles, asylums and every other stereotypical nightmare scenario are used in the making of “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.” It’s also in 3D, since everyone knows a movie would not be complete without this overly hyped aspect. “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” comes complete with trite horror, along with an extra level of beyond-creepy creepiness.

Based on the video game franchise, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” follows the life of Sharon (Adelaide Clemens), also known as Heather, and her father, Christopher (Sean Bean), who have been on the run for many years. As Heather has nightmares of mysterious creatures, she is unaware of the realistic aspect of her dreams. These creatures come from Silent Hill, where ashes fall like snow and darkness rules the land.

After the introduction of several unnecessary characters, Christopher goes missing, and there is only one single clue written in blood on the wall: “Come to Silent Hill.”

We cannot forget to mention Heather’s love interest, Vincent (Kit Harington), who also witnesses this horrifying event.  This is a good example of how the majority of horror movies employ a love interest to somehow get the audience more interested in the character’s well being. This film, along with the bulk of others, fails in this attempt. No one will care, regardless of how cute the guy may be. Vincent, however, does play a fairly interesting part, which, due to spoilers, shall not be given away.

This film uses two aspects of films I hate more than anything: horror and 3D.

Let me begin with explaining the god-awfulness of the horror portion. In fact, horror wouldn’t even be the correct term to explain this sad excuse for a film. Creepy would be a better word, but unfortunately, there is no category of film called “creepy.” As mentioned above, all aspects of nightmares appear in this film at some point, even for no apparent reason. Clowns are used as a scare tactic, but serve no greater purpose than to scare those who fear them. Same goes for knives, mannequins and spiders. No actual spiders appear in this film, but instead there is a creepy spider-like object with eight attached mannequin heads.

The majority of the film also employs gross-out horror. Blood and guts are not scary, especially when they’re coming at the audience in 3D. I really would prefer not to feel like I’m being sprayed with the remainder of someone’s guts.

Despite the 3D being used for disgusting scenes,  “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” does put the unnecessary up-charge to good use. Unlike films that use 3D simply for extra profit, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” has the added advantage of a life-like feel with objects popping out. Audience members feel like they could be in Silent Hill as ashes fall to their side. However, the large price for this small feature is not worth it. The $4 spent on 3D could be put to better use, by purcahsing a fourth of a bag of popcorn or half of a drink at your local movie theatre.

Overall, this film has nothing going for it. The acting is horrible, the directorial style is cliché and the storyline is nonexistent. This film seems to be a collaboration of horror stereotypes, or more accurately, this film is where all other horror movies went to die.

egolden@unews.com