Joey Magidson
The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, we’re talking about a horror franchise that still hasn’t been able to get it right on the big screen…
Silent Hill is one of the premiere horror video game franchises. Alongside Resident Evil, these games have captured the admiration and imagination of fans for decades. The thing is, Resident Evil has consistently managed to turn out films, even if we’re only now likely to get it right with Zach Cregger‘s take. Silent Hill has only had three efforts on the big screen, and at least two of the movies are incredibly bad. As we’ve discussed on the Podcast a few times (most recently here), the new installment in Return to Silent Hill is especially egregious. So, I’m mostly muttering to myself here today about how no one has gotten this adaptation right, at least yet.
I asked our own Myles Hughes to chime in on the topic, and this is what he had to say:
Since the dawn of cinema, there have been three attempts to adapt the Silent Hill franchise to the big screen, and they’ve all been different flavors of garbage. The original film by Christophe Gans manages to recreate the aesthetics and atmosphere of the games, and even if the plot and characters leave much to be desired, they also represent a bar that has yet to be cleared. Silent Hill: Revelations got very lost in the sauce of the 3D craze and spit out something that can scarcely be called watchable. Return to Silent Hill sees Gans take another crack at it, this time adapting the most beloved entry in the series, but in his attempt to put his own spin on an iconic tale, he very much misses the forest for the trees, resulting in yet another film for no one. It’s hard to imagine there’ll be any other efforts in the near future, but given how much the effectiveness of Silent Hill relies on dread that’s driven by input from the player, it might be just as well that this particular property keeps to its original medium. Or at the very least they could give someone the budget to make something a little less aggressively embarrassing.
The original Silent Hill is looked upon somewhat fondly, due to how bad most video game movies were, as well as its ability to capture some of the vibes of the first game. At the same time, it’s narrative gibberish and doesn’t have any reason to revisit. So, you would have thought that it was a good starting point for course correcting and getting things right the next time. Except, that really was not meant to be, and we’re still waiting, too…
There was a sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation, which is just a really shitty fright flick. It actually pretty much put the franchise on ice. There was almost nothing there to suggest the property mattered at all to the filmmakers, and audiences noticed, staying away. Critically savaged and ignored by gamers, it could easily have been reskinned to just be a different scary (though it’s definitely not that) movie. Honestly, the less said about it, the better.
Now, we have Return to Silent Hill, which was recently released in theaters. Adapting the iconic Silent Hill 2 game, it managed to miss the mark in a way that’s almost stunning to witness. My review here on the site began like so:
Silent Hill 2 is considered an all-timer of a video game, certainly on the Mount Rushmore of horror games. The Silent Hill cinematic franchise has never fully captured what the games do so well, but the first film especially was able to somewhat translate the atmosphere and vibes. That movie adapted the first game, but the next game was where it really all came together. So, an adaptation was probably inevitable, considering the potential within. Unfortunately, Return to Silent Hill is a complete misfire. It doesn’t work at all, paling in comparison to what the interactive version was able to pull off so successfully.
Return to Silent Hill is the worst film of the year so far. It’s early, but it it wouldn’t surprise me to find it hold the dishonor throughout 2026. The added insult is how this could certainly have been a good movie, or even a great one. Silent Hill 2 was revolutionary in how the plot was the focus of the game, as opposed to combat with an excuse of a plot. So, in theory, an adaptation should have a leg up. Instead, the shortcomings are made even more apparent.
One day, maybe we’ll get Silent Hill right, cinematically speaking. It probably will take a Cregger type, who understands why the games work, to translate it to film. Until then, it’s just a waiting game. Return to Silent Hill had the potential to do this, but it backfired tremendously. So, we’ve just got to sit tight, wait, and hope for a savior…
Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next week!
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