Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2026)

I actually watched the first two films so I could see this one too but I decided I didn’t care to see it in the theater. My interest was piqued simply by my fascination with translating video game plots into cinema. Historically, it’s been a tricky prospect that I’m not going to dwell on here, mainly because I think they (gnomes) did it fairly well in this film… not to say I liked the film per sé or that it perfectly represents the story of the game it’s based on. I just thought it was executed decently enough. It was the underlying subject matter that turned me off.

The story inadvertently focused on terrible things committed against a character… I say again, inadvertently focused! There was a lot this film was saying without actually saying it which ultimately forces the audience to dwell on and piece things together mentally and come to a very unpleasant conclusion. I suppose it could be considered avant-garde and subtle storytelling but I won’t be entertained by it. The fact that it’s somewhat subtle makes it no more palatable than if it were overtly dealt with.

I’ve watched playthroughs of the Silent Hill games. I know the Silent Hill town keeps switching back and forth between a smokey ash-covered barely-inhabited ghost town into a monster-infested decaying hellscape. In the films there’s also a third “reality” realm that exists outside of the Silent Hill town too. In the films, the trichotomy of these realms, which also reflect three separate manifestations of a character (such as the aforementioned tormented character), each working toward a common revenge/peace…  it was confusing as all get out in the first film. However I found this aspect a bit easier to follow in this installment. Perhaps that’s in part because I spent so much time researching what the hell was going on in the first film that I was expecting it in this film. Or perhaps it’s because Return just blatantly spelled it right out for me. Regardless, I think it made a lot more sense this time around.

In the games, gradually details arise about the character you’re playing as which reveal them to be rather despicable and this personal hell they are traversing in the town of Silent Hill is a result of their own guilt. The monsters encountered even reflect in an indirect way the characters’ personal demons. This is best exemplified in Return with the reemergence of the monster called Pyramid Head. I shan’t spoil it for you. Though the poster art is very revealing. Look intently at your own risk.

And yet, were we to learn the character we’ve been rooting for in the film is actually the worst villain of them all, I think that would not sit well with most audiences in my opinion. I think the director recognized this point. Thus, in a way, our hero gets to remain our hero. I’ve heard complaints about this as it contradicts the whole premise of the games. As an audience member of the film and mere bystander regarding the games, I liked coming out of the film with good(ish) feelings.

This is all very well so long as you disregard the loop theory proposed by some fans which posits the whole Silent Hill scenario as a horror version of Groundhog’s Day (1993) where the characters end up back in Silent Hill to do it all over again no matter what they do to leave. See the ending of the first film again to bake your noodle on that point where we see Rose and Alyssa in the same house as Christopher but they are clearly in two different realms (Chris in a bright happy version of the house, Rose and Alyissa in the foggy melancholy version of the same house). It implies Rose and Alyssa may have physically left the Silent Hill town but haven’t really escaped the foggy purgatory they’ve been trapped in and we are left to wonder why.

I found the monsters and the effects interesting. Maybe it’s the high definition I’m not used to or the fact that I’ve been watching playthroughs of pretty dang realistic looking games but Jeremy Irvine seems to have this weird sheen on him that made me wonder if he was CGI and I actually went to look it up to see if he was or not. He’s not but it was kind of in the uncanny valley for me for some reason.

It sounds like a lot of people hated this film as much as they hated the first film and nobody even wants to talk about the second one. I think I can understand why fans of the game would not like these movies. However from a storytelling point of view, I found this third installment more accessible, but it’s not something I’d want to watch again. When comparing the game to the film it seems director Christophe Gans has his own vision in mind. He doesn’t seem to want despicable protagonists. I kind of get it but it misses the point of the games even if it does effectively capture their creepy desolate atmosphere.

Quick question about the ending so slight spoiler alert, I guess. Soooo do all these games involve someone on a hospital bed that turns into a huge floating monster thing? It happened in both the first film and now this, the third installment. I can’t even remember what happened in the second film.

Poster art!