Episode 120: The Odd Silent Hill Trilogy

[00:00:22] Speaker A: God damn it. [00:00:24] Speaker B: You were going in so confident, I [00:00:25] Speaker A: thought I was trying to think of, like, how to smooth it in, in terms of, like, the conversation. Because I want everyone to know that we just spent the last two minutes talking. That could have been a perfect cold open. And I didn't realize until towards the end of my rant, because the last episode I said I had just started listening to Wuthering Heights. And literally today, as we're recording, like, hours before, I had just finished it. And again, as of recording, neither one of us have seen the Emerald Fennel film. And I have zero hope that it'll be a great adaptation or really, honestly, an adaptation at all. But at the same time, I am very curious as to how that movie is what it is. Like, it kind of looks like. It looks like if you take every, like, cliche, smut romance cover book, like the dude that's like buff on a horse, right, and turn that into a Wuthering Heights adaptation a little bit. And you know what? All the better. I don't know. Again, this whole weekend is, like, fucking packed. Like, there's so many things coming out this weekend that, like, there's Nirvana, the band, the show, the movies, getting that release. Wuthering Heights is the big one. I keep thinking Screece 7 is coming out this weekend, but it's two weeks from now. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to fucking see it. But I mean, it is, like, in two weeks. There's, like, a lot of shit coming out in February. Crime 101, the Chris Hemsworth film that [00:01:45] Speaker B: I think is getting the hotly anticipated crime thriller. [00:01:48] Speaker A: I mean, it's getting, I think, solid reviews right now. I mean, I think, again, February, it's a weird time where it's like these January, February, March, early March are like, these, like, could be a breeding ground for, like, actually good content. But these, like, the last few decades have been, like, the dumping grounds these last few months. Unless it's a romance film. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, we got our. We got our Bone temple. And now we just have to endure. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Bone temple. But Send Help was great. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Send Help was very good. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Send Help was a great time. Andy and I saw that in 40x. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I went all the way up to Chicago. [00:02:19] Speaker A: We did. [00:02:20] Speaker B: To experience 40x for the first time. [00:02:22] Speaker A: We were worried. We were worried because when the trailers were happening, me. I mean, Andy and I and two of our friends were all sliding out of our seat. So we were worried that when the [00:02:32] Speaker B: movie was actually fall out and also the rumbling and Moving of the seats during the trailers had nothing to do with what was happening happening on screen. It was just kind of random. [00:02:44] Speaker A: It was like the trailer for you, me and Tuscany and we were falling out of our seat when she was sitting. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:49] Speaker A: I was like, why is this happening? [00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah. But the actual experience in the movie was a lot of fun. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Unlike two of the three films we will talk about today. So we might as well just get into it. Hello, everyone. I'm Logan. So. [00:03:02] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [00:03:03] Speaker A: And this is Odd Trilogies with Logan and Andy. On Odd Trilogies, we discuss a trio of films, whether tied by cast and crew, thematic elements or just numerical order. And we discuss the good, the bad, and the weird surrounding them. And today this is going to be an episode. You probably think, why didn't this come out in January? Because the final film in this trilogy came out in January. And it's because the other trilogies we were more excited for, more important. And we all. Yeah. And also this is something where we thought, well, by the time this episode probably comes out, you could probably watch the last film on digital. You can watch all these films at home and you don't have to rush to theaters to go see this because the final film in our trilogy made probably $2 in honor of the game that it's adapting. But yeah, today we are talking about a horror trilogy that may or may not be the final film in a franchise that has spent the last 20 years basically taking an iconic video game franchise and then initially making a solid horror horror adaptation. And then just two other films that to say shit the bed, I think is very generous. But we will get to that point. That is the Silent Hill trilogy, which includes 2006's Silent Hill 2012 Silent Hill Revelation, and 2026's Return to Silent Hill, which is. And the first film is an adaptation of Silent Hill one from 1999. No surprise there. Silent Hill Revelation is a adaptation of 2003 Silent Hill 3. And then the third film is a adaptation of 2001 Silent Hill 2. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:48] Speaker A: And that's also two years after a PS5 next gen remake had just come out. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:57] Speaker A: So we'll discuss a little. We will be discussing why they did 1, 3, 2. But yeah, in case you don't really know what Silent Hill is, if you've heard of Resident Evil, a video game franchise, which at some point we might talk about on this podcast. I know we have. We are going to maybe talk about it later this year with Crager. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Oh, correct. [00:05:19] Speaker A: At least in Honor of Crager's next film. [00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:22] Speaker A: But in honor of his Resident Evil, we will probably discuss even because we are doing. Gosh, we are doing this Resident Evil with that. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Right? [00:05:30] Speaker A: We're not doing. [00:05:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's only his third film or feature film anyway. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yes, that's true. His solo feature. Because his first film was Ms. March, a film that no one wants to talk about. And I understand. But before we talk about his version of Resident Evil, which comes out later this year, we thought it might be fun to talk about a trilogy that was really chugging become a trilogy. Literally spent from its inception trying to adapt a very specific game from this franchise. And it took 20 years to get to that point. And the answer is, and the question is, was it worth it? And we will get to that. But Silent Hill video game franchise that started in 1999, created by, published by Konami and created by Team Silent, which is just a collection of a. Japanese. Japanese creators that came together and made the first four games of Silent Hill, which is 1, 2, 3, 4. I know, crazy. And then from that point forward, they basically just. They were disbanded by Konami and then a bunch of other companies, both, you know, North American, I think European companies as well, have basically just been doing their own thing with Silent Hill as a franchise since. But back in 2006, at that time, right before the original film, there was a director who was working on a big budget French film called Brotherhood of the Wolf. And that was French director and then writer Christophe Gans, who, honest to God, really, I think in the process of doing Silent Hill, 2006's Silent Hill, as well as coming back for 2026's return to Silent Hill. All he's done in his filmography since Silent Hill was the Beauty and the Beast French adaptation with Leah Seydoux and Vincent Castle, Vincent Cassel, probably. [00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:22] Speaker A: And so he's making Brotherhood the Wolf gets introduced to the Silent Hill franchise and I believe he is basically, you know, smitten by it. He heard here's Konami wants to turn it into a movie. Because at this point, the Resident Resident Evil franchise is about to hit, you know, three films by 2007. And those games, those movies do not follow the games basically at all. And so if Konami's like, well, shit, if they're making money, maybe we could do something of our own. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Christophe Gans gets a whiff of it. He's interested. And initially he wants to Adapt Silent Hill 2 because at the time he gets introduced to Silent Hill, that is the game that just come out. He loved the game, and most people who have played Silent Hill 2 at that time kind of regard it as one of the best horror games to ever exist. And so, of course, he thought that would be a very fascinating adaptation kind of challenge to go from game to movie. Here's the thing, though. Silent Hill 2, in terms of, like, the world of Silent Hill, really doesn't have a lot to do with the lore. There is conversations in the game about what Silent Hill is as a town, this and that. But in the initial team Silent Silent Hill games, there is an underlying kind of antagonistic force that is involved with the town and maybe is the reason why the town is the way that it is. [00:08:45] Speaker B: It's called Pyramid Head. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of them. But Silent Hill 2, while I believe there is an ending that kind of kind of, you know, hints at a possible cult, there is a overarching cult that is involved with at least the first game and then ultimately the third and fourth game. So they decide, well, I guess might be a bold move, but I guess we should start with adapting the first game for the first movie. And that's how we get Silent Hill, the 2006 film that has Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, and is, I think, arguably still considered one of the unironically one of the better video game adaptation movies. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's not a ton of good ones out there. So, you know, mild field. [00:09:34] Speaker A: I mean, we've talked about the best one, of course, on this podcast, which Sonic's. Well, actually, yes, I guess. But the Super Mario Brothers movie was the joke I was gonna, um. But yeah, it is. Video game adaptations are hard just in general, because you're basically taking it from an immersive player run medium to taking that player pulling the controller out of their hand and being like, watch the experience you could have had at home while playing. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:59] Speaker A: And so the question is, well, how do you make it interesting in that way? And ultimately, what you do is just you focus on the overarching narrative, you kind of give a little teases here and there of what you get in the game, and then ultimately just try to really convey the essence, if not the vibe, the environment, and kind of like the energy of what the game would kind of put you in, which I think the first film does incredibly well. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, of all the video games you could adapt into film, I think the Silent Hill franchise makes a lot of sense as a basis for a movie, just because the presentation of those is so atmospheric. And it's very narrative driven and subtext driven. And, you know, the clues that you're finding throughout the games are all kind of little pieces of the characters that you're, you know, figuring out as you go. And so that is something you can pretty organically do in a movie format. You just have to. Yeah, you have to deal with the taking away, the player agency, and how do you replace that? And, yeah, I don't think anybody familiar with these movies would be shocked for us to say that. I think this first film does the best job of that. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the thing about the original Silent Hill that it's adapting is that since it's the first of its franchise and it's the first time Team Silent makes a game like this, there is kind of like this feeling of if you're gonna make this, you know, ominous, almost oppressive world setting, what is a way to design the game in a way that you feel kind of like it's ever there, it's omnipresent, but it doesn't destroy. Like, basically, the game doesn't crash every time you turn it on. And I think an idea for that and I think is the best idea for the series is that Silent Hill as a town is a full foggy town. Doesn't matter what type of town it is, whether it's next to a lake or next to the sea, ocean, because it tends to like. I think each one of these movies kind of switches up what kind of version of Silent Hill it is. But Silent Hill is always just a small town that is a ghost town that is completely covered in fog. And what you put in that fog just depends on the director, the creator or whatnot. But regardless, basically, you start with the character just being in the normal world. You can see everything to I've lost somebody, I want to go find them. And you can't see anything. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:32] Speaker A: And then things just kind of get worse as you go on. And so in the original film, it's basically a woman playing a Rose Da Silva, I believe is her name, who basically is trying to find the birthplace of her adopted daughter, Sharon. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Who keeps walking, doing, like, sleepwalking into the night and almost nearly walking off of a cliff. And she keeps constantly saying, I need to go back to Silent Hill or Silent Hill in her sleep. And so she decides to take it upon herself to try to find Silent Hill with her adopted daughter. Well, she finds it, gets into a car crash, wakes up from that car crash, and she is now in a foggy town with a crash Car and no Sharon, who has just walked off, it seems. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker A: And so Rose has no other choice but to go into Silent Hill and then basically discover the kind of, you know, the rumblings, the dark beginnings of this town. What has led Sharon to this place? What is, what is Rose play into everything. And also all this is happening. Her husband, played by Sean Bean, discovering more outside of the town as he's also trying to figure out without getting in trouble himself, what exactly is going on with their daughter. [00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:51] Speaker A: And that's basically the plot. Like it really isn't. I mean, most the games, I think the better of the Silent Hill games pretty much have like, yep, there it is. You have the run, you're going to this place, and then maybe this place will have Sharon. Nope, Sharon's not here. Let's go check this place. Yeah, Sharon's not here. And they just. You find new characters as you go on. You run into, I believe, Sybil, who is, I cannot remember her actress's name to save a lot. She's great, Honestly, in this movie I think she's really good. But she's the police officer. She's played by the woman. She plays Andrea in the Walking Dead. [00:14:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:27] Speaker A: She's also the mom in the Mist, which we've talked about. That's right, talked about in the cat talked about on this pod. But Rose runs into a cop and then runs into another little girl that just so happens to look like Sharon, but clearly isn't Sharon, and then runs into some, runs into a woman that is in very puritan esque clothes and looks very dirty and very scared. And then that leads them to get introduced to a totally not a cult that is also involved in what is going on in the town. And ultimately it's basically conveying the idea of Silent Hill while also being able to play with the stakes a bit more. Because the funny thing about Silent Hill as a video game compared to Resident Evil is that for the longest time before Resident Evil even got a franchise, there was a script going around that people were so excited, excited to see come to fruition, but never did, which was George Romero's version of Resident Evil. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Right, right, right, right. [00:15:29] Speaker A: And it's funny to think now that, you know, the king of like independent horror filmmaking was going to make a Resident Evil movie at some point. Because hilariously, Resident Evil is a series that I think is perfect for blockbuster stash. Mainly because in that first game you go from fighting zombies to fighting giant spiders, a giant snake, giant killer plants, frog people, and also a tyrant Mutant monster that you have to use a rocket launcher to destroy. Cut to Silent Hill. In Silent Hill is a game where if you get six bullets for your pistol, you feel like you're on cloud nine. [00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:09] Speaker A: Until you see two people that are in a hallway and you're like, oh, I might be fucked. It's like both are survival horror. They are classic, perfect examples of survival horror, but they are kind of just on the hinges of different sides of those spectrums of what a survival horror game is. [00:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:28] Speaker A: And so when this movie kind of ups the ante in a way that is, like, you see, like, 80 different little demonic creatures at one point show up and attack Rose. And it's, like, so funny to see because if there's three of them in the game, you feel horrified. [00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Basically fucked. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Fucked up. It makes sense, though, because since it has to, like, really sell just kind of the ominous presence of, basically, the town, as well as the dark underbelly that is the cult and the reasoning for the town being the way that it is, they really have to sell the idea of it being, like, an evil that you can see but you can't really comprehend fully. [00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Because there's kind of. Yeah. There is kind of an eldritch quality of like, how long has this stuff been here? Why is it here? How did it happen? Like, the whole mystery of the town is a really fun element to the movie. And I don't know exactly how much that, you know, hangs over the game. You would know better than I. I [00:17:37] Speaker A: mean, it's a massive component of. I think, most of them, especially the early games. Because basically, I mean, the early games, it's a twist in the original game, and it's a bit of a twist in the movie. But, like, the thing about the first game, in the first movie is that, you know, Silent Hill usually can take on kind of the manifestations and the nightmares of the people entering the town. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:01] Speaker A: And so certain games, basically, you are seeing monsters that are the own kind of comprehensions of the. The protagonist. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:09] Speaker A: In Silent Hill 1, as well as in this movie, everything you're kind of seeing of, like, the. The evil kind of monsters and kind of the change between the nightmare world and the dream world, all of that is not tied to Rose in any way. It's actually tied to her daughter. Right. Because we find out that Sharon is actually a. Basically a reincarnated version of a little girl named Alessa who was deemed a witch in the 60s. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah. By this cult. [00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah, by this cult. And then what basic and this little girl, unfortunately, gets assaulted while she's at school. She is considered a heretic and a whore. And then when she is basically said to be burned, to be purified by the cult, this awakens something kind of evil in the town through Alessa's rage and just kind of revenge that ultimately kind of culminates in the town becoming now more of a space for nightmares and horrors to kind of breed. [00:19:18] Speaker B: There's also kind of. I don't know that it's ever explained in the movie outright, but there's also some tie to the fact that there was a massive, like, outbreak of coal fires in the coal mines beneath Silent Hill, which I think, although they don't say it kind of works as, like, the catalyst for. Okay, there was all the. There were these traumatic events going on with Alessa and the cult and all that evil happening there. And then the whole town is consumed in the flames of violence and trauma by the town. So then, you know, kind of, you can see how, thematically, it creates this space where everybody who goes in there just kind of experiences nightmares. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. [00:20:05] Speaker B: And it really fucking suffered and died there. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And does a really good job of, I think, conveying aspects of that. And clearly, even though this is the best of the three movies, there is this energy that if Gonz had a director's cut for this movie, which. There might be an unrated version of this movie. We watched, I believe, just the theater theatrical cut. [00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:26] Speaker A: But there's clearly moments where it feels like this movie could probably be two and a half hours. Because there are times where there is a lot of voiceover, especially towards the end, when it tries to. When Alessa. When, basically, when Rose finds the real Alessa. Because before, basically, throughout the entire movie, she's seen a little girl that looks like Sharon but has, like, beady black eyes, a pale face and, like, a horrifying, demonic, like, grin. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:51] Speaker A: And then she basically finds this little girl again. And this little girl is right next to this, like, just this burnt kind of, you know, fleshy husk that just so happens to be the burned remains of Alessa just being left on life support and introducing the idea that, like, I'm now gonna tell you how I got to this point. [00:21:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:13] Speaker A: When it clearly. Like, I could see a version of it where it's just like, they let it sit you. They let you sit in the flashback a bit more. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Maybe there's more that they shot than they didn't really show and then. But ultimately, like, I think the movie does a good Job of conveying the aspects of the game that are like, you know, I felt like you'd be hard to translate, which is just like a lot of the games are just like puzzle rooms or just like there's this. There's this box and there's like three different types of keys you have to find. And you're an abandoned hospital. Go search. It is like they clearly are not going to do that. And the way they find around that is actually really fun. Where it's like. There's an example of when Rose and the cop civil, they go to a hotel and they're looking. [00:22:05] Speaker B: Lori Holden, by the way. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Lori Holden, Yes. She's. She's really good in this. She's a really good actress. And I think she perfectly captures the look and vibe of what I remember because I played the original Silent Hill years ago. Never finished it because again, it's one of those games. [00:22:20] Speaker B: It's like, played it when you were four years old, I think. When it came out. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, when it came out. No, it was one of those games where, like, the, the. The. The jewel case was like etched in my brain because it's like. It's like a negative, like, photo. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:33] Speaker A: So it's like the. It's got the character Harry Mason, who's the protagonist in that game. It has his face and, like, fully negative and there's fog around him and stuff. It's also a game that, like. Yeah. If you're a kid and you're trying to play, it is a game that constantly is going, you can't do that. You can't go in there and you're just like, okay, well, what am I supposed to be doing? [00:22:53] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:22:53] Speaker A: And it's like, no, it's all about trail and error. You just got to keep going. And then you're like, I have no patience. Now. I actually did buy the original game again, like, for now, just because I do want to give it a try now. Because I did do a bit of homework for the later version. A later movie in this trilogy. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Little too much. But it was a lot more fun than the actual movie itself. [00:23:14] Speaker B: But so it goes. [00:23:16] Speaker A: So it goes. [00:23:17] Speaker B: But I got you sidetracked. You were saying about Sybil and. Oh, yeah. Cause there's Sharon. [00:23:23] Speaker A: There's a whole thing about the puzzle thing about the hotel they go to. They have a specific room they're looking for, but they can't find the room because the room apparently never existed. And they find the key for the room, but can't find the room. And Then it just so happens there's a painting that is actually wallpaper that is wallpapered over the door. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:42] Speaker A: And then they use basically a knife they found to cut through the wallpaper and go into the door. Then you also find out that hotel, I believe is symbolic of the hotel that Sybil or that Alessa was burned in. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Which is a clout. Which is another classic, you know, because that is the hotel where that happened imagery. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is some classic silence meal storytelling. Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Basically. It's also like Silent Hill is not. It's not a combat. It's not a very. It's not a very action packed video game. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker A: And there is fighting, but like the fighting in those games, especially at the time these movies are coming out, is basically if I. If I like step two steps back, I might be able to bonk them on the head. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Or I might be able to shoot them and hopefully they stay down. Compared to like Resident Evil, which felt more action packed as the season series went on at this point. And so to kind of do the action aspects of it hilariously, I think Rose doesn't get an item, she doesn't get a weapon until the very end of the film. And then she never uses it or uses it once. I think she basically is. She uses her smarts and her cunning to get around most situations, which would have ultimately been moments in the games where it's like, I mean, I either fight all of these guys or I have to find a way around them. [00:25:01] Speaker B: And. [00:25:02] Speaker A: And Rose does a great job of doing that and. But it's funny how like, the games that are kind of like. I always think of just like the kind of game where it's like if you get a shotgun, you feel like you are on cloud nine and nothing can stop you. Just to watch a Silent Hill protagonist just have at one point, I think, a knife and like hit one person with it and then drop it. But yeah, I mean, it's. I. If anything, I think the movie might be a little slow in places. [00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:33] Speaker A: I don't. Doesn't necessarily need to be two hours, [00:25:35] Speaker B: but at the same time it's a little oddly paced. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Like the. What feels like at least. Yeah. What feels like should be the bulk of the movie, which is kind of, you know, Rose wandering around Silent Hill, finding new horrible things and seeing little, you know, breadcrumbs to lead her to Sharon. That actually only takes you up through like half of the movie. And then she arrives at the. I guess it's a church or. Yeah. It's a church where the cult meets. She's basically driven there upon the arrival of the darkness. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Which is this. I don't know if it's a daily occurrence or every couple hours occurrence or what triggers it. [00:26:27] Speaker A: Basically, whenever the sirens go off, that means it's about to transition into Nightmare World. But that's like, no one has a time limit on it. [00:26:34] Speaker B: It's just kind of happens. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Because when that is introduced, like, everyone is running into the church, scared, because it's almost like, oh, shit, it's starting too early. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:26:44] Speaker A: And that leads into the one cultist that meets up with Rose. And Cybil gets attacked by the most iconic monster from the Silent Hill series, Pyramid Head, who is literally exactly what it sounds like he is a man in a dirty butcher's outfit with a giant ass pyramid and a giant ass sword. And when he shows up in Silent Hill 1, which, by the way, he only shows up, he only should show up in Silent Hill 2. But we will get to that when we talk about Return. [00:27:19] Speaker B: But he's become. And had already by that point, had become kind of a mascot for the game franchise. So then I'm sure the studios were like, well, if we're making Silent Hill Game, we gotta put Pyramid Head in there. [00:27:33] Speaker A: It's so funny to make a character like that, the mascot, especially what his origins are in the original game. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, his look is iconic. And it is kind of like, I think at a certain point he's in the original film, because it's almost like if the film is trying to capture everybody and maybe video game fans are just kind of like, I don't know if they could even really do this justice now. You might get enough people that are fans of the franchise to be like, hey, if you ever wanted to see Pyramid Head, like, in real life, we've. We have done it. [00:28:07] Speaker B: We did it. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Did it. And it's like, oh, shit, I want to go see it. And even though I honestly will give props to Gonz, I think in the first film, the way they use Pyramid Head actually has symbolic meaning to Alessa and the whole kind of nightmare aspect of it, because Pyramid Head is played by the same actor who plays the janitor that assaults her in the flashback. So it's almost using Pyramid Head, at least in this context, as a vessel for rage and, like, male violence towards her. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:41] Speaker A: Which I think I'll. Yeah. I think the only time you see Pyramid Head kill somebody is when he, like, rips the flesh off of this Little. [00:28:49] Speaker B: This poor cultist strips a woman as a kid and then rips her skin off. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Which is fucking rad. Like, honestly, pretty insane scene at that point in the movie. When it gets to that point, you're kind of like, I'm not bored, but I am curious. And then he shows up and then that happens and you're like, what the fuck? [00:29:06] Speaker B: Although it is interesting because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think he only shows up twice in this movie and that's his second appearance because his first is when he. Hotel corners. Yeah. Sybil and Rose in that. I don't even. Mechanical room. Boiler room or something. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Because basically every time they go into the Nightmare Realm, everything kind of gets rusty and very orange and dark and almost, I think, is implied to kind of almost be like. [00:29:35] Speaker B: Industrial. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, industrial. Very mine shafty. And so, like, yeah, he pops up there, he plays a little. Sticking his sword through the door, trying to see if he could. Yeah, a little hit anybody, trying to throw a line. [00:29:49] Speaker B: And then he moves on. But then he comes back and rips the lady's skin off. But then I think that's the last we see of him. Right. [00:30:00] Speaker A: If we see him again, it would have to be in the hospital. And I don't know if I remember seeing him. [00:30:07] Speaker B: I don't think he's there. [00:30:08] Speaker A: No. I think it might be those two moments. [00:30:09] Speaker B: It does feel odd because he's, like, clearly, at least, like, viscerally and visually the most imposing threat who appears in the movie. And it's like he's this walking tank who can rip you in half. But he's not present in the climax whatsoever. Because once we go into the church with the cult, it kind of just becomes Cult City for the rest of the movie. Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker A: And then I think the next kind of monster you see is. One is like the second monster. [00:30:39] Speaker B: She goes into the hospital and you get the nurses and stuff like that. [00:30:42] Speaker A: The second most iconic kind of visual from it is the moaning, faceless nurses. Quivering nurses, which. Wow. Both of these monsters are very popular from the hit game Silent Hill 2. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, ironically. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Ironically, yeah. I mean, I again, haven't played one, but I assume that there's some kind of nurse monster in that. But it was just funny just rewatching this one being like. Yeah, I've. Both of these very much feel like the versions I see in two. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker A: But that scene's really fun because you see Rose's kind of, like, kind of clever nature and the fact that she gets around them by them all Attacking each other because she's using sound. Yeah, to stop them. Which is funny because it's not sound in the. I think this is just a normal. This is just a random tidbit in the games. It is never really told to you outright, but it's kind of implied that when you get a flashlight in the game, it does not sound like axum. It's kind of attracts them. It's light. So to make it, I think, even scarier to certain people, if you don't want monsters to attack you, you basically turn off your flashlight. So you have to like, physically you have to constantly hear them move around, but also try to get around them. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:31:55] Speaker A: But so it's fun to kind of like, instead of it being the light, since it already. That seems fairly well lit for a silent hill area. Using sound is a fun way to kind of get around that. And then that leads to the Alessa reveal. It also leads to the fact that like Sharon, they finally find Sharon at some point and they. She gets captured by the cults. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Right? [00:32:16] Speaker A: Cult. Sybil and Sharon get put into like this big old bonfire thing and Sybil gets burnt to a crisp and dies. Yeah. [00:32:22] Speaker B: That's a brutal. Dad. [00:32:23] Speaker A: She's rad. She goes. She's. She's. She's too. Till she dies. She won't. She won't give it up. She's like, don't look, Sharon. She's. [00:32:32] Speaker B: I think that's the only time in a movie that I've seen somebody like burned to death by the heat of fire and not by the flames themselves because she's. They're hung up on these giant wooden ladders. Ladders? Yeah, over this bonfire. And they're like 20ft in the air and they just kind of lower hers. So it's over the fire and the flames are well below her, but that's putting off an insane amount of heat. You just see her skin start to like boil and blister and then peel away. [00:33:06] Speaker A: It's like the half the size of a wicker man, but it's just as bright. It's just fucking huge ass bonfire. And then Alessa basically is like, oh, if you let me into that church, you can have Sharon back. I won't do anything about it. And then Rose, listening to the little girl that has been terrorizing this town since she's come in, goes, yeah, I'll do anything to get my daughter back. And then let's go for it. Lets Alessa in and then just shit. Hits the fan hard with like this bed Written which is I think very reminiscent, very reminiscent of a boss from Silent Hill 2. This bedridden monster version of Alessa that is like her metal rusty bed is now becoming like this barbed wire, almost tentacle. Like. [00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah, like a squid of barbed wire emerges from her. The guts of her bed. [00:34:03] Speaker A: She's shoving it in like people's mouths and like tearing them apart. [00:34:06] Speaker B: Genital areas. [00:34:08] Speaker A: It is, it's intense. And I think Gonz again does a phenomenal job of really capturing how with Silent Hill, especially with its iconography and as well as how it's handled, a lot of it is. It will be just like pretty normal, pretty unsettling. But like, you know, I can kind of gauge what's going on. And then you'll just go into like a room and then shit's just hitting the fan in the most uncomfortable way. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:32] Speaker A: And you're like, what the fuck is going on? [00:34:34] Speaker B: Super brutal, over the top. [00:34:36] Speaker A: And for a film, I mean, it stakes, amps the stakes enough that it feels like, ah, this is, this is just enough that I don't know if any of the games have really hit it like this for me. Maybe if you're a fan of the games at that point. And I mean, Rose succeeds. And hilariously enough, I think Gans also does a really good job of capturing the idea of a Silent Hill ending. Really a good Silent Hill ending generally, or what it's considered by most fans as the good ending is also one where you go, yay. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Right? [00:35:11] Speaker A: Because hilariously, this is an ending where Rose has to team up with the main demonic, almost supernatural antagonist in order to get her daughter back, who is one half of this demonic presence. Because we also find out that Alessa basically created two different versions of herself. Kind of split her personality into two parts, which is the evil, kind of pasty, black lipped, beady eyed, demonic version of herself. And then the good side of herself that remembers none of this, who ends up being Sharon. And so basically it's like, you want the nice side of me? Okay, but just let me, let me be mean. Let me be mean one more time. Let me have the cult. And it's like, yeah, I don't give a fuck about the cult. They're no nice. They're not nice to me. And so Sharon is saved. It is implied that Alessa is implied that Alyssa isn't done with Sharon. Because I think one of the last things they see is Alyssa coming towards Sharon and Rose. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:12] Speaker A: And he, she, Rose protects Sharon. And then they both open their eyes and Everything's done right. They leave Silent Hill. And again, throughout this whole process, while they're doing this, Rose's husband, Chom Bean, basically, they decide. And I think this was one of the reasons why this film kind of feels a little bit longer than it needs to, is that since it's not just one parent, like in the original game, it's both parents. The husband has to have, I guess, something to do. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Yeah. All the. All the cutting back to Sean Bean, like, looking through files and stuff, kind of. [00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Because again, the. The cool aspect and the cool visual of the foggy town that is obstructing everything you're seeing from, like, 10ft in front of you. Gets a hard cut to, like, normal life. [00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:00] Speaker A: An investigation where he, like, goes to the orphanage where they adopted Sharon and no one will tell him what's going on. And then he basically breaks in to get her files and finds out things that he doesn't mean to get, and then basically runs into a cop. [00:37:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:17] Speaker A: I cannot remember his name off the top of my head, but he's from Sons of Anarchy. Oh, yeah, that guy. But he basically, he's ahead. He's like the police chief and goes, I used to be, like, a beat cop in Silent Hill, and I was there the night Alessa was burned and stuff. And there's also the fact that Alessa's mom is, like, this beggar who's just like. Like one of the only consistent characters that keeps popping up everywhere. And she's basically just waiting to be. She's basically just waiting to get killed by her daughter for just defeat, for basically, like, to repent for what happened. And her daughter does. Her daughter basically goes, you don't deserve that from me. Which is like, fucked. But also, like, honestly, that's kind of on brand. So, you know, Sean Bean's character figures that out at the same time, kind of Rose is figuring out in the plot, and then it kind of just commits to Rose towards the end. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Sean Bean goes back home sad, because he's basically told, hey, stop looking for Silent Hill. You're going to get in trouble if you do. And he goes, fine, but I'm coming back. And then he just goes home, sad. [00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:22] Speaker A: And then Rose and Sharon leave Silent Hill. They get back in the car and they drive home. They get home, and then it's pretty much, you know, it shows that while they've left Silent Hill, the town, the foggy realm that Silent Hill is in, they have not left. They are still kind of there in basically an alternate Reality where the entire universe. Yeah. Where it's like now they're stuck in the fog, regardless of where they go. And the film ends with Sean Bean seeing that the front door is open, but not seeing Sharon or Rose, but basically kind of implying that he kind of feels their presence there. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:58] Speaker A: And then the movie ends and it's kind of a. Honestly, I think it's a pretty solid, bold, like. Well, I could give you the good ending of Silent Hill, but what's the fun in that? [00:39:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker A: And that's. I mean, that's Silent Hill. Like, surprisingly, the movie has aged incredibly well for 2006, especially when it comes to its effects. [00:39:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Its character design, the way that it kind of touches on Silent Hill. Because the funny thing is, is because Silent Hill is now having insurgent and kind of a resurgence, like since 24. Basically the silent Hill they're touching upon is an era. Silent Hill at that point is almost like I kind of missed the games that were like that. Because when this movie comes out is when Team Silent has disbanded. All the Silent Hill games from this point forward for like the next 16 to 17 years are basically for higher third party companies being involved in this. And kind of, you know, those companies have tried their best to kind of make the Silent Hill, but Konami goes, no, no, no, this is the real Silent Hill. And then they're never given enough time to make a good one. So like, basically this movie is almost like the culmination, if not the finale to when Silent Hill was kind of [00:40:13] Speaker B: golden age of Silent Hill. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Yeah, like that first good. Like that damn good age of the PlayStation 2 was thriving with these games and PlayStation was thriving as in like having a Sony exclusive basically at this point. And then it goes multi platform after this. And. But the movie does very well for its budget. It had a 40 million budget, I think it got 100 plus. And basically when the movie comes out, there is this conversation of, well, sequel. And Christophe Ganz goes, yeah, actually we'd be down to do another sequel. So there are two big players in the original film and that's Christophe Ganz and screenwriter Roger Avery, I believe is also a producer. They worked together heavily on the first film and they were working together heavily on the second film. And in the process of Christophe Gans doing the second film, he also was trying to make an adaptation of another PlayStation classic, Onimusha. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:12] Speaker A: Which is basically what if you had like a survival horror samurai game. [00:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Very mystical creatures and you have like this like supernatural gauntlet and it's Kind of the game is. It's a Capcom game, so it has energy that kind of almost feels like it's built like Resident Evil at times, but with, like, Yokai and like, in field Japan. [00:41:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Christoph Gonzale was working on the adaptation for that, and when that seemed like that was getting off the ground more than this was, he kind of jumped ship. And at the same time this was happening, Roger Avery was coming back to do the script with Gans for the second Silent Hill film until he went to jail for Vehicular Manslaughter. And so now Vehicular manslaughter isn't funny. It's just the fact that the reason why Silent Hill Revelation is the way that it is is because of Onimusha and Vagular. Manslaughter is such a wild, like. No. Out of context. Like what? [00:42:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:17] Speaker A: So both big key creative players are out of the second film. They were able, for all three of these movies, thankfully able to get composer Akira Yamaoka to add his own kind of flair as well as his original music from the Silent Hill games. Because through the Silent Hill franchise, Yamaoka is now like, one of the only people that is still involved with the franchise that also was, like, pretty heavily involved with the films. I think Gans really liked. Liked his input on certain things with that. So Yamaoka does the score in some way shape or form for these three films, so he's back for Revelation. Because the score, I think, does a great job for the first film as well. I do think it's hilarious how they use the Silent Hill one theme because they basically play it for like 15 seconds at the beginning during the credits and then stop. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:43:08] Speaker A: They don't play it in full. But now we're at an impasse because now we have most of our creative gone. So bring in a new time director. I think at this point only had like a feature, maybe some television spots or episodes as a director. And that is MJ Bennett. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Basset. [00:43:27] Speaker A: Basset. Thank you, Bassett. And she is tasked with helping write the script this time as well as direct it, and was basically had the intention of trying to stay true to the next game they're adapting, which is Silent Hill 3. Because Silent Hill 3 is a direct. It's a direct sequel to the first game. And so her goal was to try to make it a direct, a good enough adaptation of that game, but also was more focused on trying to make it a good sequel to. To the original film's version of Silent Hill. And that leads us to 2012's Silent Hill revelation. Here's the funny thing about doing this trilogy. I recommended this trilogy for. For a few things. [00:44:15] Speaker B: Thanks for owning that one. [00:44:17] Speaker A: I've never not owned what I. Don't put that on me. Don't put that evil on me. But I thought it'd be fun to do this trilogy because, again, it's insane that we got another Silent Hill film this year. So many years later, the Silent Hill's back in Resurgence, and I just. I just placed. We are healing again, and I will not be silent. But last year was Silent Hill F was the newest game, and I actually got that game just on a whim and played it and really had a great time with that game. [00:44:50] Speaker B: And is that the first one that takes place in Japan? [00:44:54] Speaker A: Yes, I believe that's the first one. I think it's also the first one that really doesn't take place in Silent Hill. Yeah, it's like kind of the idea. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Vibes adjacent. Yeah. [00:45:05] Speaker A: Like, the idea of Silent Hill, in a sense, using Silent Hill as a kind of a moniker to, like, jump in to different town settings if you want to. That isn't just called Silent Hill. But I played that and hearing about Return coming out, and I was like, you know what? Andy has never seen any of these movies. I had. I had seen 2006, and I've seen Revelation before. I was like, you know what? Fuck it. We're doing. We're doing Knives Out. We're doing Lupin for January. It might be fun just to kind of sprinkle in a new release kind of thing in there, and especially a new release that probably most people didn't know about, because while the first film did well, Silent Hill Revelation kills any kind of momentum that film could have had. And when I. One of the reasons why I also suggest this is because I really, really, genuinely wanted to see Andy's reaction to Revelation because it is iconically going from one of the best, if not better, video game adaptations to arguably one of the worst video game adaptations we've ever heard. It really does peaks and valleys of the series. And I remember watching Silent Hill Revelation by myself as, like, a rental. I think, at one point, because I was just like, I had heard how horrible this movie was. I had seen the original, and I was like, how bad could it be? Like, I heard how bad the 3D was. [00:46:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:30] Speaker A: And then I watched it. And then cut to this year. We talk about watching the films, and Andy suggests, oh, I mean. I mean, maybe we should just watch all the. Can we. I Think with how our schedules worked out, we should maybe just watch the films by ourselves. Maybe watch the last one together in theaters. And I looked at him and said, you're gonna not want to. You don't want to watch Revelation by yourself. You're gonna want to watch it with me. You're gonna have a lot more fun to watch it with somebody else. Because. [00:46:58] Speaker B: Thank you for sparing me that fate. [00:47:00] Speaker A: Because the thing is, is Revelation is an absolute drag when you're by yourself, but when you're with other people and you're just going along for the ride, it does hit at times so bad. It's good energy. Not enough that I would recommend it in that sense, but when we were together watching it, we were having fun just talking about how we got to this point. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Because, I mean, it's just always easier to take in a movie that bad when you can talk to somebody. [00:47:32] Speaker A: When people ask, like. Or I've talked to people about this movie. I describe it as dog shit wrapped in cat shit, air fried for too long. Like, it's like. It really is just like, you think you're done with the shitty aspects of this movie, and then stuff. Something else comes up because it ultimately just takes the momentum of a really strong first film and then just goes, it's got to be 3D. It's got to have pyramid head. It's got to have two Game of Thrones actors right before the series pops off. It's got to really. It has to connect to the first film in just enough way. But we can't have the same actress who played Sharon in the original movie. [00:48:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:15] Speaker A: We want her to be 18. 18. [00:48:17] Speaker B: And also, it's gonna look like absolute shit. The best part of watching cinematography and lighting and everything, production design. [00:48:28] Speaker A: The best part about watching Revelation with Andy, it was immediately as the movie opened visually. I could see in Andy's eyes him triple, quadruple taking when he realized, wow. [00:48:42] Speaker B: Oh, this is what it looks. [00:48:42] Speaker A: This is what it looks like. Because Andy was texting me while we were watching Silent Hill separately, and he was like, really? I was glad how much you enjoyed the first film. [00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker A: And, like, I. I was really taken [00:48:53] Speaker B: with, I think, the visual atmosphere and, like, you know, it's like it and something 2006, and for a video game adaptation, it looks pretty darn good. [00:49:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:03] Speaker B: And it's, you know, it feels very cohesive in a way that's effective to the atmosphere. Atmosphere of the film. [00:49:09] Speaker A: How would you describe the visual aspects of the Revelation? [00:49:13] Speaker B: I think sinfully cheap. Looking is a good way to describe it. I mean it's. It looks like a. Not even like VOD or straight to dvd, but it looks like kind of student film level of production. Obviously. Obviously more money was put into it than a student film. [00:49:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, the budget was cut between 1 and 2 with this one being $20 million. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:41] Speaker A: But I still have to ask how much of that money went to the cast because I want to know, like, where'd that 20 go? Yeah, where'd it go? [00:49:50] Speaker B: What happened? [00:49:51] Speaker A: Because, like, there is like, there's one big, I would say CGI set piece in the. In the frame of the original monster. The. The Mannequins fighter. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:50:02] Speaker A: There's a entirely CGI charact, like spider mannequin thing which is all just mannequin arms and one mannequin head that opens up into, ah, spiky mouth and a fleshy tongue. [00:50:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:50:15] Speaker A: That's like the big, like CGI, like 3D. Because that's the thing too is it's a film that is converted into 3D and. Which means there are times, I think the first 3D moment is the opening of Revelation kind of has a retcon in a way. Or like at least a. They say that when Rose went to the original Silent Hill in the first film, she found a medallion. And apparently if she like does something with that medallion or maybe sacrifices her chance to come back to the real world, she's able to get Sharon back into the real world. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Which is how Sharon is now with her father and is on the run. And it's been like eight years. It's, It's. I think it's implied that she's. Because I think she was 10 in the original film. [00:51:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:51:03] Speaker A: And now she's 18. So it's been about, you know, 8ish years. And her dad and her, her and her dad have been on the run trying to run away from this cult that we. I initially was like, this. Is this supposed to be the first cult? I don't remember. And then it's apparently yes. It's supposed to be a subsection of the scary creepy lady from the first movie. [00:51:22] Speaker B: A branch. [00:51:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Now it's like a creepy lady that looks like she's out of a Rob Zombie film, played by Carrie Anne Moss, who is. Who is the villain of Silent Hill 3. And is one of those movies where it almost looks like it's trying to look at you and be like brownie points. [00:51:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Is she in three? Yeah, she and three me. [00:51:40] Speaker B: Do good Is her like blade monster form? Is that how she looks in the game? [00:51:46] Speaker A: I. That. That she does not. I do not think she turns into that at all. [00:51:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:51:50] Speaker A: That is something that I feel like was a. We didn't have any. Because she doesn't. She turns into just a ray. Regular blade monster. Like, because she. Like the mo. I think it's implied that the Blade monster that shows up earlier in the movie is just a normal villain. Yeah. And then. [00:52:06] Speaker B: So when she turns into one. Yeah. [00:52:08] Speaker A: Instead of turning into like an actual final boss, she just turns into a blade. [00:52:11] Speaker B: An enemy we've seen before. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, I have not played three. I will, I will clarify for those listening curious. I have played Silent H. I've beaten Silent Hill F twice. I've played Silent Hill 1 a little bit and then I've played through Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 2 Remake. I've beaten those. Both those versions. That was my homework for Return and something that, because like two being as the, you know, the most loved, beloved horror game of all time, it's like, well, I kind of want to see what that is. Especially before we went to go see Return. But three was one. That's been on my list for a bit too. I knew its connection to one. I've done a little bit of like story diving without trying to be too spoilery and I think I've. The game came out in 03, so I feel like at this point people just spoil it left and right. So I think I've gotten some spoilers from it. But basically the. The film follows around Heather Mason who is the new Persona of Sharon Gather. [00:53:12] Speaker B: New identities. [00:53:13] Speaker A: Yes. And then her father is taking on the Persona of Harry Mason, which is another wink, wink, brownie points thing because that's the protagonist of the original Silent Hill. They go to a new school. She goes there for a single day. Has a very cringeworthy, hilarious dialogue. Kind of monologue about how, you know what, you'll never understand me. I've moved like 15 different times. Not like other girls, that type of shit. It grabs hold of a sleeveless vest wearing bad boy, pretty boy with no facial hair. Throws me off every time. Played by Kit Harrington, who is playing a character that is in Silent Hill 3 but looks absolutely nothing like Kit Harrington. They completely read like redesigned that character and changed his narrative and. But it's funny that they just, they decided, oh yeah, the, the I think brown haired, nerdy guy that's In Silent Hill 3, he's now played by Kit Harrington. It's nothing like that character. He's infatuated with Heather. And then Heather starts to, like, deal with, like, the nightmarish kind of transition between, you know, day and night. The spooky stuff that she dealt with in the first game. And her dreams are basically implying that her evil side. Her. Like the Alessa. The evil Alessa from the first movie is just constantly trying to get her back. She wants to. She wants to be free. She wants to do some chaos again. [00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:46] Speaker A: And kind of persuade her to come to the dark side. And while this is happening, the cult finds her dad and kidnaps her dad. A detective played by a character actor I've seen in so many other films. And I do not know the guy off the top of my head. I just know that his character is, I think, fairly prominent in three. And then he gets his fingers cut off and dies really early on in the movie. And again, when I say something gets cut off or stabbed, think of that. But, like, in 3D, and that's basically the first 3D moment, is when Heather has a nightmare and then she wakes up and her dad's like, everything's okay. And then Pyramid Head stabs her dad in 3D, and then she actually wakes up from her dream. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:30] Speaker A: That's how the movie introduces its horror and its 3D aspects. So, yeah, if you watch this movie, you can blame Avatar. That's all I'm saying. Another reason to be like, man, Avatar, what have you done to pop culture that have movies feel like this is, you know, this is the way to do movies now. [00:55:51] Speaker B: Martin Donovan, by the way. Yes. Character actor who plays the detective. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Because he's also an ant, man. [00:55:58] Speaker B: I think he's. He's in all sorts of stuff. He just usually is playing kind of a tertiary character, and it plays it really well. [00:56:06] Speaker A: And I think in this movie, it's basically like he's got eight lines. So I don't really know there's much you can do. [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:12] Speaker A: Other than be like a. He's like a gumshoe detective who's like. It's like, are you Sharon Da Silva? That type of shit. [00:56:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:19] Speaker A: And try to bring up the cult. And then he dies. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:56:23] Speaker A: And then her dad gets kidnapped. The cops think. Was it. The cops think her dad has some. Some involvement with the death of that detective as well as, like, the killings of other things. Heather and Vincent, I believe, or Vince is Kit Harrington's character. [00:56:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:42] Speaker A: They decide to go together because they are basically written in blood. Come to Silent Hill with a little insignia. [00:56:49] Speaker B: It says it in blood. You got to go. [00:56:50] Speaker A: And they go to Silent Hill. This movie is, I think shorter than the first one. [00:56:56] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure that's right. [00:56:58] Speaker A: But it doesn't feel like 10 minutes. I think this is like 100 minute movie versus 110 with the original. But like Andy said, it feels 30 minutes longer. [00:57:08] Speaker B: It is 95 minutes to the first films. One hundred and twenty six. So it's 30 minutes shorter and it [00:57:18] Speaker A: feels like the longer of the two. Yeah, actually, I think that was another thing they got. And I could get on most things most the time if I can get Andy on dog, if I can sell them on, it's 90 minutes, then I [00:57:31] Speaker B: think I can do. I can enjoy Min. [00:57:34] Speaker A: The amount of dog we have both consumed. Not even for this pod, just I think like 90 minutes. We both go, okay, all right. And this is a prime example of maybe 90 minutes, maybe this could have been 60 minutes. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Because by the time we don't make this movie. [00:57:51] Speaker A: Yeah. By the time it hits the 60 minute mark, it feels like, what the fuck is going on? Is it still doing the shit we thought was gonna happen? Is it just like. It's meandering. Is this like taking a. [00:58:01] Speaker B: As it goes. [00:58:02] Speaker A: And then Vince, like they go to a hotel. Vince, even though he's known her for three hours, feels like he has a deep connection with her and has to admit to her that his mother is the head of the cult that is going after her. He gets captured in the disaster in the nightmare world, which is not how the fucking nightmare ended. Whatever. It's just. And then she is all by herself and then she has to do basically things that are like. Doesn't make any sense in terms of the movie plot, but makes sense in terms of, oh, she has to go on rides. That's in the third film. She sees a rabbit with like blood on its face. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Video game. [00:58:40] Speaker A: It's like, yeah, it's on the third game. All the. The bloody rabbit is the third game. [00:58:44] Speaker B: Yeah, just a bunch of references for the sake of them. [00:58:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember like, it's like that kind of thing of just like. And here's the thing is if you're watching this movie, nine times out of 10, most people who are seeing this do not remember because they probably didn't play three because now three is nearly a decade old game. [00:59:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:03] Speaker A: And also like this movie from the get go, even from its trailers did not look good. [00:59:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:09] Speaker A: So even the fans that I think do remember are probably going, so, yeah. And so she goes on this kind of like, this journey through like more of the kind of shafty rusted kind of look of the original film. But shittier runs into Pyramid Head, who does not have any kind of semblance whatsoever to what is going on. Trauma wise. [00:59:33] Speaker B: He's not connected. He's just there. [00:59:35] Speaker A: He's just there to cut fingers off and hands off and stab people. The first time you get introduced to him is a night. Is the nightmare sequence at the beginning of the film where he is running the carousel. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:59:46] Speaker A: I think is that he's just. Or maybe later he's running the carousel and then he becomes the hero. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Which shows up to fight the final boss for no reason. [00:59:59] Speaker A: Again, if you don't. If you're just making it because you think Pyramid Head looks cool, let's make it the. Let's make him the hero. You're really just not. You're really missing the point. This character is supposed to be. Especially with how the first film handles it as like a genuinely kind of close to how Silent Hill 2 handles Pyramid Head in a way, in terms of being a manifestation of rage in a specific sense. And this time it's just. He's cool and has a big sword. He can protect us. Yeah. [01:00:29] Speaker B: He comes out of nowhere in the finale to fight the Carrie Anne Moss blade monster. [01:00:35] Speaker A: Because during this whole time we get cutaways to Carrion Moss and her group of cultists and like Sean Bean is just like chilling in like a big person. It's like a statue of a big person. And he's like just sitting there just tired the whole time. Like he's gonna fall asleep. And then she saves Vince from a bunch of nurses. It's a worse hospital. [01:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah. We get the nurses again. [01:00:59] Speaker A: We get them again. And then they confront Karion Moss's character. And then they basically have what I can only describe as a demon Pokemon battle where Carrion Moss transforms into a demon monster. [01:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:12] Speaker A: And is like, I choose me to be my demon. And then. And then Heather's like, I choose Pyramid Head to fight for me in combat. [01:01:19] Speaker B: And then. [01:01:20] Speaker A: And then Pyramid Head defeats Carrion Moss. Everything's. Everything kind of is fine. [01:01:26] Speaker B: And always, you know, an effective climax requires that the main character have nothing to do with what's happening. You should just have cameo appearances show up. This is fight the final battle. [01:01:42] Speaker A: This is such a half star film for me. [01:01:44] Speaker B: It's so bad. [01:01:45] Speaker A: I can't like it's. [01:01:46] Speaker B: It's genuinely meaningless. [01:01:48] Speaker A: It is very meaningless. It's at a point where, like I could say it's a zero out of 10. But at the same time, right now, I feel like it is a zero. But I'll go probably. I'll probably go back to Half Star at some other point. But it is just like. The movie ends with Heather and Vince walking out of the town with Heather's daughter. And then Sean Bean goes, actually, I'm pretty sure your mom is here, and I don't want to live my life without her. I'm gonna go try and find her. But you are young. You go live your life with your new boyfriend. You just found, like, five hours ago. [01:02:25] Speaker B: Cultist boyfriend. Yeah. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Which Radha Mitchell, who plays Rose in the first film, does a really good job. She shows up at the very beginning of this movie, and that's it. [01:02:33] Speaker B: As like, kind of she's in the mirror, she's Original vision, who appears to Sean. [01:02:39] Speaker A: She's like, there's not much time. I think. I think his name is Chris. Chris da Silva, the first movie, sure, whatever. But he's like, chris, there's not much time. Here's the backstory. I found this medallion, and she's the one explaining the retcon shit to Chom Bean's character. And then she's like, I will never. I don't know if I'll ever see you guys again. And then just, like, wisps away. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Right? [01:02:59] Speaker A: And then he goes into the fog and then wisps away. And then they both. Both Vince and Heather walk out of Silent Hill. They run into a trucker who is tied to a PSP Silent Hill game that came out two years prior. [01:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:17] Speaker A: And they write off. And that's the end of Silent Hill refillation. [01:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:21] Speaker A: The funny. [01:03:22] Speaker B: We forgot to talk about the fact that Malcolm McDowell shows up for one scene in this movie and he's like, [01:03:27] Speaker A: the second highest build. Yeah, yeah. [01:03:29] Speaker B: Apparently, like, has this grand kind of monologue sequence. [01:03:34] Speaker A: He's. He's Vince. He's Kit Harrington's grandpa in the movie. [01:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:38] Speaker A: And he's the one that created the cult. And he's the one, I think, that in. That introduces the idea of Alessa still being in Heather. And, like, y'. All. [01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:48] Speaker A: You. You're here because you're a part of the ritual or whatever. [01:03:51] Speaker B: And now he's been locked up in this chamber, chained up by himself. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And he becomes a monster. [01:03:57] Speaker B: Turns into a monster. [01:03:58] Speaker A: Apparently those. [01:03:59] Speaker B: Apparently. [01:04:00] Speaker A: Apparently those contacts he wears to look blind, like, genuinely hurt his vision. Like, it genuinely impaired him afterwards. Like, it just. [01:04:08] Speaker B: Oh, like, had lasting effects. Yeah. [01:04:11] Speaker A: All for nine minutes. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:13] Speaker A: All for like a nine minute scene. [01:04:15] Speaker B: If anything could turn into another monster to be killed. [01:04:18] Speaker A: Crazy. Yeah. Silent Hill Revelation was initially kind of built around Konami trying to get a new era of Silent Hill off the ground. And so Konami put in three different games to be released in 2012 in March in honor of Silent Hill Revelation coming out in March. All three of those games were rushed. One of those games being about a prisoner being sent, like being put on a prison bus and accidentally sent into Silent Hill and has to get out. Which Silent Hill Revelation ends on a prison bus going into Silent Hill is a. Is almost like a stinger for that game. The funny thing is, is all three of those games are basically it's Downhill Downpour. I think it's maybe Origins is one of those. Maybe the one that the trucker is from is also there. I don't know for certain. But Silent Hill Downpour and then the. The infamous notorious Silent Hill HD collection, which is an absolute mess. It's rough. All came out March of 2012. And then Revelation got pushed back to like October. [01:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:30] Speaker A: So like the, the month of madness didn't happen. And then when it did, then like the stuff that did come out for it, it was kind of panned and at best went all right. And just like in. Just like, yeah, a new era it was laid into the, the. The nastiest of Wet farts in 2012. And then ultimately basically anyone went, well, if you wanted to do more Silent Hill movies, I've lost interest. And then walked away. [01:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:59] Speaker A: And then for the longest time, we thought that was it. We thought Silent Hill duology would be all we get in like classic film fashion. You get a first film that does solidly well. A lot of studio interference mixed with probably inexperience as well as, you know, 3D being shoved into a movie. A lot of different things that kind of up the process of a movie ultimately leads the franchise to just become two movies. No trilogy until the 2000s. In 2024 or 2022, 2023, it was revealed that Konami was putting their chips into two different projects. Actually three different projects. One of those projects hasn't even come out yet, but I think it will by the end of this year or maybe next year. Two of those projects were Silent Hill F, which just came out last year, and Silent Hill 2 remake, which came out in 2024. Silent Hill 2 remake comes out in 2024. It does gangbusters. I think sales wise, it's beloved by most critics. It is considered a Great remake or at least most critics would say that it's a, it's, it's a love letter to the original game. Yeah, it does so well enough with Konami that I think around 23, 24, the conversation ends up being now that Silent Hill might have a bit of a resurgence and now that we have a confidence in what the series looks like now, what we want to do, do we want to come back to the idea of bringing back a movie idea? So in the process of doing, discussing the development of Silent Hill 2 and telling people when the second movie, the second game was coming out, the remake of it, they also announced that not only is there a remake of Silent Hill 2 coming out, there is also going to be a film adaptation with the original director attached, releasing in 2026 with it being titled Return to Silent Hill. The third film. The third and possibly most likely final film in this franchise. Returning with Christopher Ganz as co writer as well as director. The budget unfortunately is only 25 million. So he still has 15 less than what he had back then. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, 20 years later. [01:08:05] Speaker A: 20 years later. But the film basically went on no release day for the longest time. And then late last year they kind of announced January of 26, you will be seen the long awaited adaptation of Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 2 is a fascinating game because it's again, it is, is kind of quintessential Silent Hill in the terms of. Just like it is of its time, both in its flaws and what it does. Right. The creepiness of, has an energy that you don't see in a lot of horror today, both in I think video games and even with I think in films in terms of like the approaches to how they do horror. And when I played the remake, it clearly modernized a lot of those kind of spooky elements to be like, ah, this is, you know, people can't play an eight hour game, let's make it 16 and you have to fight more. It's like, I guess that makes sense. So when you get into this movie, you're just kind of like, okay, if the remake is kind of trying to modernize certain aspects of two, but like the narrative honestly is a little untouched in places. Like they barely do anything with the narrative in the remake of two. They just kind of like elongate it in places. What is the narrative gonna look like in Return to Silent Hill? Especially since it is not the longest film in the series, nor is it the shortest. It's right in the middle. It's about a hundred and one hundred minutes. It's like an hour 45. It is, [01:09:40] Speaker B: yeah. Guns Guns described it in development as, like, wanting to make a more faithful Silent Hill game. [01:09:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:51] Speaker B: And I. I guess on paper he kind of did that. This feels like the most direct, like, straight adaptation in the sense of we took the beats of the plot and stuck to that and didn't, like, do a bunch of other stuff from other games. [01:10:09] Speaker A: Here's the thing. If you're listening to this episode and you have no idea about what any of these movies were until now, thank you. That's very sweet of you to listen to this episode. If anything, this episode would tell you, watch the first film. The other two watch. People, like, listen. [01:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:24] Speaker A: Just us talking about it and then other people talking about it. If you're that curious, be warned. [01:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:30] Speaker A: But I guess the question will be, if you were listening to this podcast, I would assume you have seen at least one of the movies and are aware of how people have been responding to Return to Silent Hill in the last month. And so I guess the question for us would be to answer is, is this the worst Silent Hill movie? And the answer to that is, no, it's not worse than Revelation. Revelation is still cash it wrapped in dog shit, just left it in the sun to burn. Return to Silent Hill is bad. It is not bad to the point where I. Even after finishing two different iterations of Silent Hill 2, both the original and the remake, I'm not mad it's Return to Silent Hill. I'm more, I think, just kind of confused and disappointed in the choices it made. Because the thing about Ganza's choices in the original film feels very much like he makes. He understands why he has to do a little bit of changes here and there to make the original conveyed the classic era feel so much like work for modern era in terms of just like the. Can't do as many puzzles, there's not a lot of action. How do we make it kind of engaging narratively? How do I not talk down to the audience? The movie Return of Silent Hill talks down a lot. The movie is constantly explaining things that the games never really needed to. Because if you're watching or playing like, you're basically just like, it up, you're gonna pick it up pretty quickly. And even if you don't, you get a semblance or understanding just enough that you're like, I kind of know what's going on and I'm uncomfortable. [01:12:10] Speaker B: Right. [01:12:11] Speaker A: Return to Silent Hill basically holds you by the hand and goes, this is what we're doing. Both the changes and how the movie. [01:12:17] Speaker B: So much talking. [01:12:18] Speaker A: There's a lot of talking. There is an added psychiatrist character that is fucking useless. There's no reason for her to be there. She just makes it. Just look, when I was trying to remember the movie, because, again, it's been long enough that when we saw it in theaters, I had to wrap my brain around again, what the changes were. And when I remember that psychiatrist, I just sighed. I was like, why did you add a character that is, like, just looking at the audience and going, this is what James is going through? Because the whole thing about Silent Hill 2, and this is the basic premise for Return, is that James Sunderland gets a letter from his dead wife saying that, I'm in Silent Hill, I'm at her special place. Come meet me. Here's the thing. I know it's crazy, but it's his dead wife who would have sent that letter. [01:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:08] Speaker A: So he's going crazy. He's like, oh, my God, maybe she wasn't dead. Maybe something happened and I just didn't realize. Maybe I've been wrong this whole time. I need to find her. I need to answer this. So she goes to Silent Hill to go find his wife, and then creepy shit happens. He runs into monsters. He runs into some kooky, disturbed characters. And then ultimately just goes with the. The constant thread of, I need to find my wife. And then ultimately comes with the question of why do I need to find her? Should I find her? [01:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:41] Speaker A: What will happen if I do? And, you know, the original game takes about. I would say I beat him about seven and a half hours. It's about eight hours to play through. But the story itself, like, the cutscene scenes, everything there, I think could probably compile to two, two and a half hours, which doesn't include all the. The action and the survival horror in between. But, like, the story itself is pretty straightforward enough that it really is just very ominous and very m. Cryptic in the beginning. And then halfway through, you feel like you're starting to understand a little bit more. Then you hit that third act, kind of, like, final push in the game, and you're like, okay, I think I get it. I don't really like where this is going and. But I still like. I like the game, but this is not great. This is not leading to, like, all signs are leading to. This is good. But basically, James goes to the town he runs into. Initially, he runs into a girl named Angela who's in the. Who's, like, in a graveyard and is trying to find her mom because her mom said she'd be at Silent Hill. He runs into a little girl named Laura who basically hates James and won't specify as to why she hates James. [01:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:00] Speaker A: He runs into Eddie, whose whole thing is that he's fat. [01:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:05] Speaker A: And that he also, like, when he meets him, he's throwing up in a toilet, which. Yes, yes, Gonz, that is how you meet Eddie in the original. Thank you for that. I guess Mary, in terms of, like, the conversations you have with yourself about her as well as, you know, just conversations with other characters about Mary in the comic. And then there's also Maria, who is a femme fatale esque woman who looks a little too much like Mary and by a little too much. Almost like 99.9% looks like Mary. And those are like the main characters. Like, that is the main character of the original game. And honestly, with those characters alone, that is enough to keep the eight hour experience consistently engaging. Because as you're going through the story, you're getting closer to your life. Then anytime you run into these people, one, you don't have to fight anybody for the most part. And two, you're like, okay, I get to learn more about them. And then three, sometimes you're just like, I don't know if I want to see them again. I don't think this is getting any better for them. [01:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:08] Speaker A: And the thing about two, again, as a story, and I think I brought up early in this episode, is that Silent Hill 2 doesn't have the cult. [01:16:14] Speaker B: Cult. [01:16:14] Speaker A: There is a conversation, and I believe there's an ending maybe in the remake, as well as some conversations that you can find in the original game where it talks about cults in general, but it's not basically discussing part of the plot. [01:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:16:29] Speaker A: There's a theory that, like, the letter he might have gotten that has Mary's name on it about the special place. Maybe that's a possibility. Maybe the cult is trying to push James to go to Silent Hill for a specific thing. But the cult, you don't. They are never like a overarching antagonistic force in this game. It is wholly drived by James trying to find his wife and constantly getting worse and worse when it comes to the threats, solely because he just needs to find her, really needs to find her. And it's like, okay, dude, yeah, there's a lot of up shit going on around you and you seem like you really still need to find her. This movie has the energy of a little bit of definitely studio interference. So there's a Lot of conjecture surrounding the film now. And Chris Christoph Gonz has gotten death threats from the. Since it's come out, which I'm gonna say right now. I understand you be mad about this movie, but please, it is ridiculous. It's not as bad as Revelation. And guys, it's 2026. If you want a good version of Silent Hill 2 at its base level, watch a playthrough, watch the cutscenes together. Or better yet, play the original game, even the remake. Even though I prefer the original game, the remake is a solid choice for that. But Christophe Gan has been very open about the fact that he was given some mandates. One of the mandates, I think, was from the producers and basically Konami saying the movie can't be above two hours. Two hours was the max of how long the movie was gonna be. Which was difficult for him because apparently he had more things he wanted to do with characters, specifically Eddie, who is a bigger part of the video game. And in the movie, he shows up in his introduction scene and then a little bit later, and then he never shows up again. [01:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:23] Speaker A: Which is insane. [01:18:24] Speaker B: Shocking that that character ended up on. [01:18:27] Speaker A: Shocking that he even gets. Yeah, he even gets adapted at all. Because at that point, like, it kind of gets rid of any kind of, you know, semblance of what the. The whole narrative is about when he is just in two scenes. Another thing apparently. And again, this is a lot of this. If you look up kind of like discussions, you think he's been very open about it, probably in interviews. But also he's been showing up. He. There's a Reddit post where he showed up at a theater, I think, in France, and did a Q and A. Yeah, and the Reddit post is from a guy that like wrote down everything that he said. And one of the things that apparently happened was, is that the cult wasn't a part of the original script. They decided to add a cult to Silent Hill 2 to return to Silent Hill. And as you would imagine, a story that doesn't have a cult gets forced to have a cult. Equals bad choice. It doesn't work. It adds 18 different characters that happen in flashbacks that shouldn't be there. And honestly have so many flashbacks in this. Too many fucking flashbacks. There shouldn't be any fucking flashbacks except for one specific one. And it doesn't. And even that is barely in it. But apparently there was not going to be a cult in the original cut. But they were going to make an original character, which is Mary's father, who apparently was going to be played By Stephen Lang. And the studio says you either find 2 million to fund Stephen Lang or you cut Stephen Lang out of the movie. And they couldn't find the 2 million, so they just kept the cult. [01:19:58] Speaker B: Right. [01:19:58] Speaker A: Or made the cult, but just no Stephen Lang, which. I mean, God, I can't. [01:20:05] Speaker B: I mean, love Stephen Lang. [01:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:20:08] Speaker B: Know that he would have made this movie any better unless he wanted to [01:20:11] Speaker A: spread her fire, which wanted to spread the town's fire. If he was going full hog, like, full. He was going like, full. Full cheese. [01:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:22] Speaker A: Like, that would be great. But, yeah, it depends on what it was initially supposed to be. And clearly her father. Her father is supposed to be a prominent piece in this new script or like, at least this adaptation, because you do kind of see pictures of what he was supposed to look like, but never really addressed. And because the thing about Silent Hill, again, in this movie is Silent Hill is just a great location for this because it is just like. It is just a place that both James and Mary went to that is very precious to them. That clearly happened before the events of the first Silent Hill game because they remember Silent Hill in a very nice resort town kind of vibe. And that's not what it is anymore. They were not from Silent Hill. But in this new version, Mary has been born and raised in Silent Hill, and she was about to leave Silent Hill when James gets introduced to the plot because there's too many fucking flashbacks. And they have a meet cute at the beginning of this movie and it's like, okay, cool, that's great. Maybe that's the last time we see flashbacks. No, there's. I will give. [01:21:27] Speaker B: Everything gets a fucking flash. [01:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I will give this, the movie, a thing. I think the character designs are pretty solid overall. They look like how they do in the game and I. That cool. And they're creepy and they're weird. The nurses are creepy and weird. There is. There's even a new monster design that is wild, especially now that I've played [01:21:45] Speaker B: through the game, which is Spider thing. [01:21:47] Speaker A: It's like the. No, the spider thing. I. Oh, God. Is that supposed to be. I'm trying to remember if that's even supposed to be a different iteration of a monster. I'm talking about the moth monster. The very end. Yeah, yeah, that's. That is not how she looks at the finale. It's a vastly different interpretation. But that monster design is cool. [01:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:09] Speaker A: There is, like, semblance of kind of like, inspiration with Gonz's choices in certain places. The. The set design, the monster design, the vibe is as immaculate as I think he can make it in terms of just like the foggy nature. It looks better than Revelation. I think there's something. [01:22:28] Speaker B: It absolutely looks better than Revelation. It does look like. And this isn't the case, which is what makes it baffling, but, like, almost every scene looks like it was shot on a green screen. [01:22:40] Speaker A: Yes. [01:22:41] Speaker B: That is so. It's such a weird experience. [01:22:43] Speaker A: This is a. This is a one step forward, two steps back kind of movie where, like, you know, the cast is doing the best with what they're given. What they're given is not really anything. Jeremy Irving or Irvine, who is playing James in this movie? He might be. You might know him as Mr. Warhorse. He's the human lead in Warhorse. [01:23:06] Speaker B: John Warhorse. [01:23:07] Speaker A: John Warhorse. He is doing, I think, the best you can with this character with the current script he's given. Now, should they have given him a better beard? Yes. Notoriously horrible fake beard in this movie. [01:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:23] Speaker A: Also, James doesn't have a beard in the game. I don't know why. If you had that kind of beard, why you would even give it to him in the first place. [01:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Why did he need a beard? For the flashback. [01:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't. I don't understand. Funny enough, the little girl that is the runs out throughout the game, her name is, I believe, Evie Templeton. The funny thing is, is that she plays Laura in both this adaptation as well as the 2024 remake. And the only reason why. [01:23:54] Speaker B: Coincidence. [01:23:55] Speaker A: It was coincidence. Apparently the only reason why that kind of happened is because she auditioned for Return and couldn't tell Gonz because the NDA she signed about the remake. [01:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:05] Speaker A: And so. Or maybe even just the inverse, but just like basically an NDA led her to be able to do the character in two different ways. One incredibly well in the remake and one just completely not at all with the character. She's got a creepy little doll. Or she. Which is wild. She doesn't deserve. She doesn't need to have that. But honestly, I will argue in this. I feel like this is a cold take in a good way because I feel like it would make sense across the board. I would say one of the highlights of this movie as well as I think the highlight of even the original game in the remake is Mary. In terms of the actress, I think it's Hannah Emily Anderson. [01:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah, Hannah Emily. [01:24:50] Speaker A: She is, I think, a really good choice for, I think both the dual Mary Maria vibe. I think she does the best she can with that. And again, it's a script problem, I think, more than a casting problem. [01:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I think she brings all that she [01:25:08] Speaker A: can to it as well as the secret third role that she apparently had to play because they make a very baffling story decision that I still do not understand. So the Original Silent Hill 2, all the characters that I listed earlier, besides Maria and Laura, they have very specific other reasons. James, Angela and Eddie are all three separate people that are brought to Silent Hill for basically committing in their. Basically being guilty. Committing a sin that they committed for vastly different reasons, but they feel guilty about and the town called to them in some way. Eddie does something. Basically, he harms something and really enjoys the process, but ultimately leads him to feel guilty about the fact that he's now on the run and people know that he's harmed someone. Now he feels like he's a monster now, but has to accept that because he was bullied so much. Angela in the game, who's personally my favorite character, I think the actress for both the original Angela and the remake does a phenomenal job. And Angela is basically. She killed her. I think it's implied at least her father, maybe her brother because of sexual assault as well as just physical and emotional abuse. And feels like she's a lesser person because she feels like she doesn't deserve to live because she just has nothing else to live for. Because she's just kind of alone now because her family gets. I think she killed her whole family in the process of being basically kept in a constant hell for decades. And then James's whole thing is the fact that. Spoiler alert, in case the other spoilers wasn't given ahead that we're gonna do this is that James is coming to Silent Hill to find his wife that is dead because he killed her. And again, and that's in return. You know what you would think is the most baffling choice in return is that Mary asking James to kill her. That honestly takes away from a lot of the agency and a lot of the. Like the. A lot of the impact of the original game where the murder happens because James. [01:27:29] Speaker B: James is selfish. [01:27:30] Speaker A: James is selfish, but also is like constantly being told by her that there is no reason for her to keep on living because she's lost all hope. Hope. And so there's an aspect where he believes in certain endings. It's a selfish thing. [01:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:44] Speaker A: And other kind of endings. It's like him just realizing that there is a selfishness to it, but also there was kind of like a martyrdom. He was trying to just do Something horrible to give the person he loved the most peace and has this kind of back and forth to it. And when you have Mary basically giving him an out, that kind of ruins that. That's not even the worst part, in my opinion. In the movie, they decide that the characters Laura, Maria and Angela are all different versions of Mary. In the. In the game, it's Maria. And Maria is less than a version of Mary and more like James's version of Mary that I think more of like the. The part of his brain that he doesn't admit. He kind of probably wished Maria, Mary was more. [01:28:37] Speaker B: His wife was more kind of fetishized. [01:28:40] Speaker A: Fetishized version of her. [01:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:41] Speaker A: And more just kind of like mysterious and more kind of sexual and more kind of like, you know, basically hornier version of his own wife, which is basically like there's. There's guilt attached to it because he's fetishizing his wife, who at the time is like dying of a disease you don't know of. And in the movie, in return to Silent Hill, they decide to have Maria still be that Laura, who is nothing like Laura, is the only normal ish character in Silent Hill 2. Turns her into like. Oh, she's actually a version of Mary's fucked up childhood. And then Angela, they turn from her own character into a version of Mary that I believe is assuming has been assaulted by her father. [01:29:30] Speaker B: Right. [01:29:30] Speaker A: And so. And they introduce this. They introduce this idea. I have to find it. I'm actually. No, it's stupid. Regardless of it's. Whether I say it right or I say it wrong, it's still stupid. There's. They basically, James finds this headstone for Mary and I believe it says something like, mary Angela, Laura Crane. Right. [01:29:55] Speaker B: Like, all of those are actually her name. [01:29:57] Speaker A: She has like four fucking names. And it is stupid. I don't fucking. [01:30:05] Speaker B: It's also, you know, the movie still treats it like a big reveal when like the whole time they're all played by the same actress. [01:30:12] Speaker A: That's the thing too is I think Angela threw me off initially because one. Her design I think is just different enough. Like she wears like a white sweater and she's got like short black. [01:30:21] Speaker B: She's kind of closed in. [01:30:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:23] Speaker B: Show her face a lot. [01:30:24] Speaker A: Yeah. In return, they just like make her look shittier and just kind of like she. Yeah, she doesn't show her face a lot. And I didn't even know it was her Anderson, until I think after we saw it. [01:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:35] Speaker A: And I went. They really just made her do that. Yeah. [01:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, man. [01:30:38] Speaker A: She was doing triple duty in the shitty movie. Damn good for her. I guess she's making it work. But yeah, it just, it really just makes all those years of Gantz being like, I really want to do Silent Hill 2. It does have that energy of. [01:30:54] Speaker B: Wait, what, what, [01:30:57] Speaker A: what does your version of this movie look like? If there's no studio interference? If that's the main reason. Yeah, because I'm telling you this, if there's no studio interference and it still has Mary giving James the out to Killer and Laura or like and the Mary Laura Angela Crane reveal, I'm telling you now, it's still fucking stupid and not a good adaptation of the book of the game. Like it's, it really is just like I, I wonder how people who liked the movies but never played the games feel watching this movie. Because there's clear. I mean again, there's definitely people out there that like the original movie and will probably be like, oh, they're actually making another Silent Hill. Oh, maybe this is a good one. [01:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:41] Speaker A: And then he goes, oh, they have the original director of the first movie. Well clear. That's leasing up. I mean, literally. When we finished rewatching Silent Hill, like separately, I texted Andy. Honestly, Gonz being back kind of gets me a little bit more hope for Return to Silent Hill. [01:31:57] Speaker B: I think, like, bring some of the atmosphere. Yeah. [01:31:59] Speaker A: And to be honest, while it does like, it is very noticeable, the Gonz films versus the one that isn't directed by him. It is just baffling the how the choices that like, yeah, I get the studio interference, but do you really have to make it all merry? It's enough, it's enough in the game when she's just kind of like constantly the driving force for James. But everyone's asking like, yeah, but like, did you really love her? Like, what's going on? Like, isn't she supposed to be dead, man? He's like, I will. [01:32:34] Speaker B: I mean, it's kind of that age old problem with like movie adaptations where they just over overly streamline everything. Yeah. Instead of bothering to put in all the work to develop all these people as individual characters, there's just like, what if they're all his wife in different forms? [01:32:56] Speaker A: And then like the psychiatrist shit. There's a moment where he, where he gets, he gets like stabbed. He like basically gets put into a dream sequence where he's told it's all a dream, James, Mary didn't die. And it like distracts the film from like a solid 10 minutes. [01:33:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:12] Speaker A: And then he comes out of it. It doesn't matter. [01:33:15] Speaker B: Right. [01:33:16] Speaker A: He makes him, I think, think of another flashback. So it's like a flashback into a dream from a flash. It's like fucking stupid. And then he gets out of that and then runs it to Maria again. And then they get like. They get dropped in a labyrinth, which. Yes, there's a labyrinth in the game, but it's so. It looks like. It looks like a hedge maze kind of. [01:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:35] Speaker A: So stupid. And then it introduces, you know, Pyramid Head is a prominent part of the. It is. Silent Hill 2 is the game that introduces Pyramid Head into the franchise. And even then he was, I think, just called Red Pyramid back then. He wasn't even Pyramid Head. I think it's just something they added later. [01:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, they changed his name listed in the credits as Red Pyramid in this. Yeah. [01:33:58] Speaker A: Because in the game, when you're introduced to him, the first time you're introduced to him, you're in a dark hallway and you just see him standing there with a red light on him and he does nothing. It just looks at you and his no eye look just like his head's just like pointed towards you. And they kind of do that in this movie a little bit, but they still do it in the shittier way. Or just like he's still trying to stab through the bars and shit. But James at one point uses Red Pyramid to kill Maria because he now realizes that the pyramids are his. [01:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:32] Speaker A: Here's the thing, though. Him using them is fucking malicious and diabolical. The whole thing in the game about them is that they are a manifestation of his violence towards Mary, but also kind of towards women in general. Or at least his feeling of, like, him killing Mary is like something kind of ingrained and, like, into this rage against women that, like, is not necessarily true, but is now kind of like, [01:35:00] Speaker B: you know, kind of side to his [01:35:02] Speaker A: psychology, though, and is used as like a. A driving force to kind of be in his head to feel like more of a hero because he has an antagonist. Antagonist following him only to find out the antagonist following him is just his own murder. [01:35:17] Speaker B: Right. [01:35:17] Speaker A: It's just him realizing that, like, it's his. It's his own rage, it's his own violent urges that he has kind of pushed back. Since the murder. [01:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:26] Speaker A: Since the death of his wife. And then ultimately, like, at the end of Silent Hill 2, the game is like, the second to last thing you do is confront the Pyramids because you actually fight two of them at the end of the game. Because it's also kind of implied that that one pyramid is supposed to be for, like, Mary's death. And then later on after. In Silent Hill 2, in the original game, you actually have to fight and kill Eddie. You get two pyramids that pop up all of a sudden now. And so it's almost like James confronting the two killings, two vastly different types of killing, but like two of the murders that he has committed and basically accepting that he has done them. And that, like, I understand why you are a part of me and I, you are existing as a manifestation of those things because I don't want them to be a part of me. It's better to treat them as violent forces. But I. I accept you now and I accept you're a part of me, regardless of if I like it or not. [01:36:22] Speaker B: And then they all hug, right? [01:36:24] Speaker A: No, actually, they take their spears, they jam them into the ground, and they shove their pyramid heads on spears and then they die. And that's the end of pyramid head in, like those games. It's like. It is kind of like that. It is. The whole thing about Silent Hill 2 gets again towards the end is when it's revealed that James killed Mary. It is now in terms of which ending you want. Do you want the ending where he's selfish and just would rather accept that his wife is out there, but they just don't work out anymore and he doesn't want to accept the fact that he killed her? Does he want to move on? Does he want to kill himself because of what he did to his wife? Or maybe even a possibility of rebirth? Maybe there's an alternate reality where Mary and James do work and it doesn't end up like this. And that's the game in that kind of regard. And in the movie it basically goes, [01:37:20] Speaker B: ah, [01:37:23] Speaker A: give you like, maybe two of the endings. He accepts it. He accepts that he kills her. But it's not. It's not the. But it's not the ending from the game where he accepts he kills her. Because the whole thing about that is [01:37:36] Speaker B: that it's more that he accepts that it was okay because she told him to. Well, it's in the movie. [01:37:43] Speaker A: Yeah. It's one of those things where, like, by the end of it, you realize that a lot of the. The feelings of I deserve every evil thing to happen to me is really. It is just his own guilt. [01:37:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:53] Speaker A: When in reality, I think Mary would. Mary does understand why he did what he did in that. Because I think it is the end of two, which honestly is one of the reasons why the game is great in my Opinion is the final act of the game. Even if the final bosses are not great, it still is something that is, like, I think has a lot of good narrative and, like, acting moments, especially from Mary. It does have that energy of, if you are. If you were so selfish, take, like, killing me. Why are you so, like, hurt? Why are you, like, still guilting yourself over it? If you were this selfish and you were like, you did this only because you were sick of me, why would you still mourn me? And then that has that conversation, the energy of, like, okay, that is. He makes realizes to him that, like, there was a part of him that was doing it in his sense and altruistic. Kind of like doing it for the woman he loved because he didn't want her to be in pain anymore. But that could also be true that he was selfish and killed her because he was sick of having to take care of his dying wife, who was never getting better. It ultimately leads him to just accept it in certain endings and. Or at least one specific ending. There's also the dog ending, but we don't have to get into it where it was all a. She knew IBU the whole. Or she be knew the whole time. But yeah, it's. It's more fun to talk about Silent Hill 2 as a game than it is to talk about Return to Silent Hill. As you can tell by the. Was not meant to get into any kind of tangent with that because it's like, going into seeing this in theaters, it was fascinating because we were in a theater of people that couldn't give a flying. They were in a theater. [01:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:28] Speaker A: There's, like, one dude in front of us that was, like, constantly standing up and staring at the screen and then just being, like, annoying. And it was also, like, we were both like. I mean, is this really hurting the experience? [01:39:40] Speaker B: Right. [01:39:40] Speaker A: Which really shows. [01:39:41] Speaker B: He's on the phone at one point. [01:39:43] Speaker A: He might have been. And then, like, his friends around him were like, what are you doing? He's like, I don't know. [01:39:48] Speaker B: Yeah. We were also both struggling to fight sleep during the fight. [01:39:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. For a second, I shut my eyes for, I think was 30 seconds. And then when I open them back up, I, like, got back into the movie. And then I got scared that, like, I missed Eddie dying. But it turns out, no, you just [01:40:11] Speaker B: kind of ran out of frame. [01:40:12] Speaker A: Eddie was just in two scenes, and that was it. Yeah. This was a movie that was hard to really keep interested because it's. The worst part is it's fucking boring. [01:40:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:21] Speaker A: Like, it is not full blown dog shit. It's a bad movie. But it is. It's bad and boring. And unfortunately, all the things that I can kind of, I guess, give props to can never get over that hump of being bad and boring. [01:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:37] Speaker A: And that is Return to Silent Hill. That is the Silent Hill trilogy. It is, it is a classic case of, you know, adaptation. Like how far in terms of an adaptation do you really take it with changing elements of it as well as just, you know, how do you take something, again, that is a. An immersive format and put it into a most. Just in terms of a visual kind of engagement, no kind of player feedback whatsoever in that first movie. While I think it does a really good job of establishing why Silent Hill is such an interesting franchise and it's end in its environments, in its imagery, in its aesthetic, the latter two films kind of miss the point in terms of just doing almost like cheap references to the games they're adapting while also trying to be maybe very viscerally violent and gory or just, you know, unnecessarily slow and sad. [01:41:38] Speaker B: Currently on. What is it? Week three. [01:41:42] Speaker A: Oh, my God. I don't know. [01:41:43] Speaker B: It has made its budget. Return to Silent Hill. [01:41:49] Speaker A: Oh, it just made. It just made its budget. [01:41:50] Speaker B: Yeah. But I don't even think it's really on screens anymore. [01:41:56] Speaker A: I was gonna say, I mean, what was that? A knock at the door? Oh, that's Red Pyramid. He brought us our Return to Silent Hill Steelbooks. So we don't even have to. Oh my gosh. They're a gift. Thank you. [01:42:07] Speaker B: Oh, actually there is one showing tomorrow at our local amc, so it is [01:42:12] Speaker A: still in theaters right before everything else comes out. Yeah, yeah, it's. I know Gonz, at one point, I think has said to some of these screenings that there's a 4K release of silent Hill and I'm curious if there. If they add more content to that. What it looks like it would actually be kind of cool to see that in 4K and cool that he's doing that. Apparently he's also working. It's. Even though Return to Silent Hill was not a good video game adaptation, he is in fact working on another video game adaptation. He's working on Fatal Foam Frame, which is a Japanese centric ghost story survival horror game. It's where you. The way you defeat ghosts in that game is you take pictures of them. [01:42:54] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [01:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess he's working on that and he's kind of like, yeah. If I could make Return to Silent Hill director's cut. I would do that, but considering how it's doing, I'm not really hopeful on that. [01:43:06] Speaker B: Well, it also took him forever to finally like make the movie. [01:43:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And honestly, it's not really killing Silent Hill as a franchise again. It is at a resurgence. We've already been told that the same team that made The Silent Hill 2 remake is making a remake of Silent Hill 1 as well as I think there are other two Silent Hill projects in development. Konami, I think, said last year when F came out that their plate is to have a new Silent Hill project every year until the foreseeable future. Which if we can get at least three consistent years of good shit. Or at least actually no four or five, because, I mean, because with two and F, technically we've had two years, but man, if we can get like another two years of consistent Silent Hill, that's better than like the mid. The mid era. [01:43:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:43:56] Speaker A: But yeah, a little spooky treat in February after we talked about our big old big fat Greek Wedding. Now we're getting into March and we are actually going into still an oppressive dark tone, but less supernatural and more of a sci fi, dark sci fi era. Last year we covered the Pat labor trilogy. [01:44:22] Speaker B: That's right. [01:44:22] Speaker A: And one of those films was directed by Mamaru Oshii. Yeah, well. [01:44:28] Speaker B: And he was kind of part of the Headgear team that created Pat labor, so his brainchild. So we're returning to his creative space. [01:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And around the time before he does Ghost in the shell in 95, he actually had a. A collaborative collective that is outside of Headgear. Yeah. That Andy has told me has hit like 80 different forms of media in terms of comics or just. [01:44:59] Speaker B: It's a bunch of different titles. All it's a cross media, I guess, franchise, you'd call it books, comics, light novels, animation, live action radio plays, web content. Like it's all of this stuff tied together. [01:45:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fucking crazy. And the thing that when he pitched this to me, the final film in this trilogy is actually the only thing I've heard about with this. [01:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the only thing most people know about. [01:45:31] Speaker A: And it's only the tip of the iceberg for what the series is. And that is the Kerberos Saga or the Kerberos Trilogy. [01:45:39] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's the three feature films in the Kerberos Saga which as mentioned is a bunch of titles of varying different media all related to this post apocalyptic fascist sci fi dystopian story. Most of them, I think most of the Separate titles are all just kind of like vaguely related vignettes set in this world, which is also the case with these three films. But yeah, this. This constitutes a trilogy in that it is the only feature films in the Kerberos Saga. [01:46:21] Speaker A: Yes. [01:46:22] Speaker B: And I think probably just by nature of being films, three of the more well known entries in the Kerberos Saga [01:46:30] Speaker A: and only that from the first film to the third film chronologically in universe is reverse. [01:46:36] Speaker B: Yes. So the way they released is the opposite of the order they take place in. [01:46:41] Speaker A: And Those films are 1987's the Red Spectacles, 1991's Stray Dog, Kerberos Panzer Cops, and 1999's the Wolf Brigade. Yeah, I'm very excited for this one because this is an Andy pitch to me. And I know Jinro just because of just a love of animation. Oshi is just an icon in the space. Hilariously. He just came out, I think, a few days ago saying he has 10,000 hours in Fallout 4. It's like one of his favorite games of all time. Just out of nowhere, just talking about that. [01:47:17] Speaker B: But yeah, and Red Spectacles in March is getting a 4K restoration. And at least in Japan. Don't know if it's coming to the States yet, but in Japan is getting a theatrical re release. [01:47:31] Speaker A: It's also fully live action, right? [01:47:34] Speaker B: Red Spectacles is fully live action. I think Stray Dog is a mix of live action and animation. And then Jinro is fully anime. [01:47:42] Speaker A: Sorry, I was gonna say this. Stray Dog is the Song of the south of the trilogy. [01:47:49] Speaker B: Mamoru Oshi's Song of the South. [01:47:54] Speaker A: It was so stupid in my head, but I knew it would be the only thing I could bring up because I think a hybrid. There's Space Jam and other shit. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But Song of the south just was like the most random pull I could think of. But yeah, tune in on March when we talk about the Kerberos Trilogy. And as always, I'm Logan Somash. [01:48:15] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [01:48:16] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening. Bye.