Prime Time: Return To Silent Hill (2026)

A friend of mine recently watched Return To Silent Hill and commented that it was somewhat akin to a number of the cut scenes from Silent Hill 2 being stitched together without any real care or consideration for other standard movie elements. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but that seems to have summed up her opinion. I can't really disagree, but I somehow enjoyed this much more than I expected to.

Jeremy Irvine plays James Sunderland, a man who enters the town of Silent Hill as he spends time looking for his lost love, Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson). Once there, he starts to see some very strange and disturbing sights, and also meets a few other lost souls, one of them looking VERY similar to Mary.

A return to the movie series for director Christophe Gans, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sandra Vo-Anh and William Josef Schneider, this is a ambient mood piece that probably works best as background noise for fans of Silent Hill 2. I've just started exploring that videogame world, although I have some recollection of my time playing the very first game back on the PSOne, and even I felt a comforting familiarity as soon as the early scenes of the movie made it clear that the plot here was sticking very close to the popular game.

The environment is well-rendered and feels very much how it should be. It's mist-filled, many buildings look spoiled in some way, and the more creepy creations move and threaten as they should. It's just a real shame that I cared less about the main character here than I did when he was under my control on my videogame console.

Irvine has his work cut out from him, with most of his performance relying on him to look either bewildered or sad, but he doesn't help himself. Maybe it's the direction, but Irvine feels even more lifeless and noncorporeal than anything else onscreen. Okay, that feeds into some of the main themes of the story, but it doesn't make for an engaging and watchable main character. Anderson does much better, perfectly embodying a welcome bit of light in the encroaching darkness of the town. As for the other cast members who appear, the best ones are the physical performers who end up credited with descriptions like "armless", "spider lady", "nurse", and, of course, "Pyramid Head".

It's a shame that this does nothing interesting with the property, and I can understand people being annoyed by how relatively hollow and dull it is, but I must say that it worked for me. Maybe that's because it just felt like playing through the game without the risk of frustration or unexpected death, two things which happen to me often when I am attempting to overcome my serious videogaming limitations. I can still see that it doesn't work well as a movie, but it works well enough as a collage of Silent Hill 2 highlights.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Lord Of Misrule (2023)

I might not have taken a chance on Lord Of Misrule if I'd remembered some of the past films from the director and writer. William Brent Bell has more good than bad in his filmography, just, but writer Tom de Ville was responsible for one of the worst mainstream modern horror movies of the last decade (although his screenplay for The Quiet Ones was then filtered so thoroughly through a trio of other writers that I barely mentioned him in my review of it). Anyway, it's thanks to the cast that I decided to give this a go. I am glad that I did.

Tuppence Middleton plays Rebecca Holland, a new minister in a small country village. The area has the usual traditions and local lore that you'd expect to encounter, especially if you have seen any folk horror movie over the years, but Rebecca tries to balance her traditional approach to ministering with the unique sensibilities of the locals. Things change for the worse when her daughter, Grace (Evie Templeton), goes missing, leading both Rebecca and her husband, Henry (Matt Stokoe), to believe that everyone around them is actually conspiring to ensure that there's not going to be a happy resolution to the situation. Jocelyn Abney (Ralph Ineson) should know how this feels, having lost his own son about twelve years ago, but he's resolute in his belief that everything happens for a very good reason.

There's nothing here that is going to surprise anyone with even the slightest experience with movies in this vein, but neither Bell nor De Ville ever attempt to convince viewers that they are looking to surprise anyone or create something startling new to add to this particular area of the horror landscape. It may be a bit too predictable and derivative, but at least there are a number of individual moments that all simply work. There's less chance to build a sense of dread when you know roughly what's going to happen, but Brett Detar tries to help with his musical score, and Simon Rowling's cinematography also helps add to the atmosphere.

The biggest plus point that the movie has is Ineson though, a fantastic actor who is used to great effect here. Brooding, often slightly ambiguous even as everything around him becomes much more overt and obvious, and with that distinctive voice making every word he utters feel like a tombstone being moved into place, Ineson is the essential ingredient that helps to make this a success. Not to take too much away from Middleton, Stokoe, and Templeton, or anyone else appearing onscreen. Everyone delivers solid performances, whether they are shown acting in a relatively normal manner, or getting ready to don masks and robes and join in with the kind of festivities that would amuse and please Lord Summerisle.

I liked this. A quick look around shows that most people didn’t, and the main complaint tends to be the familiar feeling that permeates it, as well as many claiming that it just isn’t scary. I can see their point, but I felt that the atmosphere and pacing worked well, even as I knew where we would be heading for the third act.

7/10

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