I wouldn't look behind you right now.
Silent Hill: Revelation (also known as Silent Hill: Revelation 3D) is a 2012 horror film written and directed by MJ Bassett (Solomon Kane). It is the sequel to Silent Hill (2006) and the second installment in the film series based on the Konami video game series Silent Hill, taking most of its story from the third game.
Six years after the first film, 18-year-old Sharon Da Silva, now calling herself Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens), is forced to go to the infernal town of Silent Hill to find her father, Christopher/Harry Mason (Sean Bean), after the Order of Valtiel kidnaps him. Upon arriving in Silent Hill, Heather is drawn into a strange and terrifying alternate reality that holds answers to the horrific nightmares that have plagued her since childhood.
Additional cast includes Martin Donovan (as Douglas Cartland), Kit Harington (as Vincent Cooper), Carrie-Anne Moss (as Claudia Wolf), and Malcolm McDowell (as Leonard Wolf). Also returning from the first film are Radha Mitchell (as Rose Da Silva) and Deborah Unger (as Dahlia Gillespie), though their roles in Revelation are relatively smaller.
A sequel and reboot, Return to Silent Hill, was confirmed in 2022 as being in development. It will be an adaptation of the second game in the series.
This film features the following tropes:
- Actionized Sequel: Although still focused on horror, this film skips the slow decay that characterizes the first in favor of fast-moving monsters and a final battle between Pyramid Head and the Missionary form of Claudia.
- Adaptation Expansion: In Silent Hill 3 the mannequin room is a small storage space with a noteworthy jump scare. Revelation expands it into a vast labyrinth ruled by a mannequin monster.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Revelation attempts to be more faithful to its respective game, but in doing so it also contradicts virtually the entire first film
, which this is supposed to be a sequel to. - Age Lift: This version of Vincent is the same age and attends the same school as Heather.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The image song for the Japanese version is "Claymore" by Gackt
- Amusement Park of Doom: Lakeside Amusement Park.
- And I Must Scream: The fate of trespassers who end up in the mannequin room.
- Ankle Drag: Poor Suki
- Ascended Extra: Pyramid Head has a bigger role here. He only appeared in two scenes in the previous film, whereas not only does Pyramid Head have a little more screentime but he also has a role as Heather’s protector and having a fight with the Missionary.
- BFS: Pyramid Head wields one.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The battle between The Missionary and Pyramid Head takes place inside a circle of flames that cuts them off from everybody else.
- Bedlam House: Brookhaven Asylum.
- Bittersweet Ending: Even though Heather saves her father and Vincent, defeats the Order of Valtiel and saves Alessa from her own rage, Silent Hill itself is not cleansed, and continues to welcome more lost souls - its next visitor being Murphy Pendleton.
- Big Damn Heroes: Courtesy of Pyramid Head.
- Bloodless Carnage: The image in the poster actually happens in the film. It is followed by Pyramid Head hacking all those limbs off their owners. No blood happens, despite arms raining into the shot.
- Averted in the very next scene (Nurses).
- Brick Joke: In Silent Hill: Downpour Harry inexplicably appears near the end of the Clocktower level. At the end of the film he is shown walking to Silent Hill, The Town starting up again, and the prison transport carrying Murphy entering the town.
- Burger Fool: Happy Burger
- Call-Back: This poster◊ to the first film's poster.◊
- The Cameo: Travis Grady, the protagonist of Silent Hill: Origins picks up Heather and Vincent at the end of the film while driving past the prison convoy carrying Murphy Pendleton from Silent Hill: Downpour.
- Radha Mitchell and Deborah Unger are esentially making cameos, appearing in one scene each. Rose's appearance feels particularily shoehorned.
- Catapult Nightmare: Heather has plenty over Silent Hill.
- Chronically Killed Actor: Subverted. It appears Sean Bean (Harry) is going to be killed at first, but in the end he survives to the end of the film. Still more amusing as this is the second film in the same franchise Sean Bean has survived, and more than a few viewers joked that the entire reason they made a sequel in the first place was that they'd forgotten to kill him off in the first movie.
- Chickification: Heather, as opposed to Heather in Silent Hill 3.
- Composite Character: While Valtiel is named-dropped a couple times and appears in effigy, Pyramid Head mostly takes over his role from the games as the figure that follows and watches over Heather.
- Continuity Snarl: The motives of the town's cult and Dark Alessa are pretty much the exact opposites of their motives in the first film here, both during this film's plot and retroactively, to the extent that the reason for Sharon and Rose to go to Silent Hill in the first film - thus setting up the events of this sequel - is actually written out and never replaced.
- Cooldown Hug: Pretty much how Heather defeats Dark Alessa.
- Cool vs. Awesome: Pyramid Head vs the Missionary.
- Corrupt Church: The Order.
- Distressed Dudes: Harry and Vincent Cooper.
- Death by Adaptation: Douglas Cartland is killed by Claudia whereas in the game she only wounds him and he survives to become a sort of Parental Substitute to Heather.
- Death from Above: Douglas gets yanked up through a grate by The Missionary
- Demoted to Extra: Rose Da Silva and Dahlia Gillespie go from being major characters in the previous film to just being cameos in Revelation.
- Dream Within a Dream: The film starts out with one of these. After a gruesome dream that ends with Heather being burned alive, she wakes screaming to be comforted by her father. Just when she's starting to relax, he's stabbed through the chest and she wakes again rattled.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: The Seal of Metatron shows the "truth" of things, which manifests as transforming people who are monstrous on the inside into outward forms that match. Leonard undergoes a Voluntary Transformation into a hulking creature after getting ahold of it, and touching it reveals Claudia to be The Missionary.
- Expy: The tarantula monster is an embellished version of Scarlet.
- Eye Scream: One of the Order Brethren dies after a Nurse stabs him in the eye with a scalpel.
- Fingore: Happens to Douglas courtesy of the Missionary.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the scene with the nurses, in the background is an x-ray of the Missionary's head.
- Gas Mask Mooks: The Bretheren. The in-universe justification is that they won't breathe the air of the Darkness, which they believe will corrupt them. When Heather yanks one's mask off, he immediately starts choking up black liquid.
- Giant Spider: Not literally but it's made of mannequins.◊
- Guardian Entity: Pyramid Head is said to be Alessa's protector and executioner. It's implied that Alessa directed him to save Heather in the Asylum, and after Heather and Alessa are reunited, Pyramid Head comes to protect her from Claudia.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Vincent is remarkably able to just take off on a school night to drive Heather to Silent Hill. Subverted—it's because his mother is Claudia and sent him to do just that.
- Heel–Face Turn: Douglas Cartland gets one very early on, once he realizes he's not exactly working for the good guys.
- Vincent may have set a world speed record for it, not that he was exactly evil to begin with.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Attempted by Vincent to lead the Order soldiers away from Heather. He survives, but he seriously underestimated the number of soldiers and only led a few away.
- Humanoid Abomination: It would be easier to list the characters in this film that are honest to goodness real humans.
- I Choose to Stay: Harry stays in Silent Hill at the end to search for Rose, trusting Vincent to keep Heather safe.
- Jump Scare: All the freaking time, including one courtesy of a pop tart.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Heather is clearly quite lonely from constantly having to hide and lie about herself, which plays a role in why she is so quick to open up to Vincent; with her father missing, the next closest thing she has to a friend is a guy she's known for barely a day.
- Kissing Cousins: Claudia is Christabella's sister. In the first film, Dahlia was Christabella's sister, which would logically make Claudia Dahlia's sister too. Vincent is Claudia's son, Alessa is Dahlia's daughter, and Heather is really Alessa, so Vincent and Heather are cousins as well as love interests. The writer of the film appears to have missed this, as the Dahlia-Christabella connection isn't mentioned.
- Living Memory: The "Memory of Alessa".
- Metaphorically True: Christopher told Sharon that she had been in an accident and that her mother had saved her but was now gone. Which is true, but the car accident was the least of what happened to them, and Rose actually sent Sharon back to him at the cost of remaining trapped.
- Monster Clown: Heather 'halluncinates' several juggalo-type children with disturbing clown make up in the mall.
- Mythology Gag: There are numerous nods to the game series.
- Harry's notebook contains an illustration of a Mumbler.
- When Heather enters the asylum, several phones can be heard making noise, in reference to the anonymous phone calls she receives in-game.
- One of the false names Heather used was Mary.
- Heather wields a metal pipe against Douglas, one of the weapons she wields early in the game.
- The mannequin sequence is a nod to a scare in the game where Heather is scared by a decapitated mannequin head.
- The numerous appearances of Robbie the Rabbit.
- Alessa and Leonard both make references to how Silent Hill appears differently to each individual per game.
- Rose returns Sharon to the real world through a mirror, similar to how mirrors served as gates between the Other World and the Fog World in Silent Hill: Origins
- Now or Never Kiss: Vincent kisses Heather before running off to draw away the Order's soldiers, thinking he won't survive it. He does.
- One-Winged Angel: Claudia turns into the Missionary during the final fight.
- Leonard undergoes a similar transformation when he absorbs the Seal.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping/Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Both Sean Bean and Kit Harrington are ostensibly playing Americans. Your Mileage May Vary as to how convincing either of them are. Leonard Wolfe, on the other hand, apparently emigrated to Silent Hill from England.
- The Power of Love: Implied to be what allows Sharon to absorb Alessa rather than the other way around; the original script even gives her a line about love being stronger than hate.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Vincent. Which is squick when you realize Heather and Vincent are cousins. (He's Claudia's son, Claudia is Christabella's sister and Christabella is Dahlia's sister, and Heather is Alessa, who is Dahlia's daughter.)
- Recursive Reality: Leonard's belief about the world(s) and Silent Hill.
- Related in the Adaptation: Vincent is Claudia's son in the movie, whereas in the original game they were unrelated other than both being members of the Order (and also apparently much closer in age). Unfortunately contributes to the case of Kissing Cousins outlined above.
- Sequel Hook: There are three blatant references to other games at the end, one for the prequel. Basset was definitely leaving room for another movie, although thanks to the panning of this film it may not happen.
- Christopher stays behind to look for Rose.
- It is Travis Grady who picks up Heather and Vincent, and he comments he hasn't been this way in a long time.
- After Vincent and Heather leave Silent Hill, a prison truck followed by a police car drives into Silent Hill, the fog falls, and the ash begins to fall again, showing that though they've stopped the cultists, the town itself is not cleansed, and is now welcoming Murphy Pendleton...
- Spared by the Adaptation: Vincent and Harry survive the film, also the Memory of Alessa is absorbed into Heather... so Alessa as well.
- The Stinger: Pyramid Head heads through the sanctuary, dragging his sword behind him.
- Truer to the Text: A case of this trope backfiring. Given how the first film diverged from the lore of the games in some important ways, this film attempting to hew closer to the games simply produced continuity errors and Voodoo Shark moments.
- You're Insane!: An unexpected villain-to-hero example. Claudia tells Vincent he's insane when he says Heather is not evil.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The "Heather is a murder suspect" subplot is completely dropped by the end of the first act, and never mentioned again. Even if it was brought up again, by the end of the film it's more of a moot point than anything.
- Villainous Rescue: Pyramid Head.
- Voodoo Shark: For every question this movie supposedly answers (or tries to), it simply raises a dozen other questions.
