Return to Silent Hill - Movie Review

Return to Silent Hill - 2026 Movie Review

In the previous article, we covered the pre-release information about the movie "Return to Silent Hill". There you can see new designs of the characters (with my wry commentary), look at the monsters, and read about the project's backstory. If you missed it all, here's the link:

>> All about the Movie <<

And today, we'll have a detailed review of RtSH. Here, we'll examine all the good points and flaws of the new movie. And find out whether director Christophe Gans has managed to create a worthy adaptation of the iconic horror game.

A Strange Reimagining
of Silent Hill 2

The first thing you need to know about "Return to Silent Hill" is that the movie is very different from the game. It's not just a retelling of the story from Silent Hill 2, but a very loose reimagining. In fact, it's even more loose than Christophe Gans's previous film.

Remember how the director combined the stories of SH1 and SH3 in the first movie? Here, he repeated this move once again, mixing together plot elements from different games. Roughly 60% of the story is taken from SH2, 20% from SH1, and another 20% from Shattered Memories.

Also, Mr. Gans has gone even further—and decided to completely reinterpret the story of Silent Hill 2. That is, he'll change the explanation of events, rework the logic of the plot, and "reimagine" the characters' personalities and their roles in the story.

It's a very risky approach, but it has its own advantages. And actually I know some worthy adaptations of Japanese horror games that were created by using a similar approach.

For example, the Forbidden Siren Movie and the Serial Experiments Lain anime (which was based on the PS1 Lain game). The authors of these two adaptations also heavily reimagined the stories and mixed together a lot of plot elements. And in both cases, the result was quite successful.

Was Christophe Gans able to use such a risky approach properly and repeat this success, or did he fail miserably with his new movie? Let's move on to the review and find the answer to this question.

What I liked about the Movie

Let's start with the positive aspects of "Return to Silent Hill".

1) Since the scenario has been heavily altered, the movie retains a certain element of unpredictability even for those who've already completed the game. And it's quite capable of delivering surprises (though such twists won't appeal to everyone).

2) Thanks to this unpredictability (as well as some decent directing), the movie is engaging to watch. Personally, I didn't find it boring at all.

3) I was also surprised by the new plot twist near the end. I can't say that it's well thought out, but it provides an unusual interpretation of the events and characters of SH2. And it allows you to look at the story from a different perspective.

4) The film also interestingly combines the plot elements from SH2 and SH1. So fans of the first game will get their share of fan service and references.

5) The intrigue with actress Hannah Emily Anderson's multiple transformations was also quite cool. She plays several different characters at once, but each time her appearance changes beyond recognition. And when you finally realize it was the same actress, it makes a strong impact.

6) The monsters in the movie are recreated quite well, especially Lying Figure and the Nurses. And PyramidHead looks better here than in the previous two films.

7) The authors came up with new symbolism for PyramidHead's helmet, and this interpretation is quite original.

8) The symbolism with "Laura's toy" was also interesting. I won't spoil it—you'll find out for yourself when you watch the film.

9) At times, the director does a pretty good job of blurring the lines between reality, hallucinations, and memories. The first movie clearly lacked this kind of psychological mindscrew. But 20 years later, Christophe Gans has finally mastered this technique.

10) Composer Akira Yamaoka created a lot of cool music specifically for this movie. There are approximately 40 new tracks (many of them sound much like the music from SlitterHead), as well as about 10 remakes/remixes of the old tracks from Silent Hill 2. So if you liked the music from SlitterHead and SH2, then I recommend you to check out the movie's OST.

11) The authors have chosen very nice and fitting locations for the movie. In the previous article, we had a bunch of screenshots of various locations; you can check them out and judge for yourself. In my opinion, the observation deck is particularly impressive – it looks exactly like the place from the game.

12) Also, RtSH has some well-done "alteration" scenes where the world around us turns into a nightmare. There's even a scene where an entire town is "altered".

13) Visually, the movie looks quite nice (it's shot with a slight nod to films from the 90s and 2000s), and the cinematography is excellent. It's clear that the camera angles were carefully chosen for each scene.

Flaws and Shortcomings

Now let's examine the main flaws of the movie. Unfortunately, there are many of them, and they are quite serious.

1) The adaptation is too loose and changes the story too much. For many people, this will be a fatal flaw. Because they wanted to see a faithful adaptation of their favorite game, and not some fanfiction with weird fantasies.

2) The personalities and backstories of almost all the characters have been significantly altered. It feels as if our beloved characters were replaced with completely different heroes.

3) James is noticeably less likeable in the movie than in the game. From the very first scenes, he is presented as a drunken bar brawler, a reckless driver, and a womanizing pick-up artist. He was completely different person in the original game.

4) Angela's character also suffered considerably. And it's not just the bad redesign—the filmmakers have also heavily rewritten her story and omitted some important parts of it.

5) Maria's story is also shortened and truncated. And if you haven't played the game, you'll likely have no idea who Maria is or where she came from.

6) Eddie's entire story was essentially cut from the plot. Eddie appears only once in the entire film and plays no significant role in the events.

7) The new heroine (a female psychologist who provides counseling to James) turned out to be a completely useless and uninteresting character. It seems she was inserted into the story only as some kind of a reference to SH Shattered Memories.

8) All the dialogue in the movie is written much worse than in the original game (and even worse than in the SH2 Remake). And if you remember the dialogues from the game well, you'll facepalm every time when you see a clumsily rewritten versions of these scenes in the film.

9) Due to numerous plot changes and attempts to reinterpret events, the story's logic has suffered greatly. In some moments, the plot now looks like incoherent nonsense.

10) The theme of Mary's murder has been downplayed in the movie. It seems the director just forgot about it and then suddenly remembered it only at the very end. This partially distorts the entire concept and meaning of James's story.

11) In the last 30 minutes, the film's narrative becomes very jumbled. It feels like the filmmakers were desperately trying to squeeze the plot into the required running time.

12) Furthermore, more than half of SH2's plot has been omitted. After Brookhaven Hospital (which was roughly halfway through the game), the story jumps almost immediately to the ending.

13) Because of all this, there's a high risk of getting lost in the plot and feeling deeply confused by the end. This is especially true for those who haven't played Silent Hill 2.

14) One of the movie's main goals was to convey the story of SH2 to people who haven't played the game. But ultimately, the film is made in such a way that it will simply ruin the impression for all those people. Therefore, I don't recommend watching the film if you haven't played the game.

15) The movie isn't particularly scary. Personally, not a single scene scared me. Sometimes the director tries to create sudden jump scares, but they never work as intended and only cause cringe.

16) Also, RtSH failed to convey the melancholic feeling of wandering alone through a deserted town (which I always liked in SH2). James is almost never alone, and there are not many scenes set on the streets of the town.

17) Akira Yamaoka wrote many good tracks, but his music is used in the movie in a terrible way. Often, the music and songs are inserted out of place. Or the excerpts are so short that you don't even have time to listen to them properly. And many great tracks weren't included in the film at all. But you can listen to them to your heart's content on the official soundtrack (which is available for download online).

Conclusion

Overall, the movie turned out to be quite weak. I can only recommend it to those who want to see a high-budget Silent Hill 2 fanfiction with a new (and weird) interpretation of the story. But other fans will likely be disappointed by such a loose adaptation.

And the saddest thing about this situation is that "Return to Silent Hill" destroys the possibility of seeing a faithful SH2 film in the near future. Fans have dreamed of a movie version of their beloved story for 25 years, but in the end they got almost a parody. And now they're doomed to wait another 20-30 years until someday Konami finally decides to make a more faithful movie.