maybe they're just a big fan of the southwestern finnish city

i may jump ship after the monthly reward reset anyhow bc i do Not enjoy having to carry a club by being like a top 3 fan earner on a regular basis. no wonder we're hardstuck in b rank

i at least try to be courteous and throw in long, medium, mile, and sprint ones... do not make me have to only run dirt umas to stock up these fuckass shoes, most dirt umas can't even run the triple crown so i'm fucked in terms of gaining fans...

hell, pyramid head in the first movie feels much more in line with his canonical potrayal than in this one!!!!!! his inclusion may not make sense in the first, but at least he's not running after rose in poorly implemented action scenes, making LITERAL "rawr rawr" noises

tl;dr: this shit is so ass

not tl;dr: read the thread below i guess

bsky.app/profile/scal...

the first sh movie isn't great, and is arguably the harbinger of Pyramid Head Fucking Everywhere All The Time, but it's a downright tour de force when put up against the silent hill movies that followed. it at least passes a sort of vibe check, in getting the atmosphere of the town extremely right

tbf, this movie is at its best when it's copying the game's homework. maria's cunty costume is better than her business casual looking ass in the remake, at the very minimum... but it's extremely unearned. they'll literally play random tracks from the sh2 ost and expect you to clap like a seal

btw i find it almost funny that a movie based on a game blatantly inspired by jacob's ladder doesn't even try to import anything from jacob's ladder. jacob's ladder is RIGHT THERE in terms of potential cinematic inspo, but i guess the director just watched a cutscene compilation for the game instead

laura's presence in the story adds no contrast or levity to the heavy plot, because her job is now to be an extension of mary, as well as a comically spookified and ominous horror movie child. she literally crawls around like a creature at one point

the fact that they sacrifice angela's very visceral and real story of familial abuse, of being raped by her father and brother and victim blamed for it by her mother, and turn it into essentially a shocking blood orgy backstory reveal for mary feels extremely in poor taste

because of all the changes, they can't even give ambiguity to why james kills mary (i.e. whether he was resentful of her or misguidedly trying to put her out of her misery), they just have her tell him to choke her out in a flashback and he does it while crying and screaming and shitting and pissing

they don't have the balls to depict the mary/james relationship with all its complexities. mary is a sexually abused damsel and james is a shitty boyfriend who abandons her with her abusers (because the script needs him to be estranged from her) but is still more or less portrayed as a good person

having every character except james be originally from silent hill diminishes the mystique of sh as sort of an eldritch location that lures in people with particular types of trauma, guilt, or baggage. the attempts to add in the cult stuff diminish the psychological aspects of the original story

the og cast of the game was entirely delegated to "rando who shows up to be spooky at james for a bit". i get that you have to cut things out in adapting a video game but be fucking for real, sh2 is an 8 hour game. eddie is barely there, maria is barely there, laura and angela are... fucking bad

meanwhile, this film was constantly padding for time with additional cast who brought nothing to the table, as well as lengthy flashbacks that mainly seemed to exist to try and convince us that james had any reason to give a shit about mary (they aren't even married in this because for some reason?)

pacing: basically a speedrun of the key locations from the game. pyramid head is there, mainly to ensure the film has no time to breathe while he runs after james bc he's a big spooky monster. the nurses are there bc they're contractually obligated to show up and moan/writhe for a couple minutes

alas, neither copying the shot composition for the opening cinematic nor blasting a couple seconds of theme of laura at me before the credits could salvage this mess. it really did feel like return to silent hill was basically treating you as the viewer like a small child with unmedicated adhd

genuinely don't even know where to begin here. i was trying to take the pov of someone watching this without any context from the game, so as to enjoy it for what it is, but it was pretty damn hard considering this movie is basically constantly jingling visual sh2 references AND its ost in your face