Return to Silent Hill

Return to Silent Hill has that strange, almost pop quality where the emotion is palpable even when the meaning remains unclear: ashes fall like unhealthy snow, sirens tear through the air like a ritual, and you sense that Christophe Gans is aiming more for a romantic trance doomed to failure than a simple journey into a haunted town. James Sunderland (played by Jeremy Irvine) is drawn back by the call of Mary Crane (played by Hannah Emily Anderson), and the film relies heavily on their love story as its driving force, with flashbacks that constantly bring us back to what we have lost. As a cinematic approach, this makes sense: the film can't replicate hours of interactive angst, but the adaptation continues to muddle what should be very personal. Instead of letting guilt and grief remain intimate, the script continues to flirt with the broader mythology of the franchise, including cult detours, and this choice repeatedly detracts from what Silent Hill 2 is famous for: a restrained psychological descent that works precisely because it doesn't need to explain itself excessively.

Where the film undeniably finds its connection is in the nightmarish spectacle, especially when it feels tactile. The use of dancers in prosthetics gives certain creatures an unpleasant, distorted physicality, and Robert Strange's Red Pyramid remains the film's most imposing presence, a walking sentence dragging that blade like an audible threat. The nurses can still be frightening, and Christophe Gans sometimes rediscovers his talent for corridors that resemble gorges and spaces that seem to remember what happened inside them. But the film undermines its own atmosphere with a synthetic sheen: too many wide shots feel empty, like a warehouse/green screen rather than an abandoned town, and the CGI oscillates between effective and unfinished, which is fatal for Silent Hill, as the terror depends on your belief that the environment is closing in on you.

The supporting roles are also shortchanged, which flattens the thematic resonance of the story. Evie Templeton as Laura and Pearse Egan as Eddie Dombrowski often appear more like recognizable landmarks than intersecting tragedies, and the film's narrow vision transforms Hannah Emily Anderson's multiple roles (Mary Crane and Maria) into a conceptual idea that never fully blossoms psychologically. Nicola Alexis, as the voice of the therapist, should be an anchor, but the phone calls keep lowering the tension in scenes that need to suffocate, not breathe. The biggest problem isn't that the film changes things, but that it doesn't replace the interiority of the game with a cinematic equivalent, so that James Sunderland ends up running from one set piece to another as if checking off a list, without heading toward any inevitable truth.

There's also one element that continues to infuse the film with genuine sadness: Akira Yamaoka's music. The soundtrack conveys that familiar, bruised melancholy and repeatedly suggests a depth that the film doesn't always deserve visually or narratively. That's why the experience is so frustrating: there are moments when the town feels like a tragic dream from which you don't want to wake up... then the illusion fades because the film becomes too loud, too bright, or too laden with tradition for you to believe in its own silent misery.

Return to Silent Hill
Directed by Christophe Gans
Written by Christophe Gans, Sandra Vo-Anh, Will Schneider
Based on Silent Hill 2 by Konami
Produced by Victor Hadida, Molly Hassel, David M. Wulf
Starring Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson
Director of photography: Pablo Rosso
Editing: Sébastian Prangère
Music: Akira Yamaoka
Production companies: Davis Films, Electric Shadow, Supernix, WIP
Distributed by Metropolitan Filmexport (France), Cineverse (United States), Iconic Events Releasing (United States)
Release dates: January 23, 2026 (United States), February 4, 2026 (France)
Running time: 106 minutes

Seen on January 29, 2026 at the Grand Rex

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