Return to Silent Hill made me really mad

hey how's it goin

Spoilers for Return to Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2

I wouldn't exactly call myself a Silent Hill 2 fan. I've never played the game, and I don't think I've even watched a full playthrough on YouTube. But I know enough about it, and know enough people who love it, to know that Return to Silent Hill is dogshit. Hell, I don't need to know anything about Silent Hill 2 to know it's just a bad movie.

I know that having Mary be tied to the cult in Silent Hill is an extremely bad choice. Part of what makes Silent Hill 2 interesting is how disconnected it is from the story of the first game. James is just a Guy, and Mary is just a Lady who was His Wife. The fact that the actress who plays Mary and Maria also played Angela was an extremely bad sign. Again, I have not played the game, but I know Angela's story, and that it means a lot to a lot of people. Also, one of the few things I do love from Silent Hill 2 is the shitty little girl named Laura who calls James a fartface, and watching the movie I was getting really annoyed that she had been turned into a generic creepy little girl in a creepy old dress with a creepy gross doll.

they made her boringgggg

And then, of course, there comes the big reveal that most people, including myself, hated, which is that Angela and Laura are both "aspects" or "versions" of Mary. This is revealed in an extremely funny flashback where James goes to Mary's grave and the headstone says "Mary Angela Laura Crane." Laura is a representation of Mary's childhood, while Angela represents the implied sexual abuse Mary has gone through. Which means that for Angela, it's not that James can't save her because he's not supposed to, because it's not his place. He can't save her cause she's not a person. I think that sucks!!!

Not only that, but this reveal makes Maria's whole existence make no sense. The whole point of Maria is that she looks like Mary, that she's a sexy hotted version of Mary who was, well, born from a wish. Maria is an interesting character because she's not real, and she kinda knows it. She's Mary and she's not Mary and that's her character. What's the point of making Angela and Laura also Mary? It doesn't add anything, and just makes Maria feel pointless. If they were gonna go this route, they might have well combined Maria and Angela as characters, since they're both Mary anyways.

There's a ton of things wrong with this movie. I haven't even gotten into how it justifies James killing Mary in a way completely antithetical to the game that makes me wonder if Christophe Gans even played it. He did, he loves the games! So how did this happen Christophe?!?! All this movie has is some occasional fun imagery, and also I liked the guy playing Eddie because he was the only one who got kinda goofy with it. Giving the Mannequin a giant ass was really funny. Bad movie!