Return to Silent Hill (dir. Christophe Gans)

by Jack Martin | Jan 25, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 105 mins

UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors

UK Release Date: 23 January 2026

WHO’S IN RETURN TO SILENT HILL?

Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson, Evie Templeton, Robert Strange, Pearse Egan, Eve Macklin, Emily Carding, Martine Richards, Howard Saddler

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Christophe Gans (director, writer), William Josef Schneider and Sandra Vo-Anh (writers), Victor Hadida, Molly Hassell and David M. Wulf (producers), Akira Yamaoka (composer), Pablo Rosso (cinematographer), Sébastien Prangère (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A young man (Irvine) is drawn to the mysterious town of Silent Hill…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON RETURN TO SILENT HILL?

I want to preface this review by stating up front that I am probably not the best person to review a Silent Hill movie. I’ve never played the games, I’ve never seen any of the previous film adaptations, and honestly I don’t even think I know what they’re meant to be about, other than it being something to do with a deserted and most likely supernatural town.

I am, however, aware that the franchise has an extremely dedicated fanbase, much of it coming off of the widespread acclaim received by the second game in the franchise Silent Hill 2, which is considered by many to be not just the best in this particular series but also one of the greatest video games of all time. It is such a well-regarded game that any attempt to adapt it for the screen, as filmmaker Christophe Gans has now done with Return to Silent Hill, is bound to be met with more scrutiny than most other movies based on popular video games, especially among members of its fandom who take these games as seriously as anything else.

But regardless of whether you know this franchise or, like me, are completely unfamiliar with it, Return to Silent Hill is a gigantic pile of trash. Poorly made, awkwardly acted, and about as scary as a box of crayons, this dire adaptation is one that will break the hearts of fans and bore everybody else.

Similar to the game, the film follows James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine), an alcoholic painter who’s deeply depressed after being separated from his girlfriend Mary Crane (Hannah Emily Anderson), with whom he used to live in the quaint, picturesque town of Silent Hill. After suddenly receiving a letter, supposedly from Mary, asking him to – what else? – return to Silent Hill, he does so only to find that the town has become a total wasteland, covered in fog and ash with numerous horrific creatures roaming about, while the handful of remaining civilians have either gone mad or are just there for a quick and easy jump-scare. Nonetheless, James is determined to find Mary amidst the chaos, only to unearth some dark secrets concerning her own connection to the town.

While I cannot accurately say how faithfully this movie sticks to the game it’s based on (though from what I’ve been able to research about it, there seems to be a fair amount that’s at the very least similar), there are moments when you can see how some of this can work in the form of a movie. There is certainly a huge focus on the psychological tragedy at the centre of this story, along with lot of nightmarish surreal imagery like armless creatures that spray acid from their chests and hordes of cockroaches rising from the sewers, and there’s even a score by Akira Yamaoka who also composed the music for the games. If nothing else, it certainly feels like you’re watching a live-action version of Silent Hill 2, one that’s at least trying to capture the atmosphere of that virtual world as well as the emotional impact.

However, the execution here is shockingly flimsy, enough to dilute the intended effect and instead distract with how poorly judged some of the filmmaking is. Gans relies so heavily on terrible CGI for everything from creature designs to backgrounds, some of which look funnily enough like graphics straight out of an early PlayStation game, that none of it looks or feels real in any capacity, further removing you from the horror environment since you always know that you’re looking at something that isn’t actually there. The editing is atrocious, as it will literally flash a bunch of scenes on the screen at once rather than letting them play out organically, while never seeming as though there’s any flow to this script – which Gans also co-wrote with William Josef Schneider and Sandra Vo-Anh – which constantly stops and starts on moments we don’t end up caring about. The CGI overload and banal pacing leaves one far sleepier than scared, which for a horror film is pretty bad, even one of such shoddiness as this.

Elsewhere, the performances are wildly inconsistent, especially that of Irvine who along with his ever-slipping American accent sems trapped between bland apathy and over-the-top melodrama. The actor is unable to convincingly portray a guy going through such cerebral torment since he always comes off as more of an infuriating doofus than a competent lead, always ignoring the most obvious red flags like creepy wide-eyed children and an entire cult gathered in a person’s living room, while failing to piece together crucial bits of information that the viewer has long since been able to decipher. You’ll also have certain supporting players who are similarly unable to hide their true accent, like one guy who briefly shows up fluctuating between blue-collar American and vaguely European, which goes along with how much of the exteriors were clearly filmed in places like the mountains of Germany that they’re laughably trying pass off as somewhere in Massachusetts.

And all of this is coming from someone who didn’t play Silent Hill 2 or any of the pre-existing games, so imagine how Return to Silent Hill must seem to somebody who has. My guess is that there’s far more that’s wrong about this film from that perspective, but even still there’s no getting around how dull and unentertaining it is however you may look at it, one that should hopefully rule out another return to the Silent Hill franchise for a good long while.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Return to Silent Hill is a poorly executed attempt to adapt the acclaimed video game Silent Hill 2 which sees filmmaker Christophe Gans dilute the game’s emotional impact with an excess of terrible CGI, inconsistent acting and atrocious editing, in a disastrous effort that will no doubt upset fans of the franchise while leaving everyone else thoroughly unentertained.