Silent Hill: Revelation

Darkness is always chasing Heather (Adelaide Clemens), but, unfortunately, it takes 94 tedious minutes before Silent Hill: Revelation finally fades to black. Michael J. Bassett's sequel to Christophe Gans's freaky, underrated 2006 original is an unholy creation divided between grotesque set pieces and endless exposition, the latter so consuming and mind-numbing that this is less a nightmare than an afternoon nap. Lured to ash-snowing dreamland Silent Hill after her dad (Sean Bean) is kidnapped, Heather searches for him through a creepy asylum, a nasty amusement park, and countless hallways with rotting walls, along the way contending with faceless, limbless creatures and cleaver-wielding nurses—all shot by Bassett with the maximum of gimmicky 3-D effects in which blades and decapitated heads fly off the screen. When not fleeing mutants, Heather blabs on and on about Silent Hill's ruling demon (and the convoluted mythology that links her to it) with a bland love interest (Kit Harington) and a trio of actors—Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Deborah Kara Unger—whose sole purpose is to wear ratty, silly hobo costumes. With horror altogether absent and a plot drowning in insipid convolutions, it's a film whose early warning to Heather should be heeded: "Don’t go to Silent Hill."