Return to Silent Hill (2026) Cineverse/Horror RT: 106 minutes Rated R (bloody violent content, language, brief drug use) Director: Christophe Gans Screenplay: Christophe Gans, Sandra Vo-Anh and Will Schneider Music: Akira Yamaoka Cinematography: Pablo Rosso Release date: January 23, 2026 (US) Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson, Robert Strange, Evie Templeton, Pearse Egan, Eve Macklin, Emily Carding, Martine Richards, Howard Saddler, Nicola Alexis.
Rating: * ½
It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy finds out girl is involved with a cult. Boy leaves girl. Boy regrets leaving girl. Boy looks for girl in abandoned town. Boy encounters monsters and other weird s*** while searching for girl. It’s a classic love story.
Perhaps classic is too strong a word. No, that’s not it. It’s not the right word to describe Return to Silent Hill, a loose adaptation of the video game Silent Hill 2. Let me repeat that, it’s an adaptation of a video game. It’s also a reboot of the film series that first reared its head twenty years ago. I honestly thought we’d seen the last of this place, but it looks like I was wrong.
I think of Silent Hill the same way I think of Resident Evil and Underworld, with a combination of indifference and mild dread. I was NOT psyched to see Return to Silent Hill. I couldn’t even muster up cautious optimism. It looked terrible. The gray late afternoon sky typical of January did nothing to improve my mood. I got to the theater, took my seat and braced myself for the misery about to come. THERE! That’s the right word to describe Return to Silent Hill, miserable.
James (Irvine, The Woman in Black 2) is in a very bad place right now, psychologically speaking. The artist is trying and failing to deal with the end of a romantic relationship. Her name is Mary (Anderson, Jigsaw) and she was his Ms. Right. It was love at first sight when he encountered her at a bus station trying to leave her hometown of Silent Hill. He causes her to miss her bus and the two decide to move in together in the town where she grew up. James eventually finds out about her connection to a weird cult and leaves her. It devastates him to the point where he’s under the care of a psychologist (Alexis, The Bill).
One day, he receives a note from Mary (presumably) asking him to return to Silent Hill (see what I did there?). When he gets there, he finds things aren’t the same from when he left. The town is basically deserted save for a few stragglers and monsters. Ash falls from the sky and a foggy shroud envelops the place. It’s unclear what happened to Silent Hill, but it’s clear James probably shouldn’t have come back. Then things gets super weird.
While looking for Mary, James encounters a little girl named Laura (Templeton, Wednesday) clutching what looks like a doll. He also meets Maria (Anderson again), a version of Mary who resembles Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil movies. Then there’s the ghoulish entity stalking him, let’s call him Pyramid Head. That’s pretty much the extent of what I’m clear on.
The rest of Return to Silent Hill is a baffling series of events meant to depict James’ state of mind. Is he delusional or is there really some freaky supernatural s*** going on? Look, I don’t mind movies that play with the viewer’s mind. I’m a huge fan of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), the ultimate mind f*** movie. That’s what director Christophe Gans (the original Silent Hill) is going for here, I think. It doesn’t even hold a candle to the Adrian Lyne film. It’s not mind-bending; it’s convoluted. It makes less sense as it lumbers along at a plodding place. It ultimately gets lost in a fog thicker than the one on screen. By the end, I wasn’t sure what had happened. Moreover, I didn’t care. I definitely didn’t want to think on it any further. I just wanted to get back home in time for Law & Order.
Now I could sit here and list all the things wrong with Return to Silent Hill like the acting, writing, pacing and pretty much everything else. All of it is bad. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’ll briefly mention what isn’t entirely bad. It has atmosphere. Gans has a way with visual palette. True, it’s not much different from what he did in the first movie, but it’s still something. I’ll also give it credit for using practical creature effects instead of CGI. That’s always a plus in my book. It doesn’t save the movie; it just makes it suck less.
There were a few other people in the theater when I went. I spoke to a couple of guys who were fans of the game. They didn’t like the movie either. They thought it was lame. If that’s what the fans think, it’s a safe bet non-gamers won’t like it any better. I know, I’m not a gamer. I’m just a guy who likes movies. I didn’t like Return to Silent Hill. This trip is definitely not necessary.
