Silent Hill: Homecoming

Updated
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Genre:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2012
Original Running Time:
95
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
81
Time Cut:
14
Time Added:
0
Available in HD?
Brief Synopsis:
By removing unnecessary jump scares and monster encounters, as well as reducing some silly dialogue, the film now stands a little less out of the shadow from its predecessor. Is it perfect? Probably not, but hopefully not for lack of trying.
Intention:
Even though I was satisfied with "Silent Hill: Restless Dreams" as a standalone film, even with "Revelation" having been released to theaters, I still wanted to give it the treatment that it deserved. It's not a bad film, just one that needs a little extra guidance.
Release Information:
  • DVD
  • Blu-Ray
  • Digital
Special Features
Christopher's Journey: An edit of Christopher Da Silva's (Sean Bean) scenes from the first Silent Hill to supplement the story of this film.

Silent Hill 3: Live-action Game Opening: Using footage from the film, the original opening sequence for Silent Hill 3 has been (more or less) faithfully recreated.
Editing Details:
My goal was to increase tension by removing jump scares. Just like the games, there is a lot of the expectation of something to happen without anything actually happening, so that when something actually DOES happen, it's worthy of the scare. Silly dialogue was also reduced, as well as efforts made to differentiate Claudia's Order from Christabella's Order in the first film. This was...dubiously successful due to the limitations of the source material.
Cuts and Additions:
The color of the edit has been altered similar to the HD retouch of "Restless Dreams" (spoilers!):
- Scenes in the Otherworld have been given a reddish tint.
- Scenes in the Fog World have been given a blueish tint.
- A 50% black and white filter has been added to scenes where the Silent Hill dimension invades the real world, in addition to whatever tint is normally added. I kept the red tint for scenes with monsters (for example, the mall, the homeless man Heather sees before meeting Douglas, and so on). The blue tint was kept for a few scenes where non-hostilities take place (primarily the school when Heather is looking into the class rooms).
- The sanctuary under the amusement park was kept red. Unlike the church in the first film, the Darkness IS present here, there are just no monsters. Except for...haha, not gonna spoil that bit. :)

Individual changes:
- The Universal Studios logo that was added at the start for the Blu-ray has been removed.
- Removed the awkward hang time from when the Silent Hill logo fades out to when the actual nightmare starts.
- Removed the Memory of Alessa's "You cannot defeat me. Do not come to Silent Hill."
- Removed the awkward dream-within-a-dream of Harry getting killed (if you're gonna kill Sean Bean, do it for real!)
- Removed Heather referencing her second dream.
- Removed Harry's line "It's been so hard since you brought Sharon back to me."
- Rose flashback changed to black and white.
- Shortened the classroom introduction. That teacher is an insult to teachers everywhere. It starts with Heather saying "This is the fifth school..." when she is walking away from Douglas.
- Shortened the elevator sequence in the mall so that Douglas is grabbed by the Missionary right when the elevator stops.
- Re-arranged a few shots in the bus sequence to remove "Fuck Facebook!"
- Removed Heather telling Vincent "I need your help" when he comes to her door.
- Removed the cops busting into Heather's house and saying that she was a murder suspect. Goodbye plotline that was never followed.
- Changed the flashbacks during the car ride to black and white.
- Flashbacks during Dahlia's scene changed to black and white.
- Mannequin spider scene cut.
- Removed Claudia referring to Christabella as her "sister." If she meant it literally, then Vincent snogs his cousin. If figurative, the Order changed their tune towards Alessa in the past 10 years.
- Removed Heather saying "Leonard" when she arrives at the asylum.
- Removed the shadow passing in front of the screen when Heather is searching for Leonard's records.
- Removed the Faceless Lobotomy monster attack.
- Removed Leonard's "come closer so I can touch you." Creep.
- Heather now shoots Leonard after he shoves the Seal into his body, made to look like a panicked reaction.
- Removed Heather being attacked by the psychos in the asylum and being saved by Pyramid Head. He should still be chanined in the carousel!
- Removed a 40 second pan around of the nurses before Vincent is brought into the room. It was probably cool in 3D, but gratuitous here.
- Shortened the confrontation with the Memory of Alessa on the carousel. It's now much more to the point, with Heather not questioning if Alessa a demon and if she created the nightmare. This also removes the problematic line that "everyone has a different nightmare in Silent Hill." This was true in the games, but thus far in the story, this is not the case. I will happily go back on this change if a third film is ever made that explores what Harry got up to, who was on that prison bus (shoutout to Downpour) or a prequel starring Travis Grady (the trucker at the end).
- Removed Harry's "you're everything I could have wished for." That struck me as...odd.
- Added Radha Mitchell (Rose) and Erin Pitt (young Alessa in a few scenes) to the end credits during a rather awkward bit of nothing. Besides, if Deborah Kara Unger gets a credit for only one scene, why shouldn't these two?

I've been working on this for a while, so there might be some other nips and tucks I forgot to mention, but here's the gist!
Cover art by Aztek463 (DOWNLOAD HERE) image

Trailer

User reviews

3 reviews
Overall rating
 
8.5
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.3(3)
Audio Editing
 
9.3(3)
Visual Editing
 
9.7(3)
Narrative
 
6.7(3)
Enjoyment
 
7.7(3)
Overall rating
 
8.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
6.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
The original film "Silent Hill: Revelations" is objectively not a good movie (full review here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/silent-hill-revelation-3d/), but it did have some interesting visuals and so might make a decently scary Halloween watch with some edits. Sadly, I don't think this fanedit manages to polish up the film.

Firstly, there are just a couple technical issues...not a big deal, but noticeable. I wished the sound mix would've been a little more even. There are a couple of edits where I noticed audio and visual hiccups, either separately or together. It doesn't break the movie, but they draw attention to this as a fanedit.

The bigger issue is the cuts, though. This is not a conservative edit that takes out very specific lines or shots. Whole scenes are removed, often without regard to how that impacts the story. For example, early in the movie, our main character is nervous about going to her first day at a new school. Then a scene is removed, so we're left watching her abruptly standing up in class and telling everyone to F*** off for absolutely no reason. It doesn't endear her to us. Later, she and Kit Harrington's hair are in her house when the police suddenly threaten to break down the door. They're trying to figure out how to escape, and then they're suddenly in a car driving on the highway casual as can be. Boy, I'm glad they ...uh...went out a window? Or talked their way out? Somehow?

This edit is highly subjective, leaving in cheese, taking out good scenes, and actually making the narrative more fragmented and harder to follow. I don't know if there's a way to actually significantly improve this film, but I don't think this is it. Maybe these issues will be fine for someone else, but they personally broke the movie for me.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
No
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
8.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 1
Overall rating
 
8.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
The original Silent Hill Revelations was a turd. It tried to mix the first movie with the video game mythology and failed. The jump scares were annoying and there was hardly any atmosphere set up. There was a ton of exposition, but it was faithful to the games (at least more than the first film).

Silent Hill Homecoming is much better than the original cut. It removed all of the stupid jump scares and made the film watchable. I did miss the mannequin scene, but it really wasn't needed. The biggest problem with the movie itself was that there was too much exposition. However, that was a necessary evil to merge the universe of the first film with the second.

The film was really short, but that isn't fault of the editor at all. I wish the mirror scene could be removed at the beginning, but that scene was crucial to the plot. I liked how the color changes during nightmare scenes. However, I don't think it was the most successful. I love the Chris's Journey disc feature although I think it would have been better suited on the Silent Hill Restless Dreams edit's special features. The music on the blu-ray menus is really good as well.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Blu-Ray
Owner's reply August 28, 2013

Thanks for the review! If you could, shoot me a PM about how you thought the color changes might have been better executed. It's something I'm still experimenting with, and I'd love any tips or advice. :)

T
Top 1000 Reviewer 5 reviews
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