Silent Hill: Restless Dreams

I watched the original Silent Hill only once and remember not liking the theatrical cut at all--the narrative was jumbled, the acting left a lot to be desired and the direction was poor.

Aztek463 manages to completely turn this movie around with his excellent edit. He removes all the lousy dialogue and the completely unnecessary scenes with Sean Bean. Best of all, the film now has a very clear flow which totally creeped me out--because it keeps you In Silent Hill and never lets you leave. I've played the original Silent Hill game on PS in the past, and this fanedit totally evokes the mood and feel of the game, which is a great thing.

The original film constantly tried to take you OUT of the film via Sean Bean's character for some reason, but this edit fixes that. The audio and visual editing is flawless, I could not see any issues. The visual effects in the original was not the greatest, but by strengthening the overall narrative, I easily forgot this and was immersed in the story.

All in all, this IS the version Silent Hill was always meant to be--and should be the one to watch over the original. It is not often I that I say that. Kudos to Aztek463!

I recently got to view this edit back-to-back with Silent Hill Homecoming (Revelations). Overall, I really liked this edit. I liked the minor music changes (at least the ones that I noticed). also like that the Chris subplot is gone. It keeps the focus on Rose and her journey. I did notice some restraint in the Pyramid Head scene outside the church which I think was tastefully done. Also, I like the new ending. It can be interpreted different ways. The only negative was a weird audio transition towards the end concerning the music and during the credits. Basically, you guys need to watch this!

I liked the original film and like this edit enough to write it up in detail here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/silent-hill/

Main points from that full review are:
-the film of course works so much better without the Bean-scenes. However, the beginning/ending bookends with him go nowhere with the current ending. The theatrical ending actually has impact, makes sense, and would justify his two scenes being included, so that's a real loss.
-the film overall could use a bit of brightening up in some scenes...I wish the faneditor had been able to do that
-WAY too much exposition all at the end...literally like 15 minutes of explaining, explaining. At least the flashback scenes (which there is now smartly no voiceover with) could be moved. I suggest how in the full review above.

Overall, a great improvement on the original release, and it replaces it for me. I can't consider it definitive without that ending though, so I'm waiting for a version 4 (fingers crossed).

Review by STANKPAC — September 11, 2010 @ 8:04 pm

I saw this a few days ago and I must say I have to agree with everyone here……this is a total improvement over the original movie! By simply removing contrived sub-plots and reorganizing certain scenes the movie takes on a whole new vibe. It allows the audience to figure out what the hell is going on in Silent Hill along with Rose and makes for a much creepier experience.

Video: The video was really great. Very detailed and crisp images. Just as good as the retail DVD.
10 out of 10 stars

Audio: The audio was also great, crisp and clear. I could detect no hard cuts whatsoever, except for maybe when the “Alternate ending” breaks happen.
10 out of 10 stars

Editing: Very smooth and seamless cuts. Was very hard to tell if this movie had been altered. Sean Bean’s character was removed seamlessly and the way Rose and her daughter getting to Silent Hill was turned into a flashback, was very effective. Since there is no commercial software that does “true” seamless branching, that might have been the only time to anyone that hasn’t seen the original, the instance this movie is edited different.
9 out of 10 stars

Pesentation: Very nice effective menus, with some extras thrown in for good measure. The commentary track did it’s job well, but sometimes there was quite a few gaps of silence and also a little too much talk about playing the games. Should have been more talk of why you cut what you cut and what interested you to fan-edit the movie in the first place. Minor gripes.
9 out of 10 stars

Entertainment: I was always impressed with the visual style of this movie in the first place and this fan-edit just goes to show that by eliminating certain contrivances that weighed down the movie, a better and creepier movie exists! Very entertaining to say the least.
9 out of 10 stars

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Final Score:
9 out of 10 stars
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Can’t wait to see what you come up with next. Keep up the good work!

Review by joethetimelord — July 22, 2012 @ 1:40 pm

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

First off this was a damned fine edit. It absolutely improved the movie and was a great deal more engaging. While Sean Bean’s removal was unfortunate, it only served to help the film overall.

Audio: 9/10
The corny lines are mostly gone (sadly the “I am the Reaper” bit remained, but I can’t blame the editor for a child’s acting and it did get the point across.)

Editing: 9/10
There was only one moment when it cut away too quickly (the Room 111 scene), but it was more than welcome. Everything else was virtually flawless, including the point where the fantastic endings begin. There were some lines that still needed omitting, particularly in one scene, but I’ll get to that.

Visuals: 10/10
There didn’t seem to be any change here, which is almost never a bad thing. It was definitely DVD quality.

Presentation: 9/10
The DVD menu and boxart were simple and effective.

Entertainment: 9/10
While the acting isn’t necessarily Oscar-worthy, it’s far better than in the official release. The removal of the “real world” scenes maintained the tension by trapping the viewer within the hellish hamlet. Overall it was a scarier experience.

My only problem was Alessa’s narration during the hospital flashback. It could have been trimmed more or removed entirely. It’s way out of character of the series to flat-out spoonfeed information the way Christophe Gans did and little was done to circumvent it effectively in the third act (I don’t hold that against you; there’s a fine line between too much information and too little and it’s an incredibly tough call). I’d invite anybody to watch that same flashback on mute, however, and take note that the lack of flat-out narration makes the whole thing a bit more unsettling, while still effectively illustrating what essentially happened. The only thing that wouldn’t make sense was the second Alessa, but that really didn’t make much sense in any release of Silent Hill, narration or no.

Overall: 9/10
The whole movie was a hell of an improvement. While it’s still not quite on the list of great horror films, Restless Dreams does fit on the list of good ones. That deserves nothing but high marks.