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!

wow it took a whole year to get this, but it was so worth the wait.

everything is just perfect, as a huge fan of the games i was always upset with this movie, but this cut fixes most of the problems that the movie had.

this edit is the one i will always watch.

a big thank you to Aztec 463 for finally doing the game and movie justice, and giving us fans something to be proud of

There isn’t much to add what MonsterCow said. He hit the nail on the head. This is a far superior version to the original release. While still not a scary film it is much more fluid and intelligible.

With that said my only gripe is the “blue ending”. Without trying to spoil anything I didn’t much care for it. Aztek mentions this is for those who are familiar with the game, and that it’s open for interpretation, but this sort of ending in any movie (or book, or television show, or game) is a cop-out. But thankfully there is the “grey ending” which, to me, is more satisfying.

Entertainment: 9
Picture: 8
Sound:10
Overall: 9

This is the first fanedit I have watched before seeing the original film. I am vaguely familiar with the Silent Hill franchise, but even though I am a horror fan, I missed this when it came out. So...seeing this edit blind, I can say I really enjoyed this film experience. It was like Fantasia, but in the horror genre. There is a lot of really weird, unexplainable stuff that goes on. This is good. It almost never happens that one can sit back and just let their draw drop. I'll have to watch my DVD of the original now; I hope I will not be disappointed.

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.