Silent Hill: Restless Dreams

Review by @steFANedit — August 21, 2012 @ 12:09 am

Well after all the fine reviews above I don’t know if there is much to add.
(beat)
Just want to say that this is a must have for any fans, of the original cut or/and the video games. Personally I liked the blue ending the best and, well, guess that’s it.

CUT TO BLACK

THE END

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.

Review by Menbailee — July 1, 2011 @ 8:24 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by baileym43 — July 12, 2012 @ 2:07 am

I just got a chance to watch this the other day. Sorry it took so long. I truly did myself a disservice waiting so long to watch. I’m a huge fan of the games (well, ok, The Room, not so much.) and the studio really missed the mark. They clearly never played the game. Aztek did and it shows. I’m not going to repeat what other people have said. It was amazing, start to finish. The endings were great and fell right in line with the games.

This movie, Restless Dreams, just feels right. And I didn’t notice a single jump or stutter which is a testament to the artist. Well done, sir. This is my official go-to for this movie. I have no problem giving a 10.

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!