SILENT HILL: REVELATION * USA / Canada / Germany 2012 94 mins

A loud, clichéd sequel to the surprisingly atmospheric Christophe Gans adaptation of the Konami video game, in which young Adelaide Clemens suffers flashbacks to her suppressed memories of Silent Hill as she reaches the age of 18. Dad Sean Bean is visited by ghostly deceased wife Radha Mitchell to tell him Silent Hill wants her back. Waking visions of malevolent clowns, Pyramidhead and people being skinned and cooked ultimately lead her to venturing into Silent Hill with in search of the freshly vanished Bean.Despite SOLOMON KANE director Michael Bassett’s undeniable talent, this movie drowns in a sea of over-familiar gimmicks (the old nightmare-within-a-nightmare shock) and endless scenes of videogame-like wandering around darkened corridors stumbling upon sub-HELLRAISER creatures (plus, at one point, an insane and gibbering Malcolm McDowell). There’s lots of CG bloodletting and gimmicky FX clearly designed for the film’s original 3-D release, including miscast Martin Donovan getting his fingers sliced off for the sake of a comin’-at-ya effect. It’s particularly flat when attempting to bring life to its bland, unsympathetic characters in the early stages: leading man Kit Harington in particular is stuck with this movie year’s dullest protagonist.