Solo Trailer Review: Silent Hill Revelation 3D

Name of Film: Silent Hill: Revelation 3D

Year Released: 2012

Genre of Trailer: Psychological Horror

My Mark (After Viewing): 7/10

What happened in the trailer?

A girl, the protagonist, wakes up from a dream involving deformed monsters, before heading off to start at a new school. While at school, she has more visions, ‘falling’ out of one when she bumps into a boy inside the school. She calls her father, thinking she is being watched and starts to head home. On her way home, the father is attack by an unseen person. When she arrives at her home with the boy, her father is gone and a symbol is drawn on the wall. After finding a strange disc, the area around her appears to transform and the boy and dragged away. Venturing outside, the girl finds herself in a strange town filled with monsters. We then see a montage of fast scenes featuring these monsters, the girl being attacked her father and the boy trapped and a larger monster swinging a giant sword at the camera, before the title appears.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

-          The pacing of the trailer is done perfectly; starting with a small jump scare but going slow, then introducing the characters and then speeding up, revealing the scary side of the events in the trailer and setting the narrative and the location.

-          Near the end of the trailer, we hear the protagonist shout “Go to hell!” before someone replies “We’re already here.” These quotes increase the horror of the trailer and help reinforce the psychological side. They show the audience that what happens in this movie is going to be so horrifying that it’s going to be like that characters are in hell. Furthermore, since these lines are near the end of the trailer and can be heard very clearly, they are likely to sit in the mind of the viewer for a while after watching and will probably repeat themselves, making the viewer thinking about the trailer continuously.

-          The repeated use of silence and the sirens increases the tension and suspense throughout the entire trailer. We see and hear repeated section of silence, like where the protagonist attempts to rescue the boy, and then have the siren play after it to highlight the drama of the situation, where the deformed nurses attack the protagonist. This pattern starts about halfway through the trailer and continues until the very end.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

-          The overall narrative of the trailer is slightly confusing to understand. It starts off easily, with the protagonist having nightmares and visions, then her father is kidnapped. But afterwards it becomes hard to make sense of. We see her running about in a town being chased by monsters and at a few points trying to rescue her father and the boy; however, apart from the monsters, we are not presented with a true antagonist or a main villain, with the exception of one character saying “You were chosen to destroy the demon.” While there is one figure that could be considered ‘the demon’, it is never fully confirmed, meaning that the antagonist is not truly revealed.

Why did it receive that mark?

I gave this trailer a 7 out of 10 as I believe it created a good atmosphere of tension and fear while also providing an original plot and an adequate about of scares and thrills.