Is Return to Silent Hill Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 5 out of 10. It's foggy and grim, with cheap jump scares and monsters.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Medium
You will feel it for a night, mostly when you hear a strange noise behind you.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: It is a gloomy monster tour with cheap jump scares, so watch it before dark if you hate sudden screams.
Return to Silent Hill runs 106 minutes and takes place in a town that is fog, ash and bad news. James gets a letter from a woman he lost and goes back to find her, in a town with almost no one else left.
The premise, briefly
Artist James Sunderland gets a letter from his lost love Mary asking him to come back to Silent Hill, a town now covered in fog and ash, where monsters are waiting.
How much do you want to know?
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The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
James smothered Mary at her own request when she was dying, and the other women were part of his imagination. He drives off a pier with her body, then wakes at the moment they first met and drives away with her.
The scene you're dreading
After James escapes the cockroach monsters, he gets into a building and hears a strange noise. He turns around and a sudden flash shows a bloody ghost with a loud scream. It is the loudest and most sudden jump scare.
The dog
No dog dies in Return to Silent Hill. One of a group of rats is dragged down by cockroach monsters.
It is a run of monsters and cheap jump scares over a sad plot, and it is easier to sit through once you know Mary was already gone.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A missed bus and a ride home
Artist James Sunderland bumps into Mary Crane just as she is about to leave her hometown, Silent Hill. He accidentally makes her miss her bus, so she decides to go back, and he gives her a ride. They fall for each other and share a home in Silent Hill. Years afterward James has moved away. He has become an alcoholic since his relationship with Mary ended, and a psychologist is trying to help him. Then a letter arrives from Mary asking him to return, and he hurries back. Fog and falling ash blanket the town, and it is mostly empty, because an unspecified illness killed many of its people. There he runs into Angela, and shortly afterward a monstrous creature attacks him.
The apartment building and a man with a very large mask
The town warps into a strange and twisted copy of itself, and James runs to the Wood Side Apartment building, his old home with Mary. There he meets Eddie, a violent and unstable man, and a girl called Laura. James finds out that Mary was taken to Brookhaven Hospital. Then he meets Pyramid Head, a ghoulish figure who scares Eddie off, and the two have a tense encounter. The scene people dread most is a loud jump scare: after escaping cockroach monsters, James gets into a building and hears a noise. He turns around, and a bloody ghost appears in a sudden flash with a loud scream. After Pyramid Head, James wakes up in the normal Silent Hill, where Angela and Laura are again nearby. Laura says she knows Mary.
A hospital that gets worse
James chases Laura and meets Maria, who looks almost exactly like Mary and offers to go with him to Brookhaven. On the way he recalls Mary's involvement with a cult in Silent Hill that her father started. He watched her get drugged and take part in an arcane ritual, and after that they broke up and he left her behind in Silent Hill. Soon after they reach the hospital, Maria finds an audio tape that says Mary was poisoned and permanently injured. The hospital turns into a nightmare version of itself, and as they try to escape a grotesque nurse stabs Maria. James leaves her for a moment and follows Laura into a room, where he finds a huge moth-like version of Mary.
A gallery of paintings and one very large mask
James wakes in Brookhaven, where his psychologist tells him Mary died soon after their breakup and that he has become delusional, fixated on rescuing her. The hospital goes back to being the Otherworld, and James works out that Maria is a doppelgänger of Mary. He enters a gallery filled with dozens of paintings of Mary and says he doesn't need Maria anymore. Pyramid Head appears behind her and kills her, and for a moment James sees himself beneath the mask. He then wakes outside the Lakeview Hotel, where he and Mary used to go. Laura tells him that Maria, Angela and she herself are all made up by his mind, built from different pieces of who Mary was. In a vision, Angela is attacked and swallowed by a monster that resembles Mary's father.
The ending, explained
James reaches the roof of the Lakeview Hotel and remembers what really happened. Months earlier he came back to Silent Hill and found Mary dying of a long illness that the cult's drugging had caused. She asked him to end her suffering, and he smothered her. The moth-like version of Mary appears and James tearfully apologizes, and it turns back into Mary's body. He lays her body in his car and drives it off a pier, in what looks like a suicide. He then wakes at the moment he and Mary first met and lives through it again, but this time he doesn't take her back to Silent Hill and drives away with her.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Return to Silent Hill scary?
Yes, Return to Silent Hill is a 5 out of 10. It has a bunch of cheap jump scares, some of them loud, along with monsters and a foggy, grim atmosphere.
How does Return to Silent Hill end?
James remembers that he smothered Mary at her request, drives off a pier with her body, and then wakes at the moment they first met. This time he drives away with her instead of taking her to Silent Hill.
Does the dog die in Return to Silent Hill?
No dog dies in Return to Silent Hill. One of a group of rats is dragged down by cockroach monsters.
Is there a post-credits scene in Return to Silent Hill?
Nobody has confirmed whether Return to Silent Hill has a scene after the credits.
Are Maria, Angela and Laura real in Return to Silent Hill?
No. Laura tells James that she, Maria and Angela are figments of his imagination, each based on a part of Mary's personality or life.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Return to Silent Hill is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can know what happens in Return to Silent Hill without walking into the fog. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror before you see it.
