"My sincerity is the thing that I put on the table. But for sure, some people will be shocked by some of the choices that I have made." Euronews Culture sits down with French filmmaker Christophe Gans, who returns to the world of Silent Hill, 20 years since his first trip to the nightmarish town.
Being a video game fan is a tough gig when it comes to film adaptations, but some filmmakers still refuse to throw in the towel when it comes to console-to-theatre transformations.
One such filmmaker is French director Christophe Gans. Following the success of both Crying Freeman (1995) and Le Pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf - 2001), Gans adapted the first Silent Hill video game in 2006.
Silent Hill drew mixed reactions but it has since gone on to become something of a cult favourite among gamers, who frequently cite the film as one of the best big screen treatments of a video game.
Twenty years later, Gans returns to the Konami video games with Return To Silent Hill, his loose adaptation – or “proposition” as he calls it - of 2001’s Silent Hill 2, which is widely regarded as the best video game of all time. No pressure then.
The film follows how the troubled James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) gets a mysterious letter from his missing wife Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson). In it, she calls him back to Silent Hill, once their home and now a town shrouded in ashy fog, transformed by an unknown evil.
Return To Silent Hill, which was released theatrically in the US last week and hits European cinemas next month, has already been critically panned and currently stands as one of the worst reviewed films of 2026 - with a current Tomatometer score of 19 per cent. But is it really that bad?
While functioning as a standalone adventure, which allows game novices to enter its world without needing a crash course in gaming lore, the film is undeniably weighed down by questionable acting, on-the-noise narration, and shoddy CGI. However, there is a case to be made for artificiality mirroring the protagonist’s fractured state of mind. As for the dialogue, a generous reading could be that it faithfully evokes a PlayStation 2 game.
If you’re feeling less generous, however, Return To Silent Hill is an uneven thrill that doesn’t manage to do justice to the source material’s psychological underpinnings, nor scare audiences senseless when it comes to the supernatural horror. That said, it can’t be denied that it’s an ambitious reinterpretation, and no one can fault Gans’ passion or determination when it comes to bringing the holy grail of the gaming world to the screen.
Who knows? In 20 years' time, it may enjoy the same cult status as his first trip to the nightmarish town.
Euronews Culture sat down with Christophe Gans to discuss the challenges of adapting such a beloved video game, what he makes of fan criticism, and how he views the challenges cinema continues to face in a streaming world.
Check out the full interview below and extracts in the video above.
Euronews Culture: After 20 years, what made you want to come back to the world of Silent Hill?
Christophe Gans: It was my intention to adapt the second game back in 2006. I think it was too big to swallow at that time. You know, horror cinema was entirely based on gimmicks like jump scares and found footage... It was a very different time. Meanwhile, we have seen the rise of very sophisticated horror films, but back in 2006, I remember that my producer and I knew that the movie would be very different to what people were expecting to see in the theatre.
The problem was that the events of second game, Silent Hill 2, are not only happening to that strange town, but also entirely seen through the point of view of a broken mind. I remember that with my producer, we said to each other, 'Maybe it's too big for this time. Maybe it's too different to what the people expect from a horror film.'
So we decided, I think wisely, to just adapt the first game, which is interesting because it established very well and very simply the world of Silent Hill - the world of this ghost town changing shape, sometimes in the fog, sometimes as a rusty inferno. But I always had the will to adapt Silent Hill 2.
Silent Hill 2 is considered something of a masterpiece in the gaming community. That means there are die-hard fans out there who feel very protective of the source material. Did this worry you, and what kind of state of mind did you go into this film with?
Great responsibility! It helped that the first film was pretty well received by the fans, and during 20 years, the reputation of the first film has grown very well. So I decided to go back to Silent Hill 2 knowing that in the 20 years that have passed since Silent Hill, the gamer community has grown and grown aware of its power. I knew that it would be a big risk to adapt Silent Hill 2 - knowing that the game is considered, for good reason, a masterpiece. Not only a video game masterpiece, but also a storytelling masterpiece and a masterpiece of Modern Art. I went, very boldly, but at the same time with a sense of responsibility. It’s important to be confident when you’re doing a movie like this – simply because I'm a fan, and so I'm very aware of what a fan can expect from a movie like this one.
Video game adaptations are notoriously tricky to get right on the big screen, even if there seems to have been a shift recently - whether it’s the huge box office success of Minecraft or the Super Mario film, or the critical acclaim of something like The Last Of Us on the small screen. What makes it so difficult to transpose a video game onto the screen?
It depends on the nature of the video game. For example, The Last Of Us is built very precisely on the storytelling. The storytelling in Silent Hill 2 is very different. It’s much more cryptic. There are as many interpretations of the game as there are gamers. Each gamer has their own interpretation of what happens in the game, and their interpretation is right! I hope that people will understand that this movie is a proposition. It’s just a companion for the game. It's absolutely not the official adaptation. It’s my adaptation and it's something that I put into the forum. It was important for me to come to this adaptation very humbly and hoping that people watching the film will see it as just a proposition. Not like the first one, which was an adaptation.
Do you ever read or concern yourself with criticism? Because as a fan of this beloved property, you know that there are going to be some very tough people to please...
It's impossible to think that the movie will make everybody agree. It's impossible! When the first film was released in 2006, it was controversial in fan circles. The movie was absolutely not received unanimously by the fans. Some people were saying that it was a piece of shit. Some said, ‘At last, a good adaptation of a very difficult game’. And it will be the same for this film. What’s important is that people believe in my sincerity. My sincerity is the thing that I put on the table by doing this film. But for sure, some people will be shocked by some of the choices that I have made in order to compress a 12-hour experience into a 100-minute film.
The film explores themes of guilt, repressed trauma, and even insanity, because we plunge into the fractured psyche of the lead character. Was it difficult balancing these very weighty themes?
I always took Silent Hill 2 as a big piece of Romanticism. That’s how I read the game – thinking that it was a very nice adaptation of the myth of Orpheus, who is a romantic character. But I also think that some of the deep themes that you can find in Silent Hill 2 are very close to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
It does play out as a very disturbing love story...
All the horror tales of Edgar Allan Poe are love stories. “Berenice”, “Ligeia”, “The Fall of the House of Usher” - his tales feature crazy, obsessional love stories. My hero here is obsessed by his dead wife, exactly like a character in Poe tale, and that made him very special. Something I like very much about this character is that he understands at one point that he has to accept his own insanity if he wants to find his wife. For me, that’s very romantic.
Background details are always fun, and I couldn’t help but notice in one frame towards the start, when the hero comes to Silent Hill, that the cinema was playing Jacob’s Ladder ...
And The Tenant! Jacob’s Ladder is actually the seminal film for the creators of the first four games. Polanski was also a touchstone – especially Rosemary’s Baby. But for me, the character who is closest to James is the one played by Polanski himself in The Tenant. This paranoid, crazy guy who thinks that everyone is against him. I was thinking a lot about that. And also, Polanski is almost like Edgar Allan Poe – he's a disturbing personality. Because of plenty of things that everybody knows about him, but for me it was very interesting to invite him into that world. Because it's a world of transgression, a world where nothing is sane, but everything is artistic.
You use a lot of special effects in Return To Silent Hill, but you can tell that the armless army and Pyramid Head were done practically, with actors in suits. This pratical aspect got me thinking about a major talking point at the moment in the artistic world: the rise of artificial intelligence and how it could redfine or even destroy the filmmaking process. Where do you stand on this?
It fascinates and worries me at the same time. For me, artificial intelligence could be very dangerous if it’s a propostion that comes from the producers, as a means to cut costs and make things more standardised. That’s my big fear regarding artificial intelligence. I think that an artist will know how to use AI in an interesting way. But for the moment, all the people I've seen talking about artificial intelligence are the producers, who think that they can cut costs with that tool.
Your 2001 film, Brotherhood of the Wolf, showed that French cinema was more than capable of competing with big Hollywood blockbusters. You’ve worked on both sides of the Atlantic during your career – how do you see European cinema doing faced with the hegemony of Hollywood?
I’m watching good films every day from every part of the world. I try not to be interested in directors because they are European or American. Now, my favourite cinema is Indian cinema. I think that something happened six, seven years ago, and we’re now seeing the rise of an incredible bunch of amazing directors. I’m crazy about Indian cinema, and of course, you’ve heard about RRR by Rajamouli... That film really wowed me. It’s great because since the disappearance of Hong Kong cinema, I was a little like an orphan. Now, the interesting wave is in India, with movies that are incredibly creative. They are doing cinema like the big directors back in the 20s, 30s and 40s. It’s amazing to watch.
Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the cinemagoing experience, which continues to be threatened. When it comes to horror films in particular, a shared communal experience can truly elevate a film - as opposed to watching at home. Are you hopeful that audiences will gravitate back to the theatres and not let streaming models win?
For me, it depends of the film. For example, I was very frustrated that nobody could see Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein on a big screen, because it’s one of the films with the most beautiful designs. The look, the colours... The work of the DP Dan Lausten, who I worked with on Brotherhood of the Wolf and Silent Hill, is amazing to watch on the big screen. It’s a real pity that people saw this film on the small screen. But, I'll admit that there are plenty of films that I actually enjoy more on the small screen than on the big screen. But because of my age, I do prefer to watch films in the theatre. A film like Frankenstein is made to be seen in a big room, with Dolby Atmos... It’s a problem. There is a new way of consuming movies today and we have to adapt. The directors have to adapt. I think we'll have many, many fights to win in the coming years.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Return To Silent Hill is out in various territories, including the US and UK. It continues its European theatrical rollout in February.
