In a news update for Silent Hill Transmission, Konami released an exclusive first look at Return to Silent Hill as well as a new interview with Gans, who revealed that Return is heavily based on the Silent Hill 2 video game. Gans explained that he considers the first four games to be “masterpieces” and is excited to bring the “most adult” installment of the series to the big screen, saying:
“It's the story of James Sunderland, who loses the love of his life and decides to return to Silent Hill to find her. He finds that the town has been fundamentally changed. It's like hell, it's become his own hell. And he travels through all the levels of hell to find his wife, and somewhere along the way he also finds the truth about himself. This film adds an emotional layer to the horror, which definitely makes it more disturbing and more unsettling. I think of the first film as kind of an epic journey through horror. This one is kind of a deep dive into psychological horror.”
His absence and inclusion of many of the monsters from the first two Silent Hill films, such as Pyramid Head and the Faceless Nurse, was a major sticking point for some game fans, as they were actually meant to represent aspects of James' tortured psyche in the games. His addition to the Silent Hill film universe could allow director Gans to right a story wrong and give fans what they've been wanting all along.
