Dear Mandy,

Maybe you can help me see the point of this movie. I understand how people go blurry-eyed playing video games, exploring every corner of a digital universe with zombie-like devotion for days on end. But have you ever tried to watch someone else play? For even 15 minutes? The tedium that overwhelms you when you're powerless over the arbitrary decisions of others is another parallel that the gaming world has with Silent Hill: Revelation. If I wore contacts, they'd be permanently lodged deep inside my cranium after how long, hard, and often my eyes rolled during this pointless, meandering, comically terrible snoozefest.

When something works in genre films - as the first Silent Hill did (but only mildly) - it becomes necessary in today's economic model to mine your property for any and all additional profit. In this case, we are left with Heather, the surviving daughter of Silent Hill's heroine, now played by Michelle Williams lookalike Adelaide Clemens. She walks around with no skills and no clue, like an annoying little sister your parents force you to play the game with. Sean Bean also returns as the father, and is once again criminally underused. Instead, fellow _Game of Thrones _castmate Kit Harrington joins the cast as a mysterious outsider in a performance that solidifies his place in any conversation about the worst actor of our generation. Unless, of course, the titular "revelation" is that the film is actually a comedy, in which case Harrington nails it.

That's the first problem: the entire concept of the film is too trippy to be scary. It begins with the yawn-inducing horror standard - a dream inside a dream - and doubles down on that concept by constantly shifting out of reality. All without visceral triggers or consequences. Instead of feeling invested in the horror, we just sit back and watch as the walls peel away, or monsters fight themselves, while the "hero" cower in corners and slip from away to the next "level".

The effort that went into creating these piecemeal scenes is admirable, but the way we experience them are simply dreadful. The lights are always set to "strobe", the dialogue is groan-inducing, and simple shots (like the ones on the Welcome to Silent Hill sign) linger a painfully long time. The town itself, which perpetually rains ash thanks to an underground fire, is a great visual conceit, but rendered gimmicky by perfunctory effects that 3D glasses do nothing to improve. Even those contact lenses you put in Alessa's eyes just look like big boring black dots. Sorry.

The only way in which this film improves on the first is the mercifully short runtime. Good thing, because I was ready to gouge my own eyes out.