Silent Hill Downpour: Anne’s Story #2
Written by: Tom Waltz
Art by: Tristan Jones
Colours by: Michael Spicer
Published by: IDW Publishing
Silent Hill Downpour: Anne’s Story picks up where we left off – in the kind of horrific/hallucinatory darkness that is synonymous with the Silent Hill franchise.
We glean more about the motivations of Anne in this issue, we gain insight into her relationship with her father and about key events in her recent history that have shaped her into the person she is now. The second act in a 4 part story tends to be where the pace is held, where more of the plot comes to light following the ‘establishing’ issue. That first issue ticked all the boxes, it had a cool feel to the story and that kind of unsettling dream state that pervaded the book, worked well. Here in this issue, while Waltz covers the necessary, there doesn’t feel enough ‘story’ in the actual book this time out. The flashbacks do lend something to the characters but, ultimately, they feel clumsy.
As we move to the final section of the issue, the feel that Waltz and company are aiming for, is an ominous one; impending doom, almost. That doesn’t quite pan out, there is a lack of a sense of urgency at the culmination of the issue, you feel you are missing something, some twist that just isn’t there.
The art by Jones is pretty good, the different feels that he aims for come across well. Probably the best elements revolve around the nightmare horror at play, in particular the face off between Cunningham and the knife wielding nightmare nurse. Jones handles the action parts well, the movements are choreographed well and play out convincingly. On the downside of that though, we have a few panels that feel jumbled, that don’t quite come across easily. Possibly, that’s for effect, but as a reader you want a clean transition of the story – anything that interrupts the flow damages the experience.
While this issue doesn’t have the same impact as #1, the story is still engaging and we are interested to see how Anne’s story pans out. Waltz has left a few pieces of foreshadowing for us though, and since this is a Silent Hill book you can feel the darkness looming in the coming issues.
