After a few watches....
I actually rather enjoyed it. Even more so then the original. Hear me out.
So lets just get this outta the way, it's not a great movie. Not like some prize winning greatly acted movie but it's entertaining and thats what a movie should be. So first seeing the movie I had all these high hopes and expectations and they were not met so I left the theater very disappointed. So after not watching it for a long while I decided to pick it up for my SH collection anyways and watch it again. Now I really like how much this movie sticks to the plot of the 3 game. Sure they practically take away a lot of the "heather giving birth to God and actually being pregnant with it" plot but its mostly there albeit in pieces. But it struggles from having to also be a continuation of the first movie which ISN'T close to the plot of the first game and I feel like that hurt this movie. It tries to do two things, be a sequel and be an adaptation and it failed at atlas being a sequel. But it sure did try and I respect that. I mean everyone knows it mostly retcons the first movies story... But there are clever ways it could be written where the changes in this movie and the cults motives could been explained without pretty much ignoring the first movie. And while it borrowed some aspects of SH3 I feel like they shoulda spent more time in the mall. Heather had a few run ins with Claudia which kinda built up character development for both in the game. In the movie they only meet at the end at the underground church for the final stand off which on paper sounds epic but on screen comes across as corny and anti-climatic. And another thing which is probably my BIGGEST problem with the movie is that it didn't use ANY creatures from SH3... or from the SH universe in general other then PH, Lying Figure, Memory of Alessa, and a version of The Missionary but I assume this is due to the budget being low and the monster effects being high cost. Most of the creatures in the film mostly relied on realism and almost had a Jacobs Ladder feel which isn't bad but this was a SH movie. I will say I dug the atmosphere and how Heather really isn't given anytime to breathe as she's always running away from something. Theres a certain sense of fear there. But like I stated above I think most people were just flat out upset that it feels so disconnected from the original movie and that it was. But it did do a rather good job at adapting the source game although it was dumbed down and fitted to work with the plot of the first movie (which was a waste). Honestly had I been the director I woulda just ignored the plot of the first movie and just adapted SH3. I mean honestly this movie isn't for everyone and clearly most SH fans hate it. But I like it for the simple fact that plot wise it's a closer adaptation then the first movie.