There’s a reason, a very sensible if surprising reason, Jeremy Irvine is starring in Friday’s haunted horror entry “Return to Silent Hill.”

A retooling of the 2000 “Silent Hill 2” bestselling videogame, “Return” casts the 35-year-old British actor (“Dalgliesh,” the most recent “Outlander”) as James Sunderland who, yes, returns to the now-haunted, evil dominion known as Silent Hill. He’s there to find and perhaps rescue his lost love Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson).

“I signed on,” Irvine explained in a Zoom interview, “because I played the video game a lot when I was14 or 15. It really resonated with that ‘teenage angst’ in me.

“The feeling I remembered of playing the game (rather than much of the game itself) was this melancholic, atmospheric, quite depressing atmosphere that it had — and that I loved wallowing in as a teenager.

“So when I got the offer, I thought, Well, 14-year-old me would think this was really cool. So I took the job.”

“Return to Silent Hill” is directed and cowritten by Christophe Gans.  Despite its history, this is not like entering the Marvel universe.

“I would hope it stands alone,” Irvine said. “The movie is a real fun ride. But the thing is, the entire movie, every monster, is a metaphor for something. It’s all inside this world that James has created inside his head.

“So he goes through this mental breakdown — of guilt and grief. And if you don’t get that part the first time ‘round, by the end of it, you’ll figure it out.”

How isolating an experience was filming in Germany and Serbia?

“It was months on my own. These very dark days where it was just me basically going through yet another breakdown.

“But every couple of days, I could make up for it by having fun when some of the cast was there.”

The dark entities plaguing Sunderland were not added digitally.

“Not at all. They were all real, with these incredible costumes and prosthetics. When I really got to act with them, it was quite funny in a way.

“Because one of the most iconic characters is this armless character — and I didn’t see who was playing it. And then, in their full kit it’s a really disgusting character.

“And the way they moved! We had dancers and performers acting those roles. There was this glamorous Italian dancer and this strange juxtaposition, like beauty with a beast.

“All the nurses were an entire Serbian ballet troupe. People who’ve got incredible ways of using their body to become these very unsettling creatures.

“It was awesome, amazing work. A very different art form to what I do.”

Get ready for a fresh visit to an evil dominion in “The Return to Silent Hill.” (Photo courtesy Iconic Events)