The horror genre in gaming is fast becoming a joke, with society becoming more and more desensitized to violence and video game developers more interested in your money than your enjoyment of their game. Horror games come and go and are quickly forgotten, relying on violence and jump scares to keep interest. They are all style and no substance, nothing to strike ice-cold fear into your heart. When discussing terrifying games, the name “Silent Hill” crops up time and time again. And rightly so as the developers use symbolism and mythology along with the suspenseful music and gore, which makes the game feel real, like the town could be anywhere in the world, even your town, and that idea is terrifying.
Silent Hill is a long-running survival-horror video game series by Konami set in a fictional American tourist destination where all is not what it seems. The series has breathed new life into the survival-horror genre and into horror itself, making a game that has more than just blood and gore but it managed to change the way all future horror games would develop and approach the market. The games really lets you get to know the characters and delve deep into their thoughts, immersing the player into a twisted world inhabited by monsters and grotesque creatures that do way more than going bump in the night while crawling and dragging their corpses through the empty streets of Silent Hill. These creatures are more than just obstacles to be bludgeoned and fled away from, in fact they are representations of a fear or emotion for the character, repeatedly showing up to torment the character and admittedly, the player.
The games are steeped in symbolism and mythology, creating a terrifying world that pulls the player in, kicking and screaming! While these metaphors and symbols will change from game to game there is one that features throughout the series and that is the town of Silent Hill itself. It can even be considered a character in its own right and regarded as possibly the most threatening antagonist the lead character must overcome. The town often blurs the line between reality and the imagined; it feeds on the minds of guests and manifests the monsters from their thoughts and fears. It’s the deadliest foe and hardest to defeat because it’s not something you can physically attack. It’ll make your life difficult, switching back and forth to the fog world and the otherworld with the sirens scaring the daylights out of you. Its resident cult, the Order (ironically named given the chaos they bring) will also serve as a constant thorn in the side as they attempt without any qualms about human life to resurrect their “God”.
The most famous of the monsters in Silent Hill is “Pyramid Head” or the “Red Pyramid” or as its Japanese name translates to the “Bogeyman”. Although synonymous with the game, he first appeared in SH 2(which is personally my favourite one) but only makes brief cameo appearances in other games. In SH 2, he represents the character James Sunderland’s overwhelming guilt and desire for punishment and even his sexual frustration. Throughout the series, Pyramid Head is seen as a punisher and executioner. What makes Pyramid Head so terrifying is that he looks human but has a huge pyramid on its head that seems to cause it pain, making it more monster-like. He seems to symbolise the dark feelings that can never leave a person no matter how hard they try to forget them, which is something that is all too real. Another monster that does appear in all games are the nurses, they are usually disfigured, wearing more old-fashioned nurse uniforms. These nurses can represent a character’s fear of hospitals, sexual frustration or hatred towards women.
You can’t turn into a street without coming across something of significance (no really, the streets are named after prolific horror writers). There are symbols everywhere in the game, borrowing from the occult and religion, the developers put so much effort into this world and you really feel it because although you know it’s just a game, there’s a part of you thinking that it could be a real place and wonder why on earth would anyone even go within a few miles of it? Not bad for a game that was created to counter the success of the “Resident Evil” games (and not a Jill sandwich in sight).
The “Silent Hill” series seems to be a labour of love for the developers as so much effort is put into the games; there is so much attention to detail. Nothing is clear cut in the game, something could seem completely innocent but could mean something different, this gives the game a sinister feel. Not many games have achieved to create the tense atmosphere, the nightmare-inducing monsters or those moments where you just have to look away quite like Silent Hill has and this had and this is what makes it stand the test of time.
[Words, Bríd O’ Neill]
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
