Silent Hill Discussion

[Loli-Khan]

That's some hot shit, man.

[Firedrake]

Danke. Just figured this thread shouldn't die.

[StarZander]

Danke. Just figured this thread shouldn't die.

It won't. It's immortal.

[ifirit]

Firedrake, I just finished watching all three videos and I enjoyed watching them. Are you Heaven's Night? Anyway, if you are, I have to ask where you got the Silent Hill 4 material in "Sweet Sugar." I've not seen some of that before. It's really incredible, since none of that was actually in the game.

I especially liked the editting done for "Restless Dreams." It flowed very well with the music of choice. The music choice for "Walter" was a perfect choice as it reflects both the melancholy and freakish nature of the game. I like Evanescence, too. What's the name of that song?

Well, congrats on making some nice music videos.

EDIT: Another site to add to the Silent Hill Multimedia Family. The Interactive Silent Hill Map is a flash version of the maps from the games, with information from the translated Lost Memories book published by Konami as well as other tidbits of information. It's not entirely complete, but might be one day. Enjoy.

EDIT2: Might as well throw this one at you as well. Premonition has a short description of the Silent Hill Female leads. Could be more complete in detail, but still a pretty flash to look at, with some surprises.

[StarZander]

I like Evanescence, too. What's the name of that song?

Evanescence - Even in death

[The Instrument of GAWD]

--CONTAINS SPOILERS--

well, I've been playing SIlent Hill 3 again. Something grabbed me when I was listening to the phone call between Heather and the one guy who's wishing her a Happy Birthday. He said that Stanly Coleman wasn't alive anymore (or something) and he's now known as #7. What I thought was, maybe he meant that he was the seventh victim of Walter... but then again, Walter wasn't present enough in 3 for this to be true huh?

Anyway, I'm playing through 2, 3, and 4 again since I finished RE4 twice. Trying for the Rebirth ending in SH2, Possesed ending in SH3 and it's too early for me to determine which ending to go for in SH4(just got out of Prison World for the 1st time). You can guess how awkward it is to switch from RE4's controls back to SH's, lol.

As for those videoes Firedrake posted: I'll get to those... but it'll probably take a long while... I'm betting they're pretty effing big...

EDIT: oh, wow, they're not effing big after all! I'll check em out after this damn BT download finishes.

[ifirit]

--CONTAINS SPOILERS--

well, I've been playing SIlent Hill 3 again. Something grabbed me when I was listening to the phone call between Heather and the one guy who's wishing her a Happy Birthday. He said that Stanly Coleman wasn't alive anymore (or something) and he's now known as #7. What I thought was, maybe he meant that he was the seventh victim of Walter... but then again, Walter wasn't present enough in 3 for this to be true huh?

Not really, since victim #7 was Billy Locrane (the little boy who was mentioned in "Trick or Treat" along with his sister). Also, according to the conversation, the voice says "he's underground now" which doesn't necessarily imply that he's dead. Also, from the tone of the voice when Heather refers to it as Lenard, he freaks out very similarly like a person who is often mistaken for someone else. To me, this implies that the voice is a split-personality of Lenard Wolfe, and that Stanley Coleman is also a split-personality of Lenard's as well. Going back up, you see that "being underground" might refer to the basement since that is where Lenard is hiding.

Who knows why Lenard was committed to the hospital exactly, or if his personalities existed before he was committed, but for one thing, we can see the Lenard is quite unbalanced. For what it's worth, Heather doesn't really know what to think about him.

[Tranquil Chaos]

Check out the morgue. The body labeled #7 whispers heathers name on the way by.

Stanley? I think so...

[UnforgivingEdges]

Check out the morgue. The body labeled #7 whispers heathers name on the way by.

Stanley? I think so...

That was always my impression, too.

[The Instrument of GAWD]

Hey Firedrake. I dunno if it's just doing it for me, but when I start downloading one of those videos, it's stops before it can reach 100%.

There was a sig here' date=' it's gone now.[/quote']

Clever, lol.

Guess that's another connection SH2 makes with SH4. Henry never went to that part of Silent Hill, where James was. Could it have been a place that Joseph (that was his name right? the guy that lived in 302 before Henry) went to?

I suppose it's time I do some looking around other then pestering people (mainly ifirit) here.

[Kiyosuki]

Well also, Henry was arguably far more mentally stable than James. Henry is just a normal guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, where as James is in his situation because of his own frail mentality. Those holes were always a metaphor for his psyche, so maybe Henry didn't go there..because he didn't have to.

Henry is probably the most mentally balanced male character in the whole series..

[StarZander]

Well also, Henry was arguably far more mentally stable than James. Henry is just a normal guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, where as James is in his situation because of his own frail mentality. Those holes were always a metaphor for his psyche, so maybe Henry didn't go there..because he didn't have to.

Henry is probably the most mentally balanced male character in the whole series..

That's one of the things I really dislike about SH4. In all the other games, the main character had a special significance to the story/plot, like Harry had picked up Cheryl as a baby, and now they were back there and the town kindo f has its revenge on him while he's looking for Cheryl. In SH2, the connection got pretty clear at the end. It's all about James there. In SH3 Heather is the key to everything, as she's the baby Harry got home with him at the end of SH1, but... in SH4 Henry just happened to live there. He's nothing special, he seldom says anything, and just one day saw a hole in his bathroom wall, and thought to himself "Maybe I'll go through here and beat the shit out of some freaks of nature that appear for no reason. The TV isn't working anyway." so I just really hate Henry.

[Kiyosuki]

Well he climbed through the hole because it was the only way he'd be able to retain his sanity from being stuck in the room for so long.

It would of been cooler if Henry was stuck in the room for a much longer period of time, (say two weeks) and started to slowly lose his mind as well as health because of lack of food/water etc. So when the hole appears he has to escape in order to not only keep his life but also his very mind. You could throw in hallucinations and everything, that would of been creepy as hell.

Its really amazing though how much of a difference the character's background made on the games overall scare factor. For some reason, playing as Henry was less freightening than the other three because of the fact he was very normal. There's something that clicks inside of you when you feel like your character is truly tied to whats going on around them, and if its something horrific then that just makes the experience of playing as that character even more freightening. Harry feels like such a pawn in a bigger game, Heather has no clue whats going on inside of herself and feels so frail, James you just don't trust at all, however because of the fact he has no connection to the events at all other than being one of the Sacraments, and his normal mentality, Henry feels much more like a hero battling evil than something lost in wonderland (of hell).

Now for some reason I like Henry as a character, there's something about the "poor shmuck who was in the wrong place at the wrong time hero" type of deal that always hit a chorde in me. Its why I like characters like Leon Kennedy, Ryusei, etc. They're heroic because of they're own initiative, not big prophecies or obligation or anything.

But for Silent Hill maybe it wasn't enough for the main character. Although I think the central problem was the enviornments itself and not so much Henry.

[StarZander]

I would have liked the idea that Henry was going mad in that apartment, and all his "adventures" later on, was all just in his mind. That he never actually left the apartment. He just sat down in a corner and thought he did it all. But that might not have made any sense, since there is no reason to connect the town of Silent Hill to this. Unless his apartment was located in Silent Hill itself.

[Kiyosuki]

Ohhh!

Like, Henry will go unconscious or go to sleep, and you'll go to the other worlds..

But..then stuff starts to happen outside, like Eileen talking about this happening, and that happening..making Henry wonder weither it was a dream or not..thus challenging his mentality even more. XD

Now thats interesting. See, if we have a character who's perfectly normal, and has no inner demons like Henry, we gotta challenge that to its full extents to get his full potential out.

[Meteo Xavier]

The only thing I couldn't figure out about the Silent Hill games (note: I've only played 3 and 4) is how the monsters fit into the story of the game. In RE, the monsters were the whole threat, they were the conflict in the story. In Silent Hill, (IMO) they just seem to be thrown in there to slow the character down, they don't seem to fit in the storyline at all. Am I just missing something?

[Kiyosuki]

The only thing I couldn't figure out about the Silent Hill games (note: I've only played 3 and 4) is how the monsters fit into the story of the game. In RE, the monsters were the whole threat, they were the conflict in the story. In Silent Hill, (IMO) they just seem to be thrown in there to slow the character down, they don't seem to fit in the storyline at all. Am I just missing something?

You should really go back and read some of this post sometime, you couldn't be further from the truth.

Believe it or not, the monster's in 1, 2, and 3 actually have psychological reasons for being there, even officially. Like the monster's in 1 all represent Alessa's anxieties and fears, in 2 the monster's are all elements of James psyche and things his subconscious is trying to tell him, and in 3 its a little more vague, but its been said that the monster's are there as representations of all the things Heather finds putrid and undesirable, or which she fears in order to fuel her hate.

Not sure about 4 though..they're probably things derived from Walter's warped views but nothing official's been said.

[Tranquil Chaos]

At the beginning of SH4, Henry says he's been trapped in his apartment for something like 2 weeks.

[StarZander]

At the beginning of SH4, Henry says he's been trapped in his apartment for something like 2 weeks.

I thought he said "the last few days, it's been like this" or something?

[ifirit]

Silent Hill 4 Spoilers

The only thing I couldn't figure out about the Silent Hill games (note: I've only played 3 and 4) is how the monsters fit into the story of the game. In RE, the monsters were the whole threat, they were the conflict in the story. In Silent Hill, (IMO) they just seem to be thrown in there to slow the character down, they don't seem to fit in the storyline at all. Am I just missing something?

Like Kiyosuki said above, the significance of the monsters in the game are much more apparent than you may see at first. Though the particular reasoning for the appearance of the monsters in Silent Hill depends on your views pertaining to the game's plot or story, the presence, shape and behavior of the creatures are all derivative of the central character.

Now, with reference to SH4, though you play as Henry, the central character of the game is Walter Sullivan. (I think that goes without saying, but hear me out.) Since finding the first hole, we continually assume that the world in the hole is not exactly the real world. As Henry says "I know that if you die in the this world, you die in the real world, too." This statement suggests that Henry not only knows that he isn't really in the portal, but that if he dies there, he'll die for real.

Thus, his mission in the game to truely "wake up." Thoughout the game, you traverse the portals of reality (I like song titles; plus, I said since Akira Yamaoka was producing the game, the song titles would have a much greater signicance than before) to find a way to escape the confines of The Room. What the twist is, and this is the tricky part, that Henry never really wakes up in his room at all. He is propetually stuck inside Walter's Universe. So, you have to ask yourself, "Is this real, or not?"

Does Henry ever truely escape the prison that Walter has created in Henry's mind? Does performing the rituals in Another Crimson Tome really allow Henry (and Eileen) to escape the Alternate Reality? Depends on your point of view, and the ending you believe is the true ending.

Anyway, on the subject of the monsters in the various "Worlds." Let's first look at the ghosts. We learn from the websites and from the game itself that the ghosts are the victims of Walter Sullivan doomed to spend eternity haunting the world "within and without the Lord's world." We can see how these creatures relate particularly to Walter and to Henry, through his interactions with the characters.

But, what about the other monsters in the game, the ones that can actually die. Dogs, patients, wallmen, hummers, ect., why do they exist there? Quite simply, they are the products of the twisted and overactive mind of Walter Sullivan. We can see some of this when Henry travels through to the "Hospital World." Since Henry uses a different portal to reach this world, he sees Walter behind what should be "closed doors." Walter is deforming and changing something in his world because that is what he thinks about after years of psychological abuse and scarring, and because Walter himself cannot escape his own "world."

Think about the kid in highschool who was often constantly bored in class. So bored, that he would sometimes do the most random things to keep himself occupied. Think of the wierd and sometimes disturbing drawings he would create just to pass the time. Walter is a lot like that. The creatures in this world are his creations and they take a life of their own. This might explain why they often attack each other, especially the Sniffer Dogs when another creature dies.The whole thing is like some sort of twisted version of the Story of Creation.

And Walter said, "let there be life," and so it came to be. (Sick.)

At the beginning of SH4, Henry says he's been trapped in his apartment for something like 2 weeks.

Very clearly in the introduction, the story says, "Henry has been locked in his room for 5 days." However, if you consider what I said before, how do we really know? How does Henry know how long a day is if what he sees outside the window might not be real? A valid point to argue, but not really more significant to the story than discussing the point of whether or not Henry is dreaming or not. Because in the 21 Sacraments ending, it says, "The body of a young man was discovered in the Ashfield Heights Apartment Complex Rm. 302. It is believed to be that of it's owner, Henry Townsend. However, it has been deformed past identification."

Truth be, Henry may have never left the apartment at all, or it could all be a dream that passed over a single night. It's hard to really say.

It would of been cooler if Henry was stuck in the room for a much longer period of time, (say two weeks) and started to slowly lose his mind as well as health because of lack of food/water etc. So when the hole appears he has to escape in order to not only keep his life but also his very mind. You could throw in hallucinations and everything, that would of been creepy as hell.

I believe that was the original intention of the developers in the initial production of the story. But, again, I think that the short deadline affected the execution of the game. From interviews with the Producer Akira Yamaoka, he seems to really have wanted to drive that issue home with gamers. But with the game be created from start to finish in less than 12 months, fine-tuning on the plot and character development took a backseat to meeting the dealine.

Not to say that this is a bad game by any means, exactly the opposite. (I'm still impressed they managed to do it while creating a unique and scary experience.) This game looks to have been in pre-production for a while, which is probably why development on it started immediately after SH3 came out. However, like I've said before, the stress of having to get it out so soon likely didn't give the developers enough time to really tighten every bolt, hammer every nail, or paint every corner.

Yet, the issue at hand (whether Henry seemed emotionally and physically effected by his imprisonment) did creep its way into the game in a slight less obvious way. The hauntings of The Room were designed to be notifications that maybe Henry isn't quite feeling well. They first start out as being simple sounds or noises (knocks, static, telephone rings). Then they build up to be accidents that freak you out (shower, dryer, fan), but don't really affect him physically. Ultimately, they break out into life-threatening attacks on his life (the ones that need holy objects to repel.)

I see this as symbolic to Henry's mental state. Since, I think The Room is a metaphor for Henry's mind, it seems fitting that Walter would attack him there. I also relates to how Henry gets "headaches" while visiting the "worlds." The hauntings in the room are causing Henry physical pain by effecting his emotional state. (Sort of like the whole concept of psychological terror; you effect someone physically, i.e. fear, by applying a psychological simulus, i.e. the sounds of someone breathing heavily, or the sounds of someone crying.) Things that would effect his emotional state more so would be watching other people die, being helpless to protect someone, or even having an attempt on his own life. Compound these things with a sense of having no escape, and I'd say Henry is a lot more than simply unresponsive. It could be that he's just blown a fused and doesn't want to feel anything. However, ultimately he can't ignore it.

I think I'll stop here. That's a lot to think about for right now. Congraduations for making it this far. Here's a cookie. (It's the new Broken Notes album.)

EDIT:

Silent Hill Movie Update:

Some more news has been released about the plot to the Silent Hill movie. According to a letter printed on Don Carmody's website (which was promptly removed), he gave out the synopsis to the script.

Silent Hill Movie Spoilers

I am not kidding. The synopsis gives away the ending!!!

El productor de la película de Silent Hill, Don Carmody, ha hecho pública en su página web una supuesta y vasta sinopsis del argumento del film.

Es un completo spoiler para todo aquel que no conozca el juego que dió origen a la saga; para el resto, básicamente no es más que el argumento de Silent Hill 1 sustituyendo al mítico Harry por una mujer llamada Rose.

Teneis una rápida traducción del texto en la ampliación de la noticia.

TRISTAR

Producer - Toronto

Director – Christophe Gans

Una mujer desesperada por salvar a su hija moribunda se encuentra atrapada en una realidad alternativa mientras la busca en un peligroso mundo lleno de demonios.

Rose no puede aceptar el que su hija Sharon se esté muriendo a causa de una fatal enfermedad. A pesar de las protestas de su marido, escapa intentando llevar a su hija a un curandero. Por el camino, acaban viajando a través de un portal que las conduce a la espeluznante y desierta ciudad de Silent Hill.

Sharon desaparece allí, y Rose persigue por toda la ciudad a lo que ella piensa que es la silueta de su hija. Pronto se dará cuenta de que Silent Hill no es como cualquier lugar en el que haya estado antes. Está habitada por varias criaturas y una oscuridad viviente desciende transformando -literalmente- todo lo que toca.

Ayudada por una policía llamada Cybil, que ha sido enviada para traer a ella y a su hija de vuelta, Rose buscará a su pequeña mientras descubre la historia de la ciudad y se da cuenta de que Sharon representa sólo al peón de un juego más complicado.

Para salvar a su hija, Rose hará un pacto con un demonio de aspecto infantil, y permitirá así que las fuerzas de la oscuridad tomen la ciudad y destruyan a todos aquellos que intentaron acabar con el mal. Al final salvará a Sharon, pero pagando un alto precio.

Since this is the only known (actual) reproduction of the letter, though in Spanish, it is the most accurate. However, you can find other synopses on the net. Here are a few.

Warning - Links Contain Spoilers

I am not kidding. The synopsis gives away the ending!!!

Empire Online

Movies Online

JoBlo

Film Rot

[Meteo Xavier]

Speaking of psychological abuse and such, does anyone know where I can find good information, articles, examples, etc of psychological abuse? Or for that matter, abuse towards mental patients?

Reason I ask is because a friend and I are working on a story of our own that deals with the subject at hand, its about a mental patient who wakes up in the hospital one day to discover that the hospital is completely devoid of anyone but himself, but the hospital itself shows very few signs of any kind of conflict, the power still works, water and food are available, but the hospital is completely locked up, so he has no real means of escaping. At the same time, as he sits around in the hospital trying to investigate the matter and find a way out, his perception of reality keeps changing, and so there are a lot of scene transitions somewhat like those found in this game.

And the whole point of this story is to really exploit the psychological damage he sustains from brain damage and an abusive hospital in a realistic manner. I want to be careful with it so I don't just slap some "psychological thriller" together that everyone else seems to be doing nowadays. I want it to be good, but I have little knowledge and experience in the matter (which is surprising to most people, I should say).

So any help or direction or interest would greatly help me out. Thanks.

[StarZander]

One thing I would have liked to know more about in SH4, is what Henry experienced whilst being in Silent Hill. If you look at the pictures on the walls of his bedroom, they are of places in SH. It's been a while since I've played SH4, but if my memory serves me right, then he took those photos himself. Right? If so... maybe something happened when he was there?

[Kiyosuki]

Does Henry ever truely escape the prison that Walter has created in Henry's mind? Does performing the rituals in Another Crimson Tome really allow Henry (and Eileen) to escape the Alternate Reality? Depends on your point of view, and the ending you believe is the true ending.

OH! Maybe thats what the Mother and Escape endings mean!

In Mother, maybe the room is all messed up, and Eileen (and possibly Henry) don't leave because Henry hasn't cleared out all the demons out of his mentality, so maybe they find themselves bound to the room..thus Walter's Dream. If we're going on this way of thinking. Maybe its the games way of telling you that the game is going to go in a cycle, and maybe...just maybe..Henry will follow the same fate as Joseph.

And in escape, you actually do escape by leaving the room and everything associated with it behind (hinted by Eileen's statement about "finding a new place" Obviously, the happiest ending.

[ifirit]

Speaking of psychological abuse and such, does anyone know where I can find good information, articles, examples, etc of psychological abuse? Or for that matter, abuse towards mental patients?

Reason I ask is because a friend and I are working on a story of our own that deals with the subject at hand, its about a mental patient who wakes up in the hospital one day to discover that the hospital is completely devoid of anyone but himself, but the hospital itself shows very few signs of any kind of conflict, the power still works, water and food are available, but the hospital is completely locked up, so he has no real means of escaping. At the same time, as he sits around in the hospital trying to investigate the matter and find a way out, his perception of reality keeps changing, and so there are a lot of scene transitions somewhat like those found in this game.

And the whole point of this story is to really exploit the psychological damage he sustains from brain damage and an abusive hospital in a realistic manner. I want to be careful with it so I don't just slap some "psychological thriller" together that everyone else seems to be doing nowadays. I want it to be good, but I have little knowledge and experience in the matter (which is surprising to most people, I should say).

So any help or direction or interest would greatly help me out. Thanks.

Try checking out the major publishers of medical and neurological journals. The National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke are two major publishers of journals.

However, like most published journals, you'll need a subscription to the journal to read it. Some universities and schools though have subscriptions available to students via their databases, but again it depends on the school.

If you're not looking for something scientific, and simply stories (fiction or non-fiction), then I just suggest googling "psychology + articles + abuse + patients." You'll usually find something written by someone out there. You can also go the library to check out books published about abuse in mental institutions.

For what it's worth, I did a short google search and came up with this. (An extensive article listing of things from trama to violent parents to issues with ADHD and treatments.)

One thing I would have liked to know more about in SH4, is what Henry experienced whilst being in Silent Hill. If you look at the pictures on the walls of his bedroom, they are of places in SH. It's been a while since I've played SH4, but if my memory serves me right, then he took those photos himself. Right? If so... maybe something happened when he was there?

According to the descriptions Henry gives about the photos over the course of the game, Henry didn't see anything strange about the town. It's true that he did take the majority of the photographs himself, but he did so on his last trip to Silent Hill which was after his graduation.

One thing you also have to consider about Silent Hill is time and specific loaction in the town. Depending on where exactly the time that Henry would have seen Silent and the other events in the series, depends on whether or not the town would have already been "cursed." Also, you have to consider what section of the town is affected. Does the curse extend to simply Old Silent Hill, maybe the Business District, could it have gone as far as the Tourist section by the Lighthouse, or maybe it extended to Paleville and South Vale maybe even farther than that and has traversed to the outskirts of the woods beyond Lake Toluca and past the Observation Point. Who knows?

Anyway, the point is Henry doesn't see anything wrong with the town when he's there. The sky was clear, the sun was shining and the trip couldn't have been more pleasurable.

If you really wanted to you apply that same kind of logic to James and Mary and even Harry who all vacationed in Silent Hill before the events of the game took place. What about them?

EDIT: For those who are checking out the new Broken Notes album, also check out the other Remix Projects: Intermission, Fan Soundtrack, and Artist Singles. Intermission is a collection of various VG Remixes not just Silent Hill. Fan Soundtrack is the ReMix Project of the entire Silent Hill 1 soundtrack while Artist Singles contain uneditted files produced from the Fan Soundtrack. I have a sneeking suspicion that they are familiar with OCR and that maybe they visit here often.

[Meteo Xavier]

Hardcore. Thats all I have to say for you Ifirit, Hardcore.

I think I'm going to stick around this a bit, I'm quickly becoming a Silent Hill addict myself.