Welcome to Silent Hill

Saturday, September 09, 2006

The other night I watched the movie Silent Hill. The movie, for those who don’t know, is based upon a series of horror video games I’m somewhat partial to, despite the fact that in addition to being scary, they’re often quite sick and disturbing. At the center of these video games is the fictional town of Silent Hill (hence the name).

Silent Hill isn’t a nice place to visit, and living there is pretty much out of the question.

More on the movie in a bit. Thus far, there have been four installments of the video game series released in the United States. The first game, Silent Hill, was released in 1999 for the Sony Playstation. In it, you play the role of author Harry Mason, who decides to take his young daughter Cheryl to Silent Hill for a vacation. (The town is apparently a popular vacation spot, with a view of scenic Toluca Lake and an amusement park. Trust me—these places soon lose their charm.) Harry loses control of his car and drives off the road, knocking himself unconscious. When he awakens, Cheryl is gone, and her tracks lead off towards Silent Hill. Harry does what any father would do; he goes after her, coming face-to-face with the town’s dark secrets.

In Silent Hill 2 (2001), you take on the role of fat and out-of-shape James Sunderland, who gets a letter from his wife, Mary, asking him to meet her in Silent Hill. Long ago, they spent their honeymoon there. Only problem is Mary’s been dead for several years. When James arrives, he finds the town is not at all like he remembered it, and neither is his wife. I found this installment of the series to be the most disturbing and twisted of the four. Dr. Murk is currently borrowing my copy for PS2; I know a PC version exists as well.

In Silent Hill 3 (2003), you play Heather Morris, a typical, cocky teenage mall-rat just trying to make it home after a hard day of hanging out. She dozes off, dreaming of an amusement park filled with corpses and horrible monsters. When she awakens, there’s a creepy guy who keeps following her around, talking about a town called Silent Hill. She doesn’t live in that town…but why does that name mean something to her? And why, all of a sudden, is she so certain that there is a connection between her own shadowy past and that of Silent Hill? This particular installment of the series boasts the single scariest moment I’ve ever experienced in a video game, and thinking about it now still creeps me out.

Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004), is the first game to have something other than the town’s name in its title. You play poor Henry Townshend, who finds himself trapped in his own apartment. His front door is covered with chains and locks; all his windows won’t open. The only way out is a mysterious portal that has opened in his wall, leading to…well, you know where. Will he ever find a way out?

Gameplay in all cases revolves around fighting or avoiding monsters and solving puzzles as you try to uncover the town’s secrets. The voice acting varies from adequate to good (SH3 probably has the worst voice acting in the series), and the mood music is phenomenal (more on that later). Although overall, the series is quite scary and frightening, at times it is marred by some lame monsters, un-scary bosses and incomprehensible plotlines (likely brought on by imperfect Japanese-English translations). Despite this, something keeps me coming back to Silent Hill for each new installment of the game. That something, quite simply, is atmosphere.

Silent Hill is all about atmosphere, and the games excel at evoking a mood of terror and revulsion better than any other game I’ve played. Many is the time you find yourself at the top of a ladder, for example, that descends into a hole no sane person would ever go into, and you’ve no choice but to descend. Or a door so covered in blood and filth that you would never want to open it without a containment suit, but open it you must. Some of the creatures are truly grotesque. As I wrote once in my blog:

The creepiest game series I've ever played is Konami's Silent Hill series, which is so sick and twisted it gets into your dreams (in my case-literally). Wanna blow some zombies' heads off with a shotgun? Any Resident Evil game is for you. Wanna battle skinless, faceless children wielding knives who plunge them into your legs and hang on, and you with only a wooden plank to fend them off? Yeah. That's Silent Hill.

You’ll notice that I said I come back for each new installment. Despite the allure of multiple endings and unlockable items, costumes, and other game content, I have never played any installment of Silent Hill more than once. The games just freak me out too much. I consider that a badge of honor for Konami, the games’ publisher.

On to the movie, for which I am more reserved in my praise. The plot most closely resembles that of the first game, with some changes (not the least of which is changing the sex of the protagonist from male to female). It features monsters and characters from the first two games (thankfully none of the lame bosses), and veteran gamers will cringe at some of the familiar locations (such as Midwich Elementary School and Brookhaven Hospital). While the movie doesn’t explain the plotlines of the games any better, it does provide an alternate (and much more sensical) storyline regarding what happened in the town. While not particularly scary, it succeeds at being creepy as hell, thanks in part to the fact that it uses music straight from the games. The eerie music is one of the Silent Hill series’ greatest achievements, contributing substantially to the atmosphere; just listening to the first game’s opening theme gives me the shivers. (My copy of Silent Hill 3 came with a soundtrack CD. I listened to it once…and skipped most of the tracks.)

The acting is quite good, featuring Deborah Unger and the great Alice Krige; as well as Sean Bean, who I'm totally gay for ever since he played Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring. Since the movie features a separate (yet similar) story from the games, I’m not sure how much of it is lost on viewers who are unfamiliar with them. I heartily recommend the film for fans of the series, but I’m less enthusiastic in my recommendation for those who have no attachment. That being said, it’s still much better than most of the crap titled “horror” nowadays. Anyone else have any opinions?