BulletPoints - Silent Hill: Infestation

Recently, the cancellation of Silent Hills came to pass. Konami has once again proven they are incapable of providing us with good games. As evidenced by the fact Silent Hill having quality issues for years, Kojima’s departure from Konami, and their inability to market games in a way that will help them actually sell. This was even brought up in our most recent podcast (#48 Nobody Thinks of Norman Reedus). 

To mourn the loss of this potentially spectacular project, I thought why not create my own Silent Hill. For those who don’t know what I mean, Silent Hill is a mysterious town that has connections to a darker, more hell-like world. Throughout the games, it’s been established that those who enter Silent Hill and have darker pasts and great fears will see them come to life. The town acts as not an evil force to torture its victims, but a neutral force designed to help guide you through your internal struggles. True, its dangerous and horrifying, but sometimes the struggles we face are just that and we need a strong enough push to get us past them. This is ignoring the cult-aspect from Silent Hill 1 and Silent Hill 3.

Also keep in mind this is personal. While I have no dark past to really speak of (seriously, I’m a normal dude for the most part) I do have some fears. I don’t expect all of them will be shared here, but I’ll do enough to give a sense of the world and a possible story behind it. And if any development team working on a future Silent Hill title wants to borrow these ideas, don’t let me stop you. I know I won’t be working for Konami to make a game in the series anytime. Even if I did, I’m sure they wouldn’t tell me I was working on a Silent Hill game until a week after it had been announced… which is a week after it launches.

First of all, technology wouldn’t work. Sure, big machines needed for whatever elaborate puzzle might work, but phones, computers, or anything used for communication would not work. You know, standard horror-genre stuff? The creatures of Silent Hill (because there has to be some kind of monster) would all be insect-like in nature. I’ve never understood why this kind of concept wasn’t done in Silent Hill yet. I get that human-like creatures can be scary, and I even do find certain people scary in that errie kind of way. But bugs have a natural freakiness to them with their appearance alone.

In Silent Hill, another feature the town is known for is horrible infrastructure. By that, I mean the roads that lead out of town are destroyed until you’ve successfully discovered your reason for being brought to Silent Hill (or you die). But for a nice twist in fitting with the theme, instead of the roads being destroyed, the roads out of town have massive spider webs or wasp nests (like, building sized) that block the ways out of town. No, I don’t have a crippling fear of insects, but, yes, bugs do freak me out a bit.

Of course the real “personal” part of Silent Hill is the “Otherworld” portion of Silent Hill. For those who aren’t fully in the know, the “Otherworld” is basically a hellish landscape. In the first game, it was very mechanical with lots of rust and blood everywhere. This is where the monsters were most active. Pathways and rooms would take you to places that you sometimes didn’t expect. Here is the place where your fears truly take root and mess with your head. But keeping in mind the monsters and mechanisms are designed in a way to be a metaphorical representation of ones fear as well.

To give a proper example, the mannequins from Silent Hill 2 are just leg-creatures with the legs being that of a woman (probably). These were meant to be a representation of James Sunderland’s lust and desire during the time his wife was ill. He wanted to be with someone, but couldn’t and it all became pent up and made him, in a way, hate his wife. Another creature would be the straight-jacket looking monsters you see earliest in the same game. There they represent his feelings of being trapped in the relationship. It could also represent his wife’s feeling of being trapped in the hospital bed since she was wrapped in the blankets and that can sorta be an alternate interpretation. And the acid they spit could even be the harsh words she would say to him during her illness. As I said, lots of metaphor and layers to discuss.

My Silent Hill would be a bizarre place where it felt like everything is moving too fast, as if time is slipping away and I’m letting it go to waste. People who really know me know I like to keep busy and be productive. I don’t like standing around and doing nothing all day. If I’m doing nothing at home, I grow bored. This is why I write and game because they’re keeping me mentally active. This isn’t to say that things would always be constantly moving at high speeds, but it would mean that time slips away quickly and it leads to dire consequences.

The monsters, as I said before, would be insect-like in appearance because I can never feel comfortable around bugs at all. I don’t like eating outside for this reason. If I see a centipede in my house, my skin will crawl for literally the rest of the night, even if I’m in a different room. But ants are the most important part of the metaphor because of what they can also represent, being trapped in a rut. Being part of a large, machine like, entity that has no more purpose than to serve some higher authority seemingly without thinking. I’m not a one to immediately embrace change, but if things stay the same forever without change, life becomes dull and miserable and I’ll be the first to admit that it would drive me insane. So ants, while not the most disgusting, creepy, or horrible, would be a central part to the monster theme.

This can also play into a nightmare I had as a child a long time ago. In said dream, I was at home and a wasp-like bug flew into my home. But when it landed on the table, the table suddenly caught fire. As more wasps flew in and landed on various items, they too would go up in flames. It was a bizarre as fuck dream but one that could play into the Silent Hill world as well, adding fire to the mix.

In my Silent Hill world, I’d be truly alone save for one other person who I would be trying to pursue. Maybe to get answers. Maybe to feel less alone. Maybe because I know them. Maybe because I don’t and I want to. But they would be female to represent the long-struggle I had for years of pursuing relationships and my lack of confidence in trying to meet girls. Whether it’s someone I actually know or not, I guess that’d depend on Silent Hill and what it is trying to tell me. Maybe it’d be an ex-girlfriend with whom I had strong connection. Maybe it’d be with a current significant other, trying to tell reveal a darker truth to the relationship I don’t know of. Or maybe it’s someone I haven’t even met yet that I will have to meet to make my life whole.

The most important piece, in my opinion, is the “boogeyman” of Silent Hill. This is the central monstrous figure or guardian over Silent Hill. This is the true representation of your darker self that you try and hide from the world. For James Sunderland, it was Pyramid Head (before the creature sold out and went into the movies) and it represented his violence and aggression as evidenced by it murdering people, raping other monsters, and it even represents the weight of his guilt in its slow movements and heavy weaponry.

My Silent Hill would be some mechanical puppet-master who pulls all the strings of Silent Hill and stages everything to work against me. This creature would try and trap me. Chain me and cage me to keep me from escaping and to continue being weighed down and stuck in the same rut I’ve been in for ages. I’m imagining a darker and more metallic iteration of Puppetmon from Digimon, but I can’t think of anything specific in terms of visuals. This stems from my dislike of being manipulated, my desire to not be stuck in a rut (as previously mentioned), and works to establish a paranoia that the town should be doing anyway.

That’s how I envision my Silent Hill. An infested world where time makes no sense and there’s a feeling of entrapment and containment that pushes you to want to break free and find a way out. It would be a world that inspires paranoia, discomfort, and impatience. But patience is what would be needed to find a way out and seek the answers to the puzzles of this dark world. I’m sure I could go into more detail, but I don’t want to give anyone ideas on how to torture me beyond this, so I’m leaving it here for now.

Again, it’s a real shame Silent Hills has been canceled as it seemed like a really thought provoking idea, if PT is the starting grounds for it. Konami has made a terrible mistake here that I don’t think will be forgotten easily or anytime soon. Maybe someday we’ll get the Silent Hill we always wanted. Until then, this has been BulletPoints. Thanks for reading and I’m hoping to see you again soon for more installments. Next week, I’m planning to do something in regards to Ant-Man and Ultron, but we’ll see if something else doesn’t come up first.