Silent Hill influences and trivia

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The games comprising Konami's critically acclaimed Silent Hill series draw inspiration from a variety of sources, and also feature many in-game references to books, movies, and music.

See also : Themes and Motifs of Silent Hill

Contents 1 Influences 1.1 Jacob's Ladder 1.2 David Lynch 1.3 Visual Artists 2 General Trivia 3 Game-specific trivia 3.1 Silent Hill 1 3.2 Silent Hill 2 3.3 Silent Hill 3 3.4 Silent Hill 4

[edit] Influences

[edit] Jacob's Ladder

Many reviewers have compared aspects of the Silent Hill games to Jacob's Ladder; some of the games' developers have acknowledged that they are fans of the film. Aesthetically, the two share an uncertain shifting between layers of the "normal" world and one of stylized filth and slow decay, especially within institutional structures (particularly hospitals and subways); the environments of both feature out-of-place industrial elements such as valves, pipes, and chain-link fencing. Also common between the two are their "monsters", which rely less on typically "monstrous" conventions and more on mutilated humanity, fear of the uncertain, and psychological symbolism. Thematically, both deal with a parallel world inhabited by these monsters, and the relation of this world to the protagonist. In Silent Hill 2, this world serves as a kind of personal purgatory, as in Jacob's Ladder. In Silent Hill 3, Heather encounters a subway platform labeled "Bergen Street", which is a real location featured in Jacob's Ladder, and the two environs look very similar.

[edit] David Lynch

The films of David Lynch also influenced Silent Hill, as stated in Konami's promotional book Lost Memories. Both Silent Hill and Lynch's Twin Peaks TV series take place in resort towns, and both feature a number of random, menacingly surreal events. Though the town of Silent Hill is officially located somewhere in New England, there is a body of water in the town named "Toluca Lake", named after the real Toluca Lake in Southern California. This serves as a roundabout homage; Lynch is legendary for having eaten lunch at the Bob's Big Boy restaurant located in Toluca Lake on Riverside Drive (just down the road from Warner Bros. Studios and Universal Studios) every day for approximately seven years straight. [1] Silent Hill 2 also uses elements from David Lynch's movie Lost Highway. For example: James both meets a woman that looks like his wife and discovers a video tape on which he kills his wife. These events also take place in Lost Highway.

[edit] Visual Artists

According to the bonus DVD "The Making of Silent Hill 2", the dirty, hellish locations encountered throughout the Silent Hill series were inspired by the works of artist Francis Bacon. Some of the enemies also bear a striking resemblance to the dolls crafted by Hans Bellmer (see below).

[edit] General Trivia

• Throughout the series, it becomes clearer that there may be three levels of reality in Silent Hill. The 'top level' is where people live out their lives as normal, bearing hardly any difference to any other town of its kind. The next level could be called 'Foggy' Silent Hill (or the 'Alternate' Silent Hill), where an all-pervading fog obscures visibility to a matter of feet, similar to Stephen King's The Mist (a favorite story of one of the series' developers). Some monsters are apparent at this point, but the town environments are practically unchanged. The third layer down, where the real corruption of the reality lies, can be called 'Otherworld'. This darkness is not just a physical darkness, which is used to put the player on edge, but also corresponds to the kinds of monsters found here. This 'Otherworld' is the rotten core of the town. However, the recent comic book adaptations only have two layers, with Silent Hill being in fact an abandoned and monster-infested ghost town. Paint It Black points out that cable, power, and phones all work within the city limits, and the stores are refreshed with food. In Silent Hill 1, the existence of a fourth level may be discussed, it being the monstrous Nowhere, a place even worse than the Otherworld, and infinitely more dangerous. It is there where Alessa Gillespie tries to seal herself with the sigils of the Olympic Spirits before Harry catches up with her.

• Many elements of the series, including out-of-season snowfall (or ashes, as it appears in the film), air raid sirens, power failure, and diseased and disfigured creatures are imagery commonly associated with nuclear apocalypse, especially in genre fiction.

• In the Movie Adapatation of Silent Hill, the web article about Silent Hill that Christopher DaSilva reads has the name Andy Milburn stated as the author. Andy Milburn is a member of the musical duo Tomandandy, who composed the score for The Mothman Prophecies, a psychological horror movie which shares some similiarities with Silent Hill.

[edit] Game-specific trivia

[edit] Silent Hill 1

• The names K. Gordon, T. Moore, and L. Renaldo appear on a faculty list at the elementary school; they happen to be the names of three members of the band Sonic Youth. [2]
• References to the musical group Psychic TV occur in the game; the Order is responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of a drug called PTV. Also there are boxes in the last level that say "Psychick TV" on them.
• The diner in the beginning of the game has posters for the band Portishead on the windows. [3]
• In the hospital a poster reading "Lust for Life" is a direct reference to Iggy Pop and his song of the same name (it is even said to refer to the film Trainspotting for which "Lust for Life" was a theme).
• Dahlia Gillespie's house is reminiscent of the house in Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, which was based on the real Olson House in Cushing, Maine.
• Silent Hill's Incubus at the end of Silent Hill is visually based on Baphomet. Silent Hill 3 also contains references to Sandalphon and his twin brother Metatron, an angel detailed in the Kabbalah.
• Dahlia Gillespie mentions the name Samael in the course of the game which is one of the more controversial presences of the series as a whole. Samael, a blind Hebrew Archangel, is known in Christian lore as the Angel of Death, or the tenth plague of Egypt. Samael is mentioned in The Torah as having a bargain with Yaweh as to whether or not he could steal Moses' soul. He is also thought to be (again in Jewish Lore) the serpent who tempted Eve, as well as the entity that seduced Eve and impregnated her with Cain. This link implies a connection with Satan.
• The Little Shop of Horrors is referenced in the form of a plant shop called "Mushnik's Florist" (the name of the shop from The Little Shop of Horrors) [4] as well as a poster in the window that mentions the man-eating plant from the film, Audrey Jr.
• The elementary school in Silent Hill is called Midwich Elementary, which is also the name of the village in Village of the Damned and the story it was based on, John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos.
• In the 24/7 convenience store there is a poster that reads "The Martians Have Landed", which is a clear reference to H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and Orson Welles' interpretation of it.
• The marquee on the movie theater reads "Metropol," which is possibly a reference to the theater in the Italian film Demoni.
• The boss fight with Cybil on the merry-go-round in the Silent Hill Amusement Park could be a reference to one of the final scenes of the Alfred Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train, where characters Guy and Bruno engage in a fist fight on an out of control merry-go-round.
• When using the Channeling Stone in certain areas a UFO appears in the sky at a distance. These UFOs look astonishingly like the ships from the classic video game Space Invaders.
• The newspaper vending machines on the street have the headline "Bill Skins Fifth" referring to serial killer "Buffalo Bill" from the film The Silence of the Lambs. [5]
• A large logo for Jack Daniel's Whiskey can be found painted on a shutter in the Old Silent Hill district.
• The gas station is called "Hell" instead of Shell, [6] (the 'S' in the title seems to be rubbed out) and its logo is a nautilus shell instead of the scallop shell usually associated with the real gas company. [7]
• The convenience store is called "24/7", parodying the 7/11 name and logo.
• The fast food restaurant called "Queen Burger", a spoof of Burger King/Dairy Queen. [8]
• Another restaurant named "Poston Market" decorated with the same red and white striped awning as the real restaurant "Boston Market" [9]
• The store where you find the chainsaw after beating the game once through is "Cut Rite Chainsaws"- the same name of the chainsaw store where Dennis Hopper buys his saw in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. [10] [11]
• An odd reference is in the name of The Balkan Church where Harry first encounters Dahlia. The name Balkan refers to an area in Southern Europe where a people called the Balkans lived. They are known for their violent history as well as religious and political turmoil, leading to the term Balkanization which commonly connotes a geopolitical fracturing linked to violence, religious strife, ethnic clannishness and a sense of hinterland, similar to the attitudes that led to the Balkan Wars. The name 'Balkan Church' is fitting when one considers the violent history of the town of Silent Hill and how the town itself is figurativly and literally, 'fractured' from reality and society.
• A logo reading "Vestal Gigastore" can be found painted on a building in the mall where the worm/larva is fought, believed to be a spoof of "Virgin Megastore".
• In K. Gordon's house there is a painting of an owl, a common image used in David Lynch's soap opera Twin Peaks. [12]
• In the Library Reserve room in Midwitch Elementary there is a movie poster on the wall that seems to read "A Woman Came Down From Planet Vulcan!!!" This poster is obviously alluding to Star Trek. [13]
• In Central Silent Hill there is an eatery named 'Konami Burger', referring to the publisher of the game. [14]
• In Old Silent Hill there is a store on the edge of a ravine that is called the 'Mark Twain Book & Gift Shop'. [15]
• As an in-joke for horror fans, most of the town's streets in the first game are named after popular science fiction, horror and suspense novelists, such as Ray Bradbury, Ira Levin, Robert Bloch, Dean Koontz, Richard Matheson, James Ellroy, Jack Finney, Michael Crichton, Dan Simmons, Carl Sagan and Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King). [16] [17] Some of these authors may have been inspiration for the game, alluded to by the following points;
  • In addition to the presence of a thick mist in the town, a scene in the diner is reminiscent of a similar scene in Stephen King's The Mist where a bird-like creature makes its way into a supermarket where numerous people are hiding;
  • The word redrum can be seen written on a door in a street, referring directly to Stephen King's The Shining [18];
  • There are a few movie posters for the film Carrie [19] and one for the film Pet Sematary (both based on Stephen King novels) strewn about the shop windows in the game;
  • On either side of the pinball machine in the diner there are posters that beckon the viewer to "Study Dammit!", thought to contain an image of Charles Manson.[20] This may be yet another reference to Stephen King, who is rumored to have created a similar poster during his time as a teacher;
  • Numerous aspects of the game strongly resemble the happenings from the book Phantoms by Dean Koontz, most notably the distortion coming from the radio, and the deep fissures that appear throughout the town, cutting it off from the rest of society. Both are very prominent features in the Silent Hill series as a whole;
  • The name of Finney Street in Old Silent Hill may be referring to Jack Finney, a science-fiction writer who was well known for writing The Body Snatchers, a reference being suggested by the 'possession' that takes place with the nurses and doctors of the Alchemilla Hospital;
  • The presence of a street named Ellroy and a character named Dahlia Gillepsie might be a reference to James Ellroy and his novel The Black Dahlia;
  • In one of the final scenes of the 'Nowhere' area of the game, Harry enters a hallway with a staircase that is supposed to be from Dahlia's house, but it strongly resembles the house from the film Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock and its source novel which was written by none other than Robert Bloch, a name that shows up as one of the street names in the town. Similarly the motel where you run into Dr. Kaufman is called the Norman Motel, which is reminiscent of the Bates Motel from Psycho, run by one Norman Bates;
  • Some feel there are numerous references to Michael Crichton in the Pteradactyl (Jurassic Park) and ape-like creatures wandering the streets (Congo), also due to the presence of a Crichton St.

[edit] Silent Hill 2

• The German opera Die tote Stadt very similarly contains a main character who laments after his dead wife, Marie, and encounters someone who looks exactly like her, and with only a slightly different name, Marietta. The plot may also be an adaptation of the tale of Orpheus' journey to the netherworld to retrieve his wife Eurydice, or perhaps the similar Japanese tale of Izanagi and Izanami.
• In Silent Hill 2, a sign mentioning Historic Route 26 is shown. In the United States, Route 26 is located in the western mountain area of Maine on the New Hampshire border. The scenic byway is unique in that it connects with a New Hampshire Scenic Byway and passes through Grafton Notch State Park.
• One of the end songs in Silent Hill 2, "Angel's Thanatos," is a reference to the Freudian idea of Thanatos. It is the desire to give up life and return to non-existence.
• Maria appears to be designed after Christina Aguilera during the 1999 Teen Choice Awards, the image can be seen here.
• Parts of "Silent Hill" are modeled after the town of San Bruno, California as some streets and buildings are 100% identical to the video game counterparts. ^{[citation needed]}
• One of the recurrent enemies, a mannequin with two sets of legs, is apparently inspired on Hans Bellmer's La Poupée. Taylor, Sue. Hans Bellmer in The Art Institute of Chicago: The Wandering Libido and the Hysterical Body. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
• When you enter in one apartment you find a dead body watching a TV that is showing static. Using a debug mode, some fans discovered that this body in fact is the same model used for James. image. Later in the game, after James watches the videotape in room 312 of the hotel, he sits dumbstruck while the TV screen shows static, reflecting back on this earlier scene.
• SH2 was named X-Play's #1 scariest game ever. [21]

[edit] Silent Hill 3

• A puzzle in the game, in the crematorium of the "Nightmare" Brookhaven Hospital, in the hard difficulty setting, refers to "Who Killed Cock Robin," a nursery rhyme.
• The Borley Haunted Mansion in the Lakeside Amusement Park is quite possibly reference to Borley Rectory, at one time "the most haunted house in England" until its destruction by fire in 1939.
• At the construction site, there is a wall that can be knocked through. Behind the wall there is a corpse, a nod to the short story "The Black Cat" or possibly "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, and a gun silencer, paying homage to a scene from Metal Gear Solid, another Konami game.
• The pendant around Heather's neck is quite similar to one found in the film Rosemary's Baby.
• A song in Silent Hill 3 is titled "Sickness Unto Foolish Death." This might be a reference to the existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's theory on despair, which he detailed in his The Sickness Unto Death, an existential concept to describe the state human beings find themselves in when they have to make choices in a world of uncertainty. This state is described as a "loss of self." Looking at the third installment of the series with this theme in context, it could be seen as Heather's difficult choice of vengeance vs. submission to the Otherworld of Silent Hill, and how she loses her self-awareness in the pursuit of vengeance. [22]
• Both the PS2 and PC version of Silent Hill 3 contain four joke references to Silent Hill 2, the main one being a funny cut scene where Heather gets grossed out and refuses to get something out of a clogged toilet like the one James "experienced" in Silent Hill 2. These scenes are unlockable to those that have a Silent Hill 2 savegame present on their PS2 memory card or in their Savedata folder for the PC version. With the PS2 version one only need have a Silent Hill 2 savegame on their memory card, however, the PC version requires some tinkering with the registry.
• On the way to Silent Hill, Douglas mentions he had been there once before on a missing persons case, but he "never did find the guy." It is possible he is referring to James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2.

[edit] Silent Hill 4

• This is the first Playstation 2 Silent Hill game to have a subtitle: "The Room". Previous ones just had the number of game (Silent Hill 2, 3, etc.). However, the Xbox rendition of Silent Hill 2 had the subtitle "Restless Dreams". In Europe, Silent Hill 2 had the subtitle "Inner Fears".
• It is also the first Silent Hill game where players have a limited inventory and only one save point.
• Silent Hill 4 is arguably the first game in the series since the original in which the monsters are based not on the hero's own fears, guilts, etc., but on another character's. The creatures of the original Silent Hill were based on Alessa's imagination (rather than Harry's), and here the monsters seem to be created by Walter's Sullivan's mind.
• Silent Hill 4 makes a possible reference to the fate of Silent Hill 2's protagonist James Sunderland. A man named Frank Sunderland is the superintendent of the apartments in the game, and at a certain point in the game Henry comments that Frank's son went missing. This could be an indication as to what happened to James at the end of Silent Hill 2.
• The novel House of Leaves and its use of impossible physical spaces may have been an influence on the series (especially in Silent Hill 4), with its almost interminable corridors. During one part of the game, Henry walks down an infinite staircase relating to the one within the novel. Henry also puts together a scrapbook of letters of a journalist he learns about, just like Johnny Truant in House of Leaves.
• In the liner notes of the Silent Hill 4 soundtrack, an address is listed for the strip club "Heaven's Night." That address is: 2121 Carroll St., South Vale, ME. James Sunderland briefly visits Heaven's Night in Silent Hill 2.
• The apartment setting in this game strongly resembles and is clearly influenced by the film Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock. Just as Jefferies from Rear Window observes his neighbors though his apartment window, Henry from Silent Hill 4: The Room observes his surroundings in a first person view and is able to spy on what his neighbors are doing. Henry is similarly confined to his apartment, just as Jefferies is in the film, although not by a physical condition, but rather by a physical obstacle. There are portions of the first Silent Hill game that may have been influenced by Hitchcock films as well, implying that the creators may in fact have been fans of Hitchcock's work.^{[original research?]}
• The name of the main character, Townshend, is also a name of the New England town prominently mentioned in the story The Whisperer in the Darkness by H. P. Lovecraft. Townshend is located in Vermont, that is, not very far from Ashfield.
• Henry's relationship with Cynthia has much in common with James' relationship with Maria in Silent Hill 2. In both cases, the troubled and somewhat passive male hero encounters an extremely assertive, seductive young woman who promises him sexual favors if he will save her from the monsters. In both cases, the men are clearly interested, but are intimidated and somewhat baffled by this display of predatory sexuality in the middle of such a terrifying environment. In both games, the man and woman are repeatedly separated, and the woman is ultimately killed only to make a surprising return later. (Cynthia returns as a ghost, but Maria returns, seemingly, as herself.) Finally, both women eventually appear as floating, spectral monsters, with deadly tendrils that lash out at the hero (although in Maria's case, this is only in certain game endings.)
• The name of the character Jasper Gein is a probably a reference to infamous serial killer Ed Gein. An "Eric Gein" is mentioned in the radio quiz show James is subjected to in the hospital in Silent Hill 2, and it possible that Eric Gein is related to Jasper. Also, Andrew DeSalvo's name may be a reference to Albert DeSalvo, known as the Boston Strangler.
• If the player continues to look out Henry's windows, various strange things are seen. For instance, at random intervals, a head falls past the window at a very fast speed.
• Silent Hill 4 is (apparently) the first game of the series without a possible "joke" ending. The joke endings of previous games featured UFOs, and this is fleetingly mentioned in Silent Hill 4, when Henry talks about rumors of a UFO passing by the Silent Hill lighthouse.
• After an increased use of rock music (including the first use of vocals for the series) in Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4 uses much less music than previous entries in the series, with the most notable tune being the theme.