I’ve repressed my overwhelming desire to cower in a corner at the recollection of them to bring you the most intriguing backstories behind these petrifying beasts from the Silent Hill archive. You never know, reading this might make you feel sorry for the monsters next time you see them – before the fear kicks in and you blindly shoot everything you’ve got their way.   

Fair warning alert: this article is full of spoilers for the Silent Hill games, and I’ll be discussing gore, some pretty twisted sides to the human psyche, and more gore. You have been warned!

Scarlet

Scarlet from Silent Hill: Homecoming is one of the few monsters I pity. As the twisted reincarnation of a young girl named Scarlet Fitch who was murdered by her father, Scarlet is a giant doll with porcelain skin, long limbs, and a mouth full of teeth. In life Scarlet was fond of dolls, tons of which can be found in her room and in the path leading up to the monster’s lair, hence the creature’s general doll-like appearance. Her father also describes her as having hands which were ‘as pure as porcelain’ – a sick comparison to make considering he sacrificed her via dismemberment. 

That’s why her elongated limbs are severed at each joint (meaning that at one point she moves like a spider, *shudder*), revealing the flesh beneath her porcelain armour. And it’s also why she rises from a pool of her father’s blood at the beginning of the boss fight. Oddly enough, before the boss fight Scarlet cradles her father in her arms in an almost tender way – before biting his head off, which is very much deserved. 

Two-back

From Silent Hill: Origins, Two-back is one of the many monsters with dark sexual undertones. Its name is a reference to a famous quote from Shakespeare’s Othello, where Iago talks about “making the beast with two backs”, a veiled reference to sex. The monster probably symbolises protagonist Travis’ failure to have meaningful relationships – and his possible sexual deprivation – as he spends long, lonely hours on the road as a trucker. The twisted monster’s sexual connotations are seemingly confirmed by the bad ending, as notes found around the world and photos of dead women (all of whom are found in motels) hint that Travis might have been a serial killer, targeting women in the seedy Riverside motel. Lovely. 

Asphyxia

Alice in Wonderland might not sound like a likely place to find a monster, but Silent Hill has no trouble finding the dark side of the charming childhood tale. Asphyxia, like Scarlett, is from Silent Hill: Homecoming. In life she was Nora Holloway, a child who had a love for the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland and was sacrificed by being suffocated by her mother. So in the twisted world of Silent Hill she becomes a caterpillar-like monster with multiple flailing arms and a tail made out of torsos. She doesn’t have any feet, instead walking on one of her many pairs of hands, as a nod towards choking as her means of death. At the end of the boss fight you pull apart the hands covering her mouth, forcing Asphyxia to breathe – and it’s that breath which finally kills her, in an inverted suffocation. 

Lying Figure

An absolute classic, up there with Pyramid Head and the nurses, the Lying Figure is the first monster encountered in Silent Hill 2. In the street, James meets this staggering, armless beast with feminine legs encased in fleshy platform heels. The Lying Figure is interpreted by many as being a manifestation of James’ wife Mary, whose terminal illness, physical deterioration, and abusive mood swings messed him up in the head. Original designs of the monster show that its restrained arms are clutched around its groin, as a reference to James’ sexual deprivation. In the novelisation of Silent Hill 2, the monster is mentioned as being spawned from James’ feelings of confinement from having to stay at home to look after his wife, and the mist which the monster spews probably reflects the spiteful words James endured from Mary during her illness. If there was ever something which might give you a few reservations about marriage, the Lying Figure would be it. 

Siam

Definitely one of the most memorable monsters on this list, and another one from Silent Hill: Homecoming, Siam is a sick parody of marriage. Siam is derived from siamese, a term often used to denote conjoined twins, which isn’t surprising considering the beast is made up of two beings. The larger, masculine one moves around hunched over like a gorilla on its large, stocky arms, and has a smaller, feminine body tied to its back which flails around and emits faint noises. There are serious BDSM vibes thanks to the signs of bondage all over its body, the female’s tied hands and torturously high heels, as the monster’s aggressive violence. 

There are multiple theories around what the monster could symbolise, but the one I think is most convincing is that it represents the protagonist from the second Silent Hill game, James, and his wife Mary. The BDSM appearance of Siam hints towards James’ repressed sexual desires whilst he was looking after Mary (see the Lying Figure above for more borderline-traumatic details about their relationship), and the female half of Siam is tied on its back, making it literally a heavy burden, mimicking James’ feeling that Mary was a weight on his shoulders. Killing Siam gets you the ‘Shades of James’ achievement on Xbox 360, making it even more likely that the monster is a reminder of the first Silent Hill. 

The post The disturbing stories behind 5 of the most twisted monsters in Silent Hill appeared first on Game News.

This concept flies in the face of conventional gaming wisdom. From Mario to Kratos, main characters are typically the most powerful and capable beings in their world. Stomping Goombas feels good. Punching Zeus in the face feels even better. Getting your teeth kicked in by Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis is a miserable, humbling experience. Consider your first encounter with this brute: should you decide to fight it you quickly realize this seven-foot super-zombie moves faster, hits harder, and is generally more aggressive than any enemy you’ve encountered. It’s your superior in nearly every way.

Only when Jill Valentine (your avatar) gets reduced to a coughing, quivering heap, do you appreciate how Resident Evil 3 has played you. The game butters you up with all these slow, mundane zombies, and then – BAM! – knocks you upside the head with this unexpected boss fight. A boss fight you were probably expecting to win because, hey, it’s a video game and that’s what bosses are for. Right? Experiencing this sudden change makes Nemesis appear larger than life, and makes you feel very, very small.

After you encounter Nemesis – or any immortal stalker – for the first time, the threat of another attack looms heavy over the rest of your journey. The key word here is ‘threat’, because once you have them figured out, actually fighting, for example, Pyramid Head isn’t all that terrifying. These stalkers are typically slow, awkward, and easy to evade if you keep your wits about you. It’s that sense of dread, that threat of encountering them, that’s so unsettling.

As they say, knowing is half the battle, but these stalkers won’t let you get that far. You don’t learn much about Slender Man by constantly running away. This is by design. The less you know about something, the more your mind projects its own fears, assumptions, and insecurities onto it. Your imagination may tell you Slender Man is going to pull your heart out through your nostrils if you get too close, and your rational brain wouldn’t have anything to refute it. In order to conquer your fear, you should face it head on, but that simply isn’t an option here since doing anything other than running is a Game Over.

Cowardice is exactly what horror games want, and they’ll pull out all the stops to make sure they get it. When encountering a stalker, your vision may become wildly distorted (Amnesia: The Dark Descent), or the audio may swell suddenly (Alien: Isolation). Survival horror games are generally played slowly and cautiously, so when you’re bombarded with a sudden attack on the senses, your instincts kick in and tell you to book it. This limits your exposure to – and understanding of – the creature. But hey, at least you didn’t get your heart yanked through your nose, right?

Haunting Ground, a 2005 survival horror game from Capcom, does an excellent job of bringing all these elements together. If its main character, Fiona, is exposed to enemies for too long, she’ll panic (like any normal person would). At its most extreme, panicking causes all the sensory overload effects mentioned, as well as the added bonus of forcing Fiona to run constantly. Should she run into something, Fiona will then tumble over and become easy pickings for her foes. This loss of control expertly conveys a tangible feeling of powerlessness, as your avatar is literally running for her life and there’s nothing you can do to help.

In the aftermath of any stalker attack, paranoia takes hold. The beast lurks in the back of your mind every time you empty a clip or use a health kit, because… what if? What if it’s hiding on the other side of that door? What if I need that extra health kit to survive the fight? Just as they haunt your avatars, they also haunt your thoughts. All the fear and tension being stirred up inside you gets channeled into a single, tangible threat: the stalker. They’re the bite the follows the game’s bark.

An interesting contrast to this minimal-exposure style is Alien: Isolation, which actually encourages you to spend some bonding time with the lone Xenomorph. By empowering Ripley through (slightly) better equipment, you’re able to get closer to – and build a more intimate relationship with – the Alien, without making it feel any less terrifying. This is because Isolation knows its main antagonist won’t devolve into the pattern-based, exploitable brawls of other stalker encounters. Having the Alien remain a legitimate, unpredictable threat regardless of how prepared you are only emphasizes its status as the ultimate killing machine. So go ahead and take a good, long look (not that it’ll do you any good).

Famed horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft once wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Gaming’s most memorable stalkers succeed because they do exactly that. They offer a sliver of terror, then let our minds swim in the pool of macabre possibilities that could follow. This takes a great deal of restraint from the developer, but the reward is a truly unsettling experience that will linger in our minds long after any jumps scare or gruesome scenes have faded.

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