Silent Hill: Downpour tried to side-step this criticism by tweaking the formula a bit. No matter how different the answers might have seemed, they were still copying Silent Hill 2’s homework. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories took it one step further, with Harry Mason discovering he lived inside his daughter’s dreams during therapy. In Silent Hill: Origins, Travis Grady forgets that his father hung himself until the town reminded him.
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For years, the series indulged in this what-if-the-protagonist-just-forgot nonsense. Homecoming ditched exploring wartime trauma through Silent Hill’s foggy lenses because of a half-assed twist. Worse yet, this twist is forgotten about almost immediately after it’s brought up, with barely a whisper of it before the credits roll. The shaky reasoning is that Adam Shepard, their father, was a soldier, so Alex took after him, but that’s it. Josh’s death was an accident, and regardless, there’s no strong through-line as to why that event would push Alex to take on a soldier’s persona. Unlike James, who’s denial comes from a selfish state of mind, Alex doesn’t have a real excuse to forget what happened. Somehow, he’s completely forgotten that he was in a hospital, with an elaborate fantasy to boot. Meanwhile, the twist involving Alex is just a massive unearned gotcha. Punishment not just for what he did to Mary, but for his desperate attempt to blot out the truth. These are nightmares born of James’ unconscious mind, with propose weaved into their existence. From sexually-charged bubblehead nurses tormenting James to numerous doppelgangers reenacting Mary’s death–the town projects their abusive relationship in terrifying metaphor. When you learn that James killed Mary, it recontextualizes the entire game. Nevermind how goofy it is that Alex can blitz monsters with spinning back-fists despite never being trained by the army–this cheap twist highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of what made Silent Hill 2’s revelation so potent. What’s supposed to be a gut-punch instead yields belly laughs. Instead, when the story stumbles towards its climax, Alex learns he wasn’t in the army, but rather a mental hospital after an unfortunate boating accident took Josh’s life. While “war is hell” might be overplayed in horror, fans salivated over the idea of a soldier’s nightmarish delusions manifesting in the titular ghost town. Eventually, the trail leads straight to Silent Hill. Alex Shepard, a military veteran, comes home after fighting overseas to aid in a search for his missing brother Josh. Silent Hill: Homecoming wasn’t the first in this long-line of imitators, but it’s the most egregious. Too often, there’s this predisposition with being the next Silent Hill 2, and that ambition manifests in the most superficial ways possible. It’s a moment that subsequent entries spent years chasing the coattail of, much to their chagrin. Silent Hill 2′ s big revelation hits like a baseball bat to the skull on an initial playthrough. But instead of an ethereal reunion between ill-fated lovers, a dark secret rears its ugly head: James is secretly Mary’s murderer.
James came to Silent Hill searching for Mary, his late wife. Amidst the hissing cacophony of static are muffled screams, formerly tucked away deep in his subconscious. White noise from a dusty television pelts James Sunderland with echoes of a horrific act.
*Spoiler warning for Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill: Origins, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and Silent Hill: Downpour*
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