I’ve read some people who didn’t think the joke endings should have been in any of the games at all, and others who don’t think a game should call itself Silent Hill without them. I’ve also seen very strong sentiments saying that it’s terrible how in the ‘In Water’ ending of Silent Hill 2 you get all the way through the game, and then end up killing yourself anyway.

So, it could be a controversial choice, but I really like, remaining with Silent Hill 2, the ‘Rebirth’ ending. The idea being that you reject the false Mary that Silent Hill offers you, because it doesn’t matter if she’s never going to yell at you, or say anything mean, purely because she isn’t Mary.

So James rows out to a small island with what appears to be a single church-like building on it. All the while in the background, James is talking to his wife, and telling her he’s sorry to wake her, but he can’t go on without her.

Mary. Could you really be totally alive again in this barely visible church?

The last line of the ending is James saying ‘Ahhh, Mary’.

The great thing about it is that over the top of the rather silly jovial melody is dog barking to the same tune, interspersed with a little growling – mostly at Eddie.

All the while are silly clips and stills from the game playing.

The song ends with a risqué still of Maria and an “Ooh” sound.

Check out some of the images behind the cut.

The death knell may well have already rang out.

Here’s what producer, Don Carmody, had to say back in 2009 when talking to Shock Till You Drop (Very hard to not write Shop Till You Drop).

“I think we need to make it a little more accessible to the movie-going public,” he says frankly. “Silent Hill is not a blockbuster game like Resident Evil or the other games out there. It’s a connoisseurs’ game. It has its own, rabid fan base. They’re not cheap, these things. You have to appeal not only to the gamers, you have to appeal to a wider audience. So we have to get some story in there that helps explain a bit more. I think that’s all happening. Of course, [the story] is going to happen years later and the main character – without giving too much away – is much older and representative to the movie-going public which is in that age group.”

It does not bode well, we’ve been here before.

I don’t expect much has changed in the interim, but who knows, it might surprise. I’ll still be watching it.

And Silent Hill really has the visuals. It is very good looking, and this is very important, doubly so on a big budget horror movie like Silent Hill which is of course, all about the atmosphere. Unfortunately though, the story is too weak, and the changes made were maddening. This is still one of, if not, the, most faithful game to movie adaptations there are, but the screenwriter made the same mistake most screenwriters make.

He discarded almost everything about the game and made a screenplay that was ‘true to the spirit’ of the game. Of course, the problem is that the film-going audience actually wants you to make the game into a film, they don’t want a new film that’s sort of set in the same universe-ish, with a couple of elements of the game. Think about other game to film adaptations and you’ll notice that this is always the problem with them. They always seem to make films for this illusiory audience of people who go to see a game-based film who haven’t even heard of the game. All of the changes are therefore almost always tamer and less unusual than the supposed source material.

Ostensibly Silent Hill

Like the way they replaced the mysterious Lovecraftian old-God town religion with a Christian cult. That was … yeah, too ordinary, too mundane, just bad.

Before we move onto more positive shores, let me say that just having the little girl literally yell “Home! Silent Hill!” was one of the worst ideas and ways to get Silent Hill started you could have possibly done – actually most of the stuff before they show up at Silent Hill is negative. There was a reason the game started with him already there (or on the way there, if you go by the pre-game trailer), and then you have to figure out why as a player.

Home! Silent Hill!

This film looks like Silent Hill.

The monsters, oh God, the monsters look like Silent Hill monsters. Not exactly the same, but they’re actually an interpretation which is both physically possible and works. In fact, one of the best complaints you’ll hear about the Silent Hill movie is that the CG monsters looks terrible. Best complaint because the monsters aren’t CG. The sound effects are very faithful too, which is saying something, because the beasties of the Silent Hill universe make very peculiar sounds, but of course, that’s what makes Silent Hill work so well, the strangeness and the lack of familiarity – that and the funky noises.

Lying Figure - bloke in a suit.

The scenery was also a highpoint of the film. The fog-world town looked like Silent Hill, they managed to find just the right sort of place to shoot, and the decayed streets looked perfect.

Foggy, abandoned, faintly creepy, yup, that's Silent Hill for you.

In fact, the more you examine it, the more I find myself blaming the attitude of making a film for a film audience for the failings of Silent Hill. Of course, some blame lies with the director and screenwriter (Roger Avary). Especially for the opening and penultimate ending (the anime-inspired and out of place barbed wire sequence) which are both weak. A lot more of this film should have been left on the cutting room floor, with Gans claiming that they cut almost nothing.

Seriously?

The transition effect is awesome.

I just wish someone would take the game and make it into a film, and I think that it would do well, because people would go to the cinema to experience ‘Silent Hill: The Movie’, not ‘Silent Hill: Inspired and loosely based on a game the people who filmed it assume you’ve never played’. Funny thing is, ‘Silent Hill: The Movie’ would make a unique, different, and interesting film that fans of horror would love, be they gamers, film goers, or both.

I’ve also talked about the coming soon Silent Hill Revelation 3D in a different article.

Cynthia, obviously dying at this point, talks about how it’s just a dream, and she must have gotten too drunk. She cries out that it feels like she’s dying.

Henry trying to make it easier.

The way Mary is actually quite mean and tries to reject James’ help and push him away to not see her deterioration is selfless – and heartbreaking, as is her final cry for help before James leaves. Truly one of the highlights of gaming, let alone Silent Hill.

Mary's pleas are upsetting to say the least.

One of Silent Hill's Innocents.

The first is the part in Silent Hill 2 in the Prison area. There are cell blocks. Inside these cell blocks are some nasty, dirty, cells. Water slowly drips into the block, which is presumably coming in from Toluca Lake above you. Your radio starts going off indicating the presence of a monster, a new one presumably, because it makes the most awful noises.

I can only describe the noise as thudding footsteps followed by bassy guttural murmuring.

So you advance forward, checking each cell as you go before. Eventually you find a monster, but not a new one.

The realisation comes when you dispose of the only monster in the room. And the noise keeps going. And James keeps looking. That wasn’t the monster. It is still inside the room. You just can’t see it.

Deep underground, in the impossible prison.

It’s the infamous locker scene. You know the one.

You enter the locker room and immediately notice the sound of tapping / banging. Rounding the corner, you see that one of the locker doors is moving, the sound matching up with what you assume is something inside it, but these lockers are quite small, being only about a foot and a half high. You go to open the locker door and BANG, out jumps a cat. Relief follows. Then you hear the cat going around the corner, and opening the door. The door shuts behind it. A roar issues forth, then the sound of a cat in pain. Nasty.

Anti-climax.

Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Did actually give me nightmares.

I really like the way you have no idea he’s actually going to be a boss, your first real interaction with him is a telephone call where he insists on confusing you with Claudia. He sounds like a guy. Perhaps a little strange, but there’s nothing obviously wrong with him. You have a conversation where you eventually convince him that you’re not who he thought you were. He tells you where you can find him.

Then you go outside of reality – don’t ask – and eventually get down to where he is. You carry on another conversation where he starts to get a bit weird.

No weirder than a conversation with any religious true believer, but in the unusual location of a rusted sewer with big grindy bits in the background.

Then he threatens to kill you and pops out to carry out that threat.

He looks like this.

The monstrous form of Leonard Wolf

The newest game, Downpour, isn’t an Akira Yamaoka thing though, but on the other hand, Daniel Licht actually did quite well. There’s a rather out of place Korn* track. I don’t actually mind the track itself, but it doesn’t work as the game’s theme, being only appropriate for a trailer. All of Licht’s work is quite good if not quite on par with Yamaoka’s. The first Silent Hill’s soundtrack is very different from everything after it too, being almost entirely ambient industrial noise. Still very good, but perhaps not as enjoyable as a soundtrack for separate listening purposes.

So those are the ones I wouldn’t pick. If I really had to pick only one it would be Silent Hill 2′s, but only by a vanishingly small margin. There is so much good stuff, especially the vocal tracks – yes, even from Homecoming, Origins, and Shattered Memories. In fact, since there are more vocal tracks, you could even argue that they get better with each new entry (unlike the games :/).

*The only band to belong to a genre in which all the other bands of said genre sound like each other, and nothing like the one that supposedly spawned them.

The track is Betrayal. It sounds like the Silent Hill otherworld in music form, with the clattering and clanging of rusted machinery, but the odd thing about the track is that it’s actually quite an uplifting tune with the main melody that plays being like a demented yet joyful pipe organ from hell.

Preview on the link. Have a listen.