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Trivia / Silent Hill

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  • Creator Backlash: In the fandom, there is the Wiki Circumcision Incident. In late 2015, the Silent Hill wiki saw an admin go crazy to a degree that would rival some of the characters in the games. He became obsessed with the subject of circumcision, treating it as a form of male genital mutilation and part of a Satanic/Illuminati conspiracy, rewriting several major pages to shoehorn in his theories about how the games are about exposing the evil of circumcision and the Powers That Be who support it. When he was called out on his behavior, he doubled down on it and accused the rest of the wiki of being brainwashed, culminating in him demanding that another user (who was a mother) reveal whether or not she had 'mutilated' her son. It got to a point where gaming, horror, and even mainstream media outlets started reporting on just how unhinged the wiki was becoming, leading the admin in question to be stripped of his powers, banned from the site, and all his edits reverted. Here's a thread that's still up for those who wanna take a look into this personally, and here's a YouTube video about the incident.
  • Divorced Installment: The Dark Pictures Anthology began life as a pitch for a new Silent Hill game by Supermassive Games. When Konami turned them down, they used ideas from that pitch to make their own game.
  • Executive Meddling: Despite Silent Hills being one of the most anticipated video game releases of its time and being the first installment of the Silent Hill franchise in 3 years, Konami cancelled the project for an undisclosed reason. It would be another 7 years before they return to the franchise in 2022.
  • Referenced by...:
    • The series has an Abridged Series titled Noisy Hill.
    • SCP Foundation: SCP-2786 is a metaphysical entity that can insert itself into horror narratives, where it attempts to portray itself as a brave hero and alter the story itself. One of these is listed as the film Silent Hill.
    • A Tonberry wearing a Pyramid Head helmet appears as the second opponent in Brawl Royale. The EBF Collection version of the game makes the reference more blatant, replacing the Tonberry with an Expy named Pyramid Helmet.
    • Not Dying Today have zombie nurse enemies lifted directly from the Silent Hill series.
    • As does Endless Nightmare: Hospital. The way their nurse zombies lumbers about is even lifted from the Silent Hill sequels.
  • Shrug of God: The creators are resolutely coy about which of the endings are canonical. A few of the additional releases only available in Japan do shine some light on things, but real answers are as rare as ampoules. To many, though, this simply makes the games scarier since it allows for more speculation about the series. Because pretty much everything is symbolic of something and there is no true answer to many of these questions, it makes the nature of the town that much more unsettling.
    • Silent Hill 2 has no official "canon" ending per Word of God. Players are intended to make the story their own, choosing the ending that provides the best closure and considering it canon for themselves— note that James' personal motivations (and motive) depend just as much on the player's choices as his fate does.
  • Similarly Named Works: DanceDanceRevolution has a song named "Silent Hill", but it's a cheerful Christmas ballad song and has nothing to do with this game. Even better, DDR is also a Konami property.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda:
    • A persistent rumor abounded about a supposed "Ambulance Ending" in the first game where Harry rampages through Silent Hill Grand Theft Auto-style. Dataminers have scoured the game files and uncovered plenty of interesting Dummied Out content, but nothing whatsoever that would make such an alternate ending possible.
    • A common fan art sight gag is to make or draw fake screenshots of Silent Hill 4's "lost" UFO Ending (which simply doesn't exist).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • A case of "What Couldn't Have Been": Guy Cihi was originally just at the auditions for Silent Hill 2 because his daughter was interested in a role. But Cihi had some background with acting in high school and college, and became interested in auditioning himself. Ultimately, he landed the role of James Sunderland, the game's protagonist!
      • Meanwhile, Cihi's daughter auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Laura. Had she gotten it, that would add a whole new subtext to the game's 'Leave' ending.
    • Before Homecoming, one of the original ideas for the series' seventh-gen debut came from Climax Studios (makers of Origins and later Shattered Memories), which would have followed a priest from El Paso named Hector Santos who does battle with the Order in the small Arizona town of Coyote Flats, where they had relocated to some time after the events of the first game. The Otherworld would've involved traversing multiple versions of the town from various time periods going back to the 17th century, indicating that Alessa's influence had spread far beyond Silent Hill and had followed the cult west. After Konami declined to have it as a Silent Hill game, Climax tried to retool it into a Divorced Installment called Broken Covenant, but they never found a publisher to support it.
    • Before Shattered Memories was released on the Wii, there was another proposed title called ''Cold Heart'' which would have followed a college student named Jessica Chambers struggling with nightmares and insomnia. It is believed the reason it never got past being a pitch is the development team was expecting too much from the Wii console's capabilities and what it can and cannot handle. Some of the concepts from the pitch were later used in Shattered Memories.
    • A patch update for the Xbox 360 version of the Silent Hill HD Collection was in the works, similar to what they did with the PS3 version, but was ultimately canceled due to technical issues and resources.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
    • The official canon for Silent Hill is that it is located in Maine. Not surprising, given that it's heavily based on the works of lifelong Mainer Stephen King (raised in Durham, and currently living in Portland), with his books and their film adaptations given numerous Shout Outs. Although its precise location was ambiguous for a long time, several hints throughout the series implied Silent Hill to be in Maine, and many fan theories placed it (as well as other towns like South Ashfield and Shepherd's Glen) in Maine, or at least in New England.
      • The Japanese publication The Book of Lost Memories, as well as the instruction manuals for the original game, Origins, and Homecoming, have all stated more generically that the town is located in New England. The Book of Lost Memories' timeline also makes special mention of the founding of the state of Maine.
      • The Gillespie House is based on the real life Olson House, which is located in Cushing, Maine.
      • In Silent Hill: The Novel, Harry feels he should have been enjoying the "Maine wilderness" with his daughter, rather than searching for her.
      • Further information can be found in the third game. After Harry Mason left Silent Hill, he and Heather Mason moved to Portland, which could indicate the one in Maine or the one in Oregon.
      • Inside the liner notes for the Japanese release of Silent Hill 4: The Room's soundtrack, an address is given for Heaven's Night that would have placed it in Maine. The state abbreviation for Maine is "ME".
      • In Double Under Dusk, a Silent Hill comic by Hiroyuki Owaku (scenario writer of the first games in the series), Silent Hill is placed in Maine. The two protagonists, Brian and Lindsay, are from Augusta and Orono, respectively.
      • In Homecoming, there is a book shelf which contains information about mining towns of New England in Shepherd's Glen Town Hall.
      • In Downpour, the prison transfer bus carrying Murphy Pendleton is seen bearing a Maine license plate, and a road sign bears the Interstate 95 logo, a highway that runs through and ends in Maine. Likewise, when Murphy is about to get on the bus, Anne Cunningham stops him. Her clipboard shows "Maine State Board of Corrections" on it. Interestingly, Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption is cited as an inspiration for Downpour, and its story is also set in Maine.
    • In the movie, Silent Hill is canonically located in West Virginia. Beyond that, it is very obviously modeled after Centralia, Pennsylvania, where a long-burning coal fire has caused most of the residents to be relocated elsewhere.
    • Shattered Memories uses the 49504 zip code of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And yet there's a street-sign right near Harry's car at the start that says Buffalo and Rochester (both Western NY cities) are less than 70 miles from where the town is, indicating a location in upstate New York or even Ontario. Then again, the sign is laying on the ground in a junkyard.
    • The receipt that kicks off the Kaufmann sidequest in the first game mentions a sales tax of either 6.25% or 6.75%. Not very helpful by itself perhaps, but in conjunction with other evidence, it might tell us something.
    • Many of the cars in Silent Hill 2 and 3 have (admittedly blurry) license plates that resemble Illinois plates.

The Movie

  • California Doubling: Silent Hill is in West Virginia, but the filming was done in Ontario.
  • Completely Different Title: The film became The Curse of the Valley in Portugal.
  • Creator Breakdown: Implied to have happened with Jodelle Ferland for her portrayal as Dark Alessa, albeit not permanently or fatally. It is reported that the writer, Roger Avary, apologized to Jodelle's parents for any mental trauma she may have incurred from playing the role.
  • Executive Meddling: A fairly bizarre example. Sean Bean was cast as Christopher because the studio felt that they needed an allusion to Harry Mason in the film, hence why his scenes often seem so disconnected to the main story and rarely overlap. Ironically, had they simply kept Harry as the main protagonist and not changed him into Rose, this wouldn't have even been a problem.
  • The Foreign Subtitle: The movie became Silent Hill: The Dead City in Hungary.
  • Throw It In!: Colin flicking his tongue in a disturbingly sexual manner wasn't in the script. His actor did it as a joke in one take, but director Christophe Gans liked how it looked and kept it in.
  • What Could Have Been: Several scenes were trimmed or rewritten due to time or budgetary constraints;
    • A more elaborate setpiece was planned for the initial meeting with Anna, with her being attacked by an injured armless creature and being saved by Rose and Cybil. Due to exhaustion, actor and choreographer Roberto Campanella was sent home early, and the scene was rewritten to the simpler variation seen in the final film.
    • The climax in the church originally involved six Pyramid Heads, each with a different weapon, killing the cultists en masse in reference to The Divine Comedy, but due to budget and time constraints, the scene was rewritten to the one seen in the film, which reportedly was inspired by Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.

The Comic

  • What Could Have Been: Long before the IDW comics came out, plans for another Silent Hill graphic novel were in the works by publisher Com.X. The script was written and completed in 2000, but it was never released for reasons unknown. Konami and Com.X stated they planned on releasing it eventually, but still, nothing came of it.

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