Recommend
Here we have some recommendations for fans of Silent Hill looking for a fix till the next game. Most of these recommendations were taken from various sites/sources, so I haven't seen many and can't confirm them all. Got anything (movie, book, or other game) that reminded you of Silent Hill? Well, for God's sakes, don't keep it to yourself!Movies
Jacob's Ladder
I saw this one. A kind of trippy movie about a vietnam Vet who returns home to find that he sees people with disorted faces and horns, almost like demons.
This one is pretty much canon Silent Hill inspiration. It's where the makers of Silent Hill got their imagery. The hospital especially - fencing on the walls and ceilings, bloodstains everywhere, odd-looking creatures. You'll be surpised by how familiar it is.
Rosemary's Baby
Seen it, and it is somewhat Silent-Hill-like, in theme (woman impregnated by evil cult to birth the son of Satan), but on a whole, not so remeniscent, I think. Still, considering it's obvious influence on Silent Hill, (the novel the movie was based on was written by Ira Levin, honored in Silent Hill with "Levin Street") it's probably a good watch for a Silent Hill fan.
Darkness
This is a really good movie about a family that moves into a house with a horrible history. It has a split of the SH1 and 4 vibes, with cults and their organizations, and the re-birth of their gods. It's a very good movie. I recommend it highly!
The Cell
I didn't notice the similarity between this and Silent Hill 4 until I read the Silent Hill 4 Plot Analysis, but it is quite true. In this movie, Jennifer Lopez "enters the mind of a serial killer using a new scientific technique, where she must make sense of his killings and the underlying cause, while preventing the opssible death of another outside in reality. She also meets the serial killer's manifestation of his younger, innocent self, who she tries to befriend and coax his 'evil' self from stopping her." Quoted from the plot analysis.
Session 9
Suggested by Lizz. She says:
"Another movie that might be great for Silent Hill fans is Session 9. It takes place in a mental hospital. It's not "jump through the window and rip you apart" scary, but more of an atmospheric feeling. It's even got the ever-present wheelchairs."
Books
Phantoms by Dean Koontz
from Amazon.com:
"The lights are on in Snowfield, California, a cozy ski village nestled in the Sierra Madres, but nobody seems to be home. When Dr. Jenny Paige returns to the small town, she finds tables set for dinner, meals being prepared, and music playing in living rooms, but there's no trace of the people who put the water on to boil or set an extra place for company at the dinner table. As she explores the town, Paige finds friends and neighbors felled by a mysterious force--the bodies show no visible signs of violence or disease, and no known plague kills victims before the ice in their dinner drinks has time to melt. But the deep quiet that surrounds her offers few clues about the fate of the town's inhabitants. Dean Koontz's Phantoms strikes fear in readers from the very beginning. The mystery deepens, paving the way for a chilling journey toward the truth. If you plan to catch the film version, starring Ben Affleck and Peter O'Toole, remember that you'll be experiencing this terrifying story in a dark theater. So bring an arm to grab!"This I have read, and it does start out somewhat similar to Silent Hill - with a town almost completely devoid of humans and inhabited by monsters - and has a similar eerie setting and feeling of solitude. But that's about were the similarites end.
The Taking by Dean Koontz
from Amazon.com:
"When Molly Sloan awakens one night to the drumming of an oddly scented luminescent rain, she senses that something is off-kilter. The coyotes huddle frightened on her porch. She feels a disturbing presence moving past in the sky. When her husband Neil awakens with nightmares, the two of them watch news broadcasts about bizarre supernatural occurrences, shocking violence, and public panic that arise around the globe. It starts to look as if an alien invasion has begun. Then the power goes out. Molly and Neil join up with some of their neighbors, trying to identify what is happening and how to deal with the increasingly evil and omnipotent entity that appears to be taking over the planet. The townspeople splinter into factions, each with its own opinion on how to handle the crisis..."Now this book really is similar to Silent Hill. A town is engulfed by a mysterious rain/snow that falls almost to a flooding point, then vanishes, leaving behind a thick veil of fog. The main characters-a woman and her husband-go into town to seek shelter, where they meet with survivors, and wake the next day to find that wandering the streets of the town are hideous monsters. The book's theme is very Silent Hill, dealing with guilt and innocence, angels and demons, etc. Very good book.
House of Leaves / Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski
Suggested by Chaobell
from Amazon.com:
"Had The Blair Witch Project been a book instead of a film, and had it been written by, say, Nabokov at his most playful, revised by Stephen King at his most cerebral, and typeset by the futurist editors of Blast at their most avant-garde, the result might have been something like House of Leaves. Mark Z. Danielewski's first novel has a lot going on: notably the discovery of a pseudoacademic monograph called The Navidson Record, written by a blind man named Zampanò, about a nonexistent documentary film - which itself is about a photojournalist who finds a house that has supernatural, surreal qualities. (The inner dimensions, for example, are measurably larger than the outer ones.) In addition to this Russian-doll layering of narrators, Danielewski packs in poems, scientific lists, collages, Polaroids, appendices of fake correspondence and "various quotes," single lines of prose placed any which way on the page, crossed-out passages, and so on..."Looks spooky! I really want to check this out!
Games
Resident Evil Series
Well, no surprise here, as SH is sort of Konami's answer to the RE series. The same sort of survival/horror theme, though with more scientific than psychological aspects.
Fatal Frame Series
Wonderful game series. Got my copy, have yet to finish it, but this is one SCARY game. While it definitely isn't "Silent Hill" as far as the storyline goes, it has the same frightening appeal and aura of solitude. Great game.
Clock Tower Series
Another popular survival-horror game that existed back in the PS1 days. It's latest incarnation is Clock Tower 3, for the PS2.
Haunting Ground
This is supposed to be very similar to Clock Tower. Another survival-horror expedition for the PS2.
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