Silent Hill is a popular horror franchise from Konami that is best known for its series of survival horror games. Keiichiro Toyama made the first Silent Hill game in 1999. The first four games, which were all made by Team Silent, have a special place in the hearts of gamers. Still, the other six (mostly Western-made) games in the popular horror series, as well as the two movies based on the games and the many books that tie in with them, have all helped Silent Hill stay popular.
Even though there haven’t been many new Silent Hill products in the last few years, Konami recently announced a bunch of new ones. These include a remake of Silent Hill 2 for the PlayStation 5; two new games made by Team Silent, Silent Hill: Downfall and Silent Hill f; and Return to Silent Hill, the third movie in the series. Still, there’s even better news for Silent Hill fans who can’t wait any longer to play the game. From is a must-see and criminally under-discussed sci-fi horror show that covers similar ground. Here’s what you need to know.
What is the story of Silent Hill?
Even though each game in the Silent Hill series is about a different character, they all have some things in common. First of all, both the games and the movies based on them take place in the same New England town. (With the exception of Silent Hill 4: The Room.) Silent Hill is full of scary people, strange disappearances, parasitic beings and gods from other worlds, and the goings-on of a ritualistic cult. The town is shrouded in mystery. Silent Hill and its sequels were the first games in the survival horror genre. Instead of using B-movie tropes, they used a creepy, foggy setting and other features of the psychological horror genre.
People liked how the first few games in the series put players in control of a “everyman” character who has to solve puzzles and fight his way through fight scenes. In the first game, for example, players help the main character, Harry Mason, find his missing daughter, Cheryl, by leading him through a town full of monsters. Harry isn’t like most video game protagonists in that he doesn’t know how to fight. Harry’s aim isn’t steady because he doesn’t know much about guns, which affects the player’s ability to name. Harry will soon gasp for air if the player makes him run away from danger. He also can’t take a lot of damage from Silent Hill’s enemies, unlike the tank-like player characters in first-person shooters.
In one of the best games in the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 2, players take control of James Sunderland, a man who goes to Silent Hill to find his wife. She’s dead, but a mysterious letter tells James that she’s still there and waiting for him. Silent Hill 2 is inspired by the movies of David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) and Adrian Lyne (Jacob’s Ladder) as well as the book Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Instead of focusing on cults, the game focuses on the main character’s psychology, and even the monsters in the game are a reflection of the main character’s subconscious.
Heather, a teenager, is the main character in Silent Hill 3, a game where the main character gets involved in the town’s cult activities and goes back and forth between the “real world” and the “Otherworld,” which is like an upside-down version of Heather’s world. In other parts, a trucker gets stuck in Silent Hill, a soldier searches the town for his missing brother, and a prisoner gets stuck in the town of the same name. Obviously, this is just a small taste of the different stories that take place in the Silent Hill universe. As an anthology horror series, Silent Hill has a lot of different stories to choose from, which is probably why people keep coming back to it.
What Does FROM Mean?
The sci-fi horror show FROM, which was made by John Griffin for EPIX, has a standout ensemble cast. Some of the stars are Harold Perrineau (Lost), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), Eion Bailey (Stalker), David Alpay (The Tudors), Shaun Majumder (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Scott McCord (The Sinner), and Ricky He (Wayward Pines). After its first episode in February 2022, the show was praised for its story, which Silent Hill fans are sure to like. Not only that, but Perrineau’s great performance drives a great cast of veterans and newcomers, which shows how character-driven FROM is at its heart.
From takes place in a scary American town, like Silent Hill. And, in a way similar to Silent Hill: Origins, people get stuck in the town. In fact, the town traps everyone who steps inside its borders. At night, horrible creatures come out of the forest to terrorize the town, as if the people didn’t already want to leave. Even though FROM isn’t quite high-end horror, it has a lot of potential to go deeper than shows like Wayward Pines.
In the first episode, Jim (Bailey), Tabitha (Moreno), and their two children take a wrong turn and end up in a small town. After Sheriff Boyd (Perrineau) told them to get back on the highway, the Matthews find themselves in a loop: no matter which road they take, they can’t seem to get out of town.
After a car hits them and knocks them off the road, the Matthews family is stuck in town, which gets even scarier as night falls. From talismans that keep monsters away to a boy in white who appears out of nowhere to some characters, the town is full of mysteries to solve. This makes FROM an exciting horror series that Silent Hill fans will love.
From where to stream
The first 10 episodes of the first season, which was made by Midnight Radio and the Russo brothers’ (Avengers: Endgame) Gozie AGBO, were approved for YouTube Premium back in 2018. FROM found a home with Epix Studios and MGM Television after YouTube switched to unscripted content. The show’s first season on the Epix network was successful and nominated for a Saturn Award. It was renewed in April 2022, just a few months after it first aired.
The second season of the show is set to start on April 23, 2023. It will be shown on MGM+ (MGM Plus). Not sure what MGM Plus is? That’s likely because the streamer has changed their name so many times. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) bought out co-founders Lionsgate and Paramount’s shares in 2017, the premium cable channel Epix, which is similar to Starz, Showtime, and HBO, changed its name. When Amazon bought MGM in 2022, Epix changed its name to MGM+ and became a sister platform to Amazon’s more well-known Prime Video and Freevee (formerly IMDb TV).
Besides FROM, MGM+ has the film Godfather of Harlem with Forest Whitaker, Chris Brancato’s (Narcos) Hotel Cocaine, and Julian Fellowes’s follow-up to Belgravia (Downton Abbey). New seasons of shows like Condor and Chapelwaite may also be on the way, since Amazon is encouraging a “more is better” attitude for the new service.
When the streaming service came back in a big way in January 2023, it made a deal with Paramount to offer the hit movie Top Gun: Maverick from 2022. Creatives at MGM+ say they will adapt more books like the Ben Macintyre spy novels and make more TV shows that are like the studio’s big, epic movies like the classic Doctor Zhivago (1965). People can sign up for MGM Plus directly for $5.99 a month to watch FROM and other movies, or they can add it to their cable or satellite TV package for the same price.
When is the next Silent Hill game coming out?
Since the 2010s, there haven’t been many new Silent Hill games. Konami canceled Silent Hills in 2015, which would have been a dream project for Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), and Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead). Fans were very angry about this, to say the least.
Silent Hill has had a lot of projects scrapped, which has made fans wait. In fact, the last games that weren’t demos came out in 2012. They were Silent Hill: Book of Memories, which was only available for the PlayStation Vita, Silent Hill: Downpour, and Silent Hill HD Collection, which was a high-definition re-release of Silent 2 and 3 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
After a lot of hype, the series is getting a bunch of new games, which were all announced in October 2022. First up is Silent Hill: Ascension, a “interactive media experience” that will come out in 2023 and was made in part by Bad Robot Productions. Other new games are more traditional, like Silent Hill: Downfall, which was made by No Code (Stories Untold) and published by Annapurna Interactive (Stray), and Silent Hill f, a new mainline game set in Japan during the Shwa period and written by the people who made the interactive novel When They Cry. The last new game announcement is a remake of Silent Hill 2 for PlayStation 5 and PC.
Is there a movie about Silent Hill?
The first live-action movie based on the series, also called Silent Hill, came out in 2006. It was directed by Christophe Gans and starred Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland), Sean Bean (Game of Thrones), and Laurie Holden (The Boys). Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, the sequel to the movie, came out in 2012, despite getting bad reviews. It starred Adelaide Clemens (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Kit Harington (Game of Thrones), Martin Donovan (Tenet), Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Resurrections).
Gans wasn’t able to come back for the sequel, but he confirmed that he would be in the third installment, Return to Silent Hill, which is just starting to be made. All of this means that you shouldn’t give up on Silent Hill, but you might want to watch episodes of FROM until the next one comes out.
