I know, I know: hardly one of the most beloved horror titles in existence, hardly one of the best entries in the franchise, but, for all its faults (and there are quite a few), Silent Hill: Homecoming does manage to scrape together some surprisingly horrific moments and images, as well as mythological concepts that mount in sheer grotesquery the more the player uncovers.
One of the few titles not set directly in the eponymous town, Homecoming instead takes place in the neighbouring settlement of Shepherd's Glen, a town which, so it seems, is suffering from much the same curse as Silent Hill itself, when we first arrive.
Shrouded in the now iconic mist, the town is abandoned, haunted by strange figures and sounds, those few of the townsfolk that still remain paranoid figures who speak obliquely and with reference to tragedies the player has yet to uncover.
As returning soldier Alex Shepherd, it's the player's business to uncover the hideous truth of the town and its curse, not to mention the more personal issues that plague his family.
That there's something far beyond the ordinary occurring is made overt very early on, when Alex happens across now familiar phenomena (roads and pathways crumbled away into an aching abyss, preventing escape from the town), strange creatures that may or may not be entirely real prowling the streets.
Much of what occurs in Homecoming, just as in the other Silent Hill games, is somewhat ambiguous, given Shepherd's precarious state of mind. We know from the off that he suffers from a number of psychological conditions and traumas that saw him hospitalised, that he experiences significant hallucinations that sometimes obliterate his perception of reality altogether. Most centre around his dead brother, Joshua, who was killed in a freak accident years ago.
As such, it's difficult to determine with any degree of certainty how much of what we see and experience in Homecoming is real, how much is a product of Alex's diseased mind and where that boundary lies (if it means anything at all, certainly towards the end of the game).
A story of paranoia and conspiracies, of eldritch forces and bleak-as-Hell metaphysics, Homecoming paints a portrait of just how far human beings will go to ensure their own survival, even if that survival is twisted and degraded out of all proportions, how the sins of the Fathers do indeed become the laments of the children.
Through his journey, Alex uncovers a secret history in which a splinter of the iconic Order from the original Silent Hill games has been prominent within Shepherd's Glen since its founding, a cult that, unlike its parent, isn't dedicated to facilitating the birth of a new and dark god, but in appeasing that which holds sway over Silent Hill itself, and may or may not be responsible for its peculiarly psychosomatic condition.
I know, I know: hardly one of the most beloved horror titles in existence, hardly one of the best entries in the franchise, but, for all its faults (and there are quite a few), Silent Hill: Homecoming does manage to scrape together some surprisingly horrific moments and images, as well as mythological concepts that mount in sheer grotesquery the more the player uncovers.
One of the few titles not set directly in the eponymous town, Homecoming instead takes place in the neighbouring settlement of Shepherd's Glen, a town which, so it seems, is suffering from much the same curse as Silent Hill itself, when we first arrive.
Shrouded in the now iconic mist, the town is abandoned, haunted by strange figures and sounds, those few of the townsfolk that still remain paranoid figures who speak obliquely and with reference to tragedies the player has yet to uncover.
As returning soldier Alex Shepherd, it's the player's business to uncover the hideous truth of the town and its curse, not to mention the more personal issues that plague his family.
That there's something far beyond the ordinary occurring is made overt very early on, when Alex happens across now familiar phenomena (roads and pathways crumbled away into an aching abyss, preventing escape from the town), strange creatures that may or may not be entirely real prowling the streets.
Much of what occurs in Homecoming, just as in the other Silent Hill games, is somewhat ambiguous, given Shepherd's precarious state of mind. We know from the off that he suffers from a number of psychological conditions and traumas that saw him hospitalised, that he experiences significant hallucinations that sometimes obliterate his perception of reality altogether. Most centre around his dead brother, Joshua, who was killed in a freak accident years ago.
As such, it's difficult to determine with any degree of certainty how much of what we see and experience in Homecoming is real, how much is a product of Alex's diseased mind and where that boundary lies (if it means anything at all, certainly towards the end of the game).
A story of paranoia and conspiracies, of eldritch forces and bleak-as-Hell metaphysics, Homecoming paints a portrait of just how far human beings will go to ensure their own survival, even if that survival is twisted and degraded out of all proportions, how the sins of the Fathers do indeed become the laments of the children.
Through his journey, Alex uncovers a secret history in which a splinter of the iconic Order from the original Silent Hill games has been prominent within Shepherd's Glen since its founding, a cult that, unlike its parent, isn't dedicated to facilitating the birth of a new and dark god, but in appeasing that which holds sway over Silent Hill itself, and may or may not be responsible for its peculiarly psychosomatic condition.
Rather, the splinter that holds sway over Shepherd's Glen -and has been directing the town's history in one way, shape or form since forever- is a far more conservative, survivalist sect, who seek only to preserve what they know against the forces that have ravaged their neighbouring town. As such, we discover, there exists a covenant between the elders of Shepherd's Glen and the nameless dark god of Silent Hill:
An appeasement that consists of blood sacrifice. Every family within Shepherd's Glen owes a blood debt to the deity, their first born children forfiet to the creature. Worse, it isn't merely satisfied with simple sacrifice: the creature is sustained by pain, by suffering, by the mortification of innocence. As such, the player discovers various examples of the most hideous abuse as they wander the town: first-born children who were born and cultivated for sacrifice, whose parents knew from the moment they were born that they would have to be tortured and tormented and finally allowed to expire.
From a child buried alive and allowed to smother to death beneath the roots of a great tree to a little girl surgically lacerated and allowed to bleed out, the torments these children suffer is beyond description, the gradual revelation of this obscene truth one of the game's most notable and distressing qualities.
Worse, the infection of the nameless force from Silent Hill brings those far from forgotten sins to life, suffusing the memories of torment that still echo with vengeful and sadistic animus.
An appeasement that consists of blood sacrifice. Every family within Shepherd's Glen owes a blood debt to the deity, their first born children forfiet to the creature. Worse, it isn't merely satisfied with simple sacrifice: the creature is sustained by pain, by suffering, by the mortification of innocence. As such, the player discovers various examples of the most hideous abuse as they wander the town: first-born children who were born and cultivated for sacrifice, whose parents knew from the moment they were born that they would have to be tortured and tormented and finally allowed to expire.
From a child buried alive and allowed to smother to death beneath the roots of a great tree to a little girl surgically lacerated and allowed to bleed out, the torments these children suffer is beyond description, the gradual revelation of this obscene truth one of the game's most notable and distressing qualities.
Worse, the infection of the nameless force from Silent Hill brings those far from forgotten sins to life, suffusing the memories of torment that still echo with vengeful and sadistic animus.
The various “boss” encounters that occur throughout the game are all manifestations of the sacrificed children, each one informed by qualities and characteristics of the children themselves, not to mention the various means and manners of their deaths.
From the lacerated, doll-like Scarlet to the hulking, cancerous behemoth of Sepulcher, each of these creatures is a kind of avenging angel, a dark manifestation of suffering and cruelty, returned to claim the bodies and souls of those that betrayed them.
All are uniquely disturbing, that quality escalating as the player becomes more and more aware of what they are, but perhaps the most distressing of all is the caterpillar-like homunculus, Asphyxia.
A manifestation of memories of Nora Holloway (who was smothered to death by her Mother as a sacrifice to the dark god), the creature resembles a caterpillar owing to Nora's love of Alice in Wonderland, her reborn form consisting of distressingly female bodies sewn and fused together into a single, scrabbling entity, a pair of hands interlaced over its mouth, forcing it to perpetually suffocate (echoing the manner of its death).
The creature is a lurid and distressing monstrosity, exquisitely designed to emphasise the purest desecration of innocence. To think that this entity is partially born from the soul of a murdered child is one of the sincerest moments of quiet horror in the game, and one that can only be experienced if one is willing and able to read between the lines, to appreciate that these entities operate on heavily symbolic levels to maintain their presence.
An even more distressing level of symbolism is implied by the creature's form and motions: the various bodies that comprise Asphyxia are all clearly adult women, naked, yet not exposed; their breasts and genital regions covered with hands in the same manner as the creature's mouth. Whilst not certain, this may suggest the age at which Nora Holloway was sacrificed: on the outset of puberty, the creature she has become manifesting the state of womanhood that she herself was denied. Furthermore, the creature sways and sifts in a luridly suggestive manner when it walks, its hideous sexualisation perhaps even implying some more intimate form of abuse before she was eventually murdered.
From the lacerated, doll-like Scarlet to the hulking, cancerous behemoth of Sepulcher, each of these creatures is a kind of avenging angel, a dark manifestation of suffering and cruelty, returned to claim the bodies and souls of those that betrayed them.
All are uniquely disturbing, that quality escalating as the player becomes more and more aware of what they are, but perhaps the most distressing of all is the caterpillar-like homunculus, Asphyxia.
A manifestation of memories of Nora Holloway (who was smothered to death by her Mother as a sacrifice to the dark god), the creature resembles a caterpillar owing to Nora's love of Alice in Wonderland, her reborn form consisting of distressingly female bodies sewn and fused together into a single, scrabbling entity, a pair of hands interlaced over its mouth, forcing it to perpetually suffocate (echoing the manner of its death).
The creature is a lurid and distressing monstrosity, exquisitely designed to emphasise the purest desecration of innocence. To think that this entity is partially born from the soul of a murdered child is one of the sincerest moments of quiet horror in the game, and one that can only be experienced if one is willing and able to read between the lines, to appreciate that these entities operate on heavily symbolic levels to maintain their presence.
An even more distressing level of symbolism is implied by the creature's form and motions: the various bodies that comprise Asphyxia are all clearly adult women, naked, yet not exposed; their breasts and genital regions covered with hands in the same manner as the creature's mouth. Whilst not certain, this may suggest the age at which Nora Holloway was sacrificed: on the outset of puberty, the creature she has become manifesting the state of womanhood that she herself was denied. Furthermore, the creature sways and sifts in a luridly suggestive manner when it walks, its hideous sexualisation perhaps even implying some more intimate form of abuse before she was eventually murdered.
Whilst much of Homecoming is nowehere near as subtle or effective as previous titles in the franchise, the “boss” encounters and the mythology that surrounds them is what elevates the game from simply being a weary cash-in on an ailing series: the creatures are not only gloriously designed, but rank with implied mythology, a form of symbolic storytelling that involves the player on a far more intimate level than if they were just monsters or obstacles to overcome.
The gradual revelation of their true conditions renders them obscenely fascinating, not just terrifying and distressing, but uniquely tragic: are the souls of the murdered children still somehow present within their rent and malformed shells? What manner of torments did the children suffer after death in order to become these abominations?
In a cavalcade of pure, human wickedness, of metaphysical nihilism and abyssal depths, Asphyxia is perhaps amongst the most abominable specimens, not because of what she is, but because of what she implies.
The gradual revelation of their true conditions renders them obscenely fascinating, not just terrifying and distressing, but uniquely tragic: are the souls of the murdered children still somehow present within their rent and malformed shells? What manner of torments did the children suffer after death in order to become these abominations?
In a cavalcade of pure, human wickedness, of metaphysical nihilism and abyssal depths, Asphyxia is perhaps amongst the most abominable specimens, not because of what she is, but because of what she implies.
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