The Silent Hill Story

co host. That's awesome. Lauren's going to be giving us her perspective on technology, and we thought that for her first episode we should really tackle something she's really interested in. But as it turns out, we already did an episode on Halo. Yeah. Fortunately, there is at least one other video game that I do play. I I cannot admit to being a huge crazy gamer, but but I do enjoy some things like, for example, Silent Hill. Yes, now, Silent Hill a famous example of a game that's in

the survival horror genre. And I have to be perfectly honest here, I have only ever played one Silent Hill game. And I had to ask Lauren which one it was because I couldn't remember, and she immediately identified it as Silent Hill too, And which is which is a good one?

It's it's one of the better ones. I hear, I hear the story is really good, but I never got into it far enough for the story to really unfold for me because, frankly, because at the time, the the gameplay was so different from everything else I was used to that that I got frustrated because my brain is primal and cannot grasp things like that. So it was still a little bit tank like at the time. Right. But but first, I guess we need to talk about

what survival horror is now. It's a term that really was introduced by Capcom when they released the first Resident Evil game back in nine. But it's not the first horror based game. There's plenty, There are plenty of examples of horror games, but it was the first. It was kind of like, you know, you're always going to have that first time someone uses a term, and as far as I can tell, that was the first time people had actually used that to define a genre of games.

And really it's kind of a sub genre. It tends to fit underneath the action adventure genres, and uh, I always think of adventure games like things like A Monkey Island or even older games like King's Quest or Space Quest, where you're it's it's more about solving puzzles and working your way through a story than it is about something like killing all the things. So it's not a shooter,

it's not, but it's also not purely a puzzle game. Yeah, and and and there's certain things that that are that tend to be in a survival horror game, for example, I mean, first of all horror horror. Yes, so there's usually some sort of supernatural, nasty icky thing that's trying to eat your knee cap or multiple nasty icky things trying to eat your kneecaps um. Usually there's a sense of isolation, so you're playing a character that doesn't have a lot of contact with other people who can help

him or her. You're you're dealing with that with a limited inventory. Oh yes, that's a big deal, right, the whole the whole idea. You have to conserve that ammunition, or you have to conserve whatever items you have because there's a limited numbers. So once you use it, it's it's gone and you are really script Yeah, it's that's it. The game. The game should essentially be over because it's so hard to get through it without the resources, so you can't just you know, go in blast and it's

not a running gun. You know. It's not only Borderlands too, where where Ammo literally falls out of the sky at times. Uh not no slide against Borderlins two. Love that game, but it's a totally different style of game. And uh yeah, so the whole idea is to create the sense of horror. So, so Lauren, why don't you tell me a little bit about, uh, you know, how you got into this game? All right? Well, um,

I was. I was in college at the time. Um and que aneurism from Jonathan usually whenever I start talking about how old I am, and oh it was, it was about it was about one Silent until two came

out that I actually started playing Silent Hill one. Um, Silent Hill, Uh one came out in and so I was a few years behind the curve, but I had I had a couple of friends who would invite me over to their house and we would have these all night marathons of playing Silent Hill and scaring ourselves absolutely silly. Um and you know, I mean we would turn all the lights out and and uh and yeah just just just just go yeah, until all of us were too

nerve racked to pick up the controller. Nice. Yeah, that. One of the things that struck me about the Silent Hill series is that they took a different take on survival horror than Resident Evil did well. Resident Evil was still very um for for not for not being a shooter, for not being a running gun there was a lot of running and a lot of gunning. Um, it was more action based. Um. The story was not extremely rich.

I mean, you know it was. It was a story, but yeah, and it used a lot more jump scares, that kind of scares, whereas Silent Hill was the sort of creeping psychological terror, very psychological, very Freudian, very odd and uh. And a lot of the influences that the designers have talked about are are people like, um, Stephen King's The Mist, Um, the terrific movie Jacob's Ladder, directed by Adrian Lynn. It's a documentary, as were terrific documentary

about Tim Robbins in the nineteen seventies. Um, and that you're already heavy terrified um and uh, David Lynch, Um, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so things that are truly unsettling. That was the The approach was to make a game that that puts you out of It takes you out of your your comfortable place. You know, It's

not just that, oh, something jumped out in me. It's that something is wrong, something is seriously creepingly and it's it's more akin to sort of Japanese horror in that way, this idea of creating uh and a an environment in a situation that increases the level of tension without necessarily relying on jump scares. It's one of the reasons why I really enjoyed when Japanese horror movies started to make

their way into American culture, The ring and Juan Ringo. Yeah. Now, the problem with that, of course, was that it went a little bonkers, because that's the way Hollywood is, right. They find something that people identify with, and then they throw everything at it, and then that then you're just flooded with it. Yeah, and we can get into that a little bit later too, because there are some criticisms about the survival horror genre that it can get a

little formulaic. But that's that's a little early in our conversation. Yeah, and and we are talking. I mean Silent Hill at this point has put out nine games. Nine games. That is so many games. That's a lot of games for any game series for any series, I can't. I can't what else, like Final Fantasy, how can we? Street Fighter three alone has had like seventy three games just Street Fighter three. Okay, that is that is to be fair.

But they don't have well okay, I don't want to say they don't have a plot line, because thenbody would send me a very angry email. But the plot line is not what you played the game for in Street Fight or three. That is extraordinarily true. So yeah, there is definitely a plot. I mean, plot is everything. Story

is everything in the Silent Hill games. I mean really in Silent Hill that it's all about a tail unfolding, right, and there are there are a couple jump scares here and there, and they are and they are delightful because they're so few and far between, so they do genuinely scare you. In Resident Evil, time to jump zombie jumps out from around a corner. I'm like, yeah, you you've conditioned yourself to okay, well, all right, there's a corner. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

The door. Oh gosh, I wonder what wonder which version of the zombie is gonna jump at me when I opened up this door? As opposed to sitting there with a bunch of your friends in a completely safe environment and and looking at a digital door on a digital screen in Silent Hill, I'm thinking, I don't want to open it. Yeah, I need, I need to open it to progress in this game, and I don't want to.

That's pretty phenomenal. And uh, one other little bit of trivia I wanted to touch upon was something that you mentioned to me that I found interesting. So one of the reasons Silent Hill was so scary was that you couldn't see a lot. It was it was a real time rendering engine that was a three D engine, and this was for the PlayStation, right, for the original PlayStation, and it was and it could be very scary because you out of even though you're having a real time

three D engine, you couldn't see very far. And that's because they put in a lot of fog and darkness into the game to make up for the fact that the engine was not very powerful. Right, the hardware the game was running on could not render the graphics needed to have an extensive view, So by the limitations of the technology, it actually became a scarier game because you couldn't see I mean leaving a lot up to your imagination. Now, I could think of one documentary that benefited from a

similar failure of technology. We did a full episode about this on an Old Tech Stuff episode. Uh. The technology was named Bruce and the documentary was called Jaws. But again, it's one of those things where you take something that to most people you would immediately say, well, that's a limitation, that's that's a drawback, and then you turn it into something that is a core element of the game, and it suddenly becomes an important part of how the game

affects the player. Yeah, by the time that they had a Betterer graphics engines with all of the rest of them, I mean essentially starting with Silent Hill, to which which came up for the PS two, they had they had the capacity to to render a whole lunch. I mean, you know, not out into infinity like they do today. But but you know it's it's you could they could have let you see more than in front of your face.

And they said, and the this is an element that we see added into games today that kind of sort of fit into the survival horror genre. Like for example, I brought up the example of Left for Dead, which does not truly fit into survival horror. First of all, it's more of a first person shooter than an action adventure game. Second, it is a collaborative game. You can play with up to three other people, so you're not

not as isolated. Yeah, now, now as a as a small group, you're isolated because there are there are very few other people that you encounter in that game, still, right, And there are levels specifically in Left for Dead too. There's a level where you are making your way through a sugar sugarcane field or or or actually might be a corn field. I can't remember, but I do remember.

It's like tall stalks and there's a hurricane moving through, so your view is completely obscured by rain and vegetation, and you can't tell when something in front of you as a zombie or just another stalk of a vegetation. Yeah, and it's terrifying. It's also it's also evil that they put in an achievement. Talking to you guys out there, you developers evil to put in an achievement where one of the achievements is to make it through that level

without alerting a witch. When you can't see the witch, you can't see them because everything's in your gun, I'm never going to get the achievement. That was a tan, that was a tangent. I have no idea what we were talking about. Well, we're talking about we were I don't think I I think I think I've heard of that one. Let's talk a little bit about, uh, the company that brought us Silent Hill, which is Konami and Konami. It started out way back in nineteen sixty nine Japanese company. Originally,

Konami was a company that specialized in jukebox rental and repair. Yeah, so it was based in Osaka, and that was the main purpose of the business. But by nineteen seventy three or so, they start are looking at the possibility of developing games in By v eight, they started getting into the video game market for micro computers, sort of a predecessor to PCs. By nineteen seventy nine, they started to export games to the United States and they started making

arcade games as well. Uh, and then we're gonna jump ahead in they started developing games for a system, a computer system called Amiga. That's a shout out to Chris, you know who loves his Amiga. They began making games for something called the Genesis, I don't know. Ninety three, their headquarters moved to Tokyo. By ninety four they start making video games for the PlayStation. They started making games for a system that did not do so well, the three D O, but they also made games for other

systems and as well. I gave kind of like a compressed timeline, just a few general things, just giving an idea of what they were into. Uh. Their corporate structure is absolutely confusing because it's a big company with lots of divisions, some of which are their own company, so they's spun off operations into their own company. Almost all of them have Konami in the name. So you've got

you've got Konami Industry Company Limited. Uh, you've got Konami of America Incorporated, which eventually became Konami Digital Entertainment Incorporated. You've got Konami Limited, not Konomity Konami Industry Company Limited, but Konami Limited completely the UK. Uh, you've got Konami g M. B H. I'm sure there's an actual word for that. It's in German, so uh sutsch Um we've got But now that's Konami Digital Entertainment g M. B H. You've got Konami Kasan Company Limited, which is now Konami

Real Estate Limited, so real estate. They've also got financing, Konami Technology Development Center. So what you're saying is they're big. They're big. They are not just a game company. They've

got a lot of other things going on. So it's it's a huge, complicated company, and it's got a lot of different divisions, some of which have you know, blossomed and then later folded over heres because the video game industry in particular has had some rough cycles occasionally here there have been some times where the arcade industry, for example,

has really suffered. I mean, you know, it's just there's not a whole lot of money in developing arcade games anymore, although Konami did create one of the most popular arcade games of all time. I am talking, of course, of Dance Dance Revolution. Actually actually that ties into one of my random notes about Silent Hill, because one of the best parts I think about Silent Hill, and this is going back to our conversation about the atmosphere of the games,

is the music. Um the sound designer and composer for most of the series has been u A. Gentleman named Akira Yamaka, and he does just really gorgeous, melodic, creepy work for it um and one of those tracks was featured on a version of D D R. Well, Lauren, one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about was kind of the emotional impact, and you were sort of alluding to that with the music and creating this creepy vibe and and also the graphics creating

the creepy vibe. But you said that there were some other things you wanted to chat about as far as the feel of the games, and uh, it seemed to me like you had a lot to say about these games. And because again I've only played one and only just the beginning of it, I really don't have that experience. But I'm really curious to hear your input and why you picked this as the topic. Yeah, okay, well, so let me let me fill you in a little bit

on what Silent Hill is about. For for all of you who have never played any Silent Hill games, um n G. Spoiler alert. Um. For those of you who have, you're going to be very bored for about three minutes. So where it's something for everyone, and what you're saying, yes, we've got negative points for everybody here at except that's pretty much how we roll perfectly. You're fitting in well so far. But um, now, the Silent Hill series is is set in a town called Silent Hill, and and

and a small American town. Um that looks strangely like a small Japanese town most of the time. Um and it's uh. In the first game, you are, your player character is a man named Harry Mason who is searching for his daughter who he has lost. Adopted daughter, his adopted daughter. Yes, this this comes in. This is extremely important later on. Then her name is like Cheryl or something like that. Her name is Cheryl. Yes that that that, by the way, literally the extent of my knowledge of

Silent Hill excellence. It's all me from here on out. And um ah, sorry, I'm literally leaning back from the microphone, which Lauren is laughing about because I never do, because he has literally never done that, I think in the entire history of podcast. Pretty much like usually I have to have fright to get a word and at edgewise. Um,

that's okay, I'll still make jokes. No, So, so you're you're you're playing, you're playing this father named Harry Mason, who is desperately searching for his daughter who's lost in this terrifying, creepy town that just seems wrong. Um uh, it's filled with fog, it seems to be abandoned. Um other than one or two people, some skinless dogs and uh, undead babies, you know, the usual. Um and and so

he and he is he is perhaps understandably upset. But I when I was first playing the Games, I was first of all struck by the fact that it was a father looking for his daughter. I thought, in comparison, especially to American storytelling, it was really kind of revolutionary to watch a a father being upset about the loss of his child. I thought that if it had been done in America, it probably would have been a mother instead.

And in fact, when the Silent Hill movie came out in whenever it came out, it was, they did change it to a mother. And you know, and not that you know, not not that women have no place in the media, certainly that I just thought that it was a more interesting choice to have it be a father, right, And you said you liked the first thirty five minutes of that movie, and then you didn't like it. I

get very angry at that movie. But that's that is an entire that actually fits in more with our more with some of the discussion later because because because I have to admit that I've only played the first three and a half Silent Hill games, um or or I've probably played about four total. But but but the first three to completion and then Silent Hill four The Room and Silent Hill Homecoming are the only two titles that I've picked up, and I didn't enjoy those nearly as much.

Um But but we can, we can get into all of that later. So so so the story follows Harry Mason. It turns out, like you do, that his daughter Cheryl is the uh soul divided reincarnation of a little girl whose mother used her to read is a demon that I almost follow that, Okay, okay, alright, So so she

was the focal point for of truly evil summoning evil summoning. Well, to be fair, the purpose of the summoning was supposed to bring um piece piece and goodwill, right, because another thing we should point out is that Asian mythology and the idea of demons and ghosts can differ quite a bit from the Western versions of these things as well. Absolutely, and actually strangely, some of the mythology in these games

seems to have been based on Judh Kabala. Oh interesting ye so, but but with also those those pop culture references to Stephen King and other stuff, I mean, and and some of those references are very clear throughout the games.

You've got the street name streets are named after Richard Matheson and Richard Bachman, which is Stephen King's early pen name is alter Ego, the one who wrote things like in her Yes, um there's there's a reference to the Midwich Cuckoos, which of course became Village of the Damned in film Ray Bradbury stuff like that. Um so so there's there's there's a lot of great history inserted into those games. And you know, that's that's the that's the

nutshell um of of the first game. I don't want to get too detailed about it because then I'm just going to be explaining how he runs through various different creepy scenarios and that they're creepy. Well to me, what's also interesting, Like you were saying, it's a father searching for a daughter, and we've seen other games since then kind of tap into that same thing I'm thinking of.

Like the Dead Rising To game has a very has a very solar which again not so much a survival horror it is in the sense that some of the themes are very similar. But again, he it's a father who's trying to protect his daughter by getting her medicine to keep her from transforming into a zombie. Um spoiler alert if you've never played Dead Rising Too. But that game is old, so come on, um, but I mean, but that happens at the very beginning of the game. It's not it's not like a spoiler at the end

or anything. That's the very beginning. It's it's established that you your purpose is to keep getting mess and until you guys get rescued, so that way it keeps your daughter alive. Also, the recent Walking Dead episodic games have a character who acts at like a father figure to a little girl. He's not the girl's father. He's actually uh escaped con is probably the wrong term. He was.

He was a man being escorted to prison when the zombies happened, and then a car crash later, he's no longer in the cop car and he's trying to survive, so it's not like he's an escape con but he ends up being the protector of this girl, and the

storyline unfolds with him really taking on that role. So it's interesting to me because it seems to me like this first Silent Hill game kind of created that that model, and other games have sort of followed saying, this is an interesting dynamic and it's one worth exploring, and it's rich for its storytelling potential. Sure, And also I think it's a little bit less insulting to have if you're going to have to go rescue someone in a game. I think it's a little bit less insulting for it

to be a child as opposed to a full grown woman. Yes. In Resident Evil, for yeah, it's one of the most useless characters to follow you around, and you you never you never have someone intelligent or useful following you or well that's usually other than like the arbiter, but that's but that's a separate issue. It's usually the fault of the AI. Yes, necessarily the fault of the character, but Resident eval for it's both. It turns out spoiler alert for that too. I once played No, I'm sorry it

was Resident Eval five. I got to play on the side of the hard rock casino and ces that's interesting to play survival horror when it's projected seventy seven stories high. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It was awesome. It's a little chilly, but it was awesome. It was a capcom thing at c S and I had a great time, and I'm not gonna brooke any discussion on

the matter. Good good for you, but no, the Silent Hill really started to set some interesting trends, and that that the survival horror games that came before we're not as necessarily as deeply story driven as Silent Hill was and so right, or or as atmospheric. That's another good point.

And in fact, before we really get into the deep level of you know, discussion kind of where you're deconstructing things and getting angry because I can't wait to see Lauren angry because I'm usually the angry one on this show. And guess what, guys, I'm not always going to be the angry one now, isn't it awesome? Someone else is gonna be angry too. Sometimes I'm going to be the

one hiding super party. Uh So, Yeah, here, here's some other games that came out, just to kind of give you a comparison, uh with this this sort of revolutionary story. So in ninety nine, that was also when we got things like Ashron's Call, which was an online role playing game. One of the early ones, Balter's Gate. Tales of the Sword Coast came out that year. Uh. Cabella's big game

Hunter three, Cricket Cricket. The Cabella series has kind of an interesting reputation online if you're not familiar with it. Kesslvania for Ninteno sixty four, it came out that year. Crazy Taxi. I have that for my Dreamcast. I still have a Dreamcast Dead or Alive two. Classy, classy game Donkey Kong sixty four Grand Theft Auto two that was back when it was a top down game. It's not

a first person view or third person view. I think the first person because it's when you're in the car, but yeah, third person and you don't know, you can also do a third person in the car too, right, Not everyone plays first person like I do. Um India Jones The Infernal Machine, which is a good example of an adventure game that does not have a horror theme, but it also had that sort of puzzle solving mechanic

that is very important in survival horror. UH, Planescape Torment, which was a D and D game that got a lot of fans. UM Quake three Arena if you want that first person shooter experience, Residentval three Nemesis came out that year. UH, SimCity three thousand came out that year. Ultima nine Ascension, the only ultimate game I have never played, UH came out that year, and UH, the greatest video game to ever come out on the N sixty four came out that year, and it is not Golden I

what what is it? Jonathan w w F WrestleMania two thousand and I am not joking, Jonathan. I'm sure that you guys noticed, but Jonathan might be a little bit excited sometimes about wrestling. WWF. Wrestle Mania two thousand is one of my favorite video games of all time, bar none. I even think it's better than No Mercy, which came out the following year. Strong words, strong words, indeed, I've

never played. I'll bring it in excellent, and you're going to create your own wrestler and it's gonna look like you because I've already got one that looks like me. I'm not not sure if that's actually a true in the game, but that's because it's based on a character I played on stage. It's not the way I normally dress. I mean, today's an exception. Anyway. That's an example of the type of games that were coming out the same

year that Silent Hill did. So Silent Hill really was very different because all the very different and that's the main reason why I had I kind of assembled that list, and that, of course is just a tiny, tiny sample of all the hundreds of games that came out. Gaming industry was a thing. It turns out, you know, there were quite a few consoles on the market, and then more we're coming out shortly thereafter. Because let's remember this

is the PlayStation one era, this is before Xbox. Yeah, because it was only in two thousand one, September of two thousand one that Silent Hill two came out for the PS two and um uh and yeah, yeah, that that game. That game built up off of the Silent Hill one story in a way that was not necessarily connected to the first story. None of the same characters showed up aside from some of the some of the

villain monsters. Um But but what what they did with the story is what I really find fascinating about the Silent Hill series, and I think why it has endured as much as it has because what they did is, um, they took they took this concept of this town that has been that has been psychically messed around really hard, and and they extended that so that any other any other person who has had dealings with this town, the town feeds off of any any psychic badness going on

with them. So damaged characters feed this thing. Damaged characters feed this thing, and and it draws them in and by their presence they changed the town, or they change

their own perception of the reality in the town. It's a little bit it's a little bit shaky about how that works, um but but no, it's fascinating because because it means that that anyone who has had any kind of contact with Silent Hill and then done something completely terrible like people do, winds up being drawn back into this town and going through their own extremely personal version

of hell, and and that that's awful. I don't want that to happen to me, but I sure do you want to play a video game about that that that is emotionally fascinating. It's a it's a it's a definitely interesting take on a story. Now there were things that made you angry, there were there There ended up being things that made me angry in this video game series. UM. Eventually UM. A group of Konami employees called Team Silent worked on the first four games. This was an internal

development team working directly underneath Konami. So Konami is developing and publishing a game that was completely made in house, right. It was kind of a pet project, especially after the enormous success of the first game game UM. They had an entire fifty people working on the second one, UM. I think it dropped down to maybe forty for the for the third and fourth ones. The third and fourth ones were actually developed nearly simultaneously within Konami. UM. Silent

Hill three was a direct sequel to Silent Hill. Actually it picked up again with Harry Mason's character or his daughter actually spoiler alert UM. But as Silent Hill for the room was built to be more of a shooter, more of an action oriented game with still some of the puzzle aspects and still set with the creepy atmosphere, but it was intended to be more action packed, and

for me, honestly, that's why it failed. Um, which is interesting because the Resident Evil series took a very similar approach, like it changed to be a little bit, it got increasingly more action oriented. But I think it actually managed to find an audience, like a larger audience that way, like people who had never thought of playing the other games because because the play style didn't appeal to them.

But I can see how the elements that truly defined the series early on, by getting away from that could could potentially lose fans, all right, And it's not I mean, you know, I'll admit I'm the kind of person who enjoys Missed, but I'm also the kind of person who enjoys Halo. So it's not, you know, it's it's not that I was just looking for a puzzle experience and then I was upset that I had to shoot things.

So you people who have never played the game Missed because there may be a few of you young guns out there, Oh dear, I had never even thought of about. Yeah, I'm getting the inneurism vain that John hits me all the time. But No Missed. Missed was a a a puzzle game essentially, but it was done and there was an over arching story that the puzzles all fit into.

You could argue whether or not the story made any sense, or if the narrative was worth the effort of solving these puzzles, some of which were seemed to have no sense of logic to them. It was just one of those things where click things until off happens. Um. But you know there was there were logical underpinnings to most, if not all, the puzzles. Sometimes that was just just hidden enough from the player to not be obvious. But that was that was a That was all you did

in that game was solve puzzles. So I was just saying that so that way you could our listeners who are unfamiliar with it, but probably no Halo would be to have some kind of frame of reference. Yes, thank you, Jonathan. That's the only reason I'm here. After after Silent Hillford came out, UM they started, Konami started UH shipping the title out to various other studios. UM Climax Studios has

worked on it, um other stuff. Double Helix Vatter Games did the most recent one I think and uh so yeah, these these these are all American and I think batter's at check company. Actually, Okay, so you've got you've got companies that are not that are trying to preserve the feeling of Silent Hill, but are not necessarily as invested in it as the team that originally developed it. It's hard. It's hard when it's not your baby to take quite as good care of it. I think it can be

a challenge. I mean, I'm sure that three four three Studios has that same sort of the burden of responsibility to be good stewards of the Halo franchise. But it's still not it's still not yours, and you're going to want to do slightly different things with it. Um you know, it's it's it's like Willy Wonka wanting to recruit Charlie and not a grown up because he can mold Charlie to do his will. Another excellent documentary, yes, the first

one in name, starring Gene Wilder. But but yeah, and and so so they and and and these people have all loved the series of games. I've read a lot of interviews with all of the creators, and and they are so passionate about it, and I love hearing that. Except for the part where I feel like they took more after held for the Room, most of the sequels

have been more actionally and um less puzzly. I get a little bit frustrated when I just want to get to the next point in the story and there are so many things to shoot and I can't just run away from them. Um uh. And and also there they increased the level of violence. Um. Partially it was just a graphics rendering issue, I think, because as graphics have improved, you can you can really see the knife strokes and wow,

you can really see how the bone brew. No, but you can and and I'm kind of and I mean, I'm not I'm not necessarily squeamish. Some of my favorite horror films are things like hell Raiser or Slither. I I loved not known for going easy on the gore. I love a good schlock flick, but that's not necessarily what I'm looking for Silent Hill. And and like like many nerds, I do get a little bit protective about

the media that I consume. And I'm sorry, oh no, no, no, I was just gonna say it very much reminds me of how Boris Karloff used to criticize the horror movie industry because he said that the movies he made, he liked to think of them as terror pictures, like the idea was that they inspire terror, the sense of any and fear, whereas horror movies were more about shocking you

and grossing you out. And it's two different things. It's the same reason why again, I really like the Japanese horror because it was something that could increase that tension and terror, same way that I like some nineties seventies and early eighties horror movies that were that because of a lack of budget, they had to use other tricks in order to really get you uneasy, And to me,

those are really effective. And if you have like a huge budget and it's all about people exploding into it's a blood, then after how can fit After like the third or fourth time, you're like, okay, you know it's I mean, I hate to bring up I love Samuraimi's work, don't get me wrong, but but evil dead, I mean evil dead. You eventually are like, all right, how many

times am I going to see them? Have to try and chop up this possessed person, you know, before it gets a little bit, a little bit old, We're just funny, it becomes not terrifying, right, which is why Evil Dead too. And and then Army of Darkness took a more comedic approach to the material because people were finding a movie that was not intended to be comedic, in fact extremely funny. Yes, sorry anyway, Uh yeah, so so the style of the

game changed. Yeah, the style of the game changed. And um, and and there was the point at which I really stopped playing Silent Hill. Was was at the end of Silent Hill Homecoming. Um, your your final boss fight against spoilers everywhere, apologies guides. Um, your final boss fight is against this Freudian monsters representation of your pregnant mother, um as a spider and you have to slash her pregnant belly and she vomits on you. And that that is the point at which I was like, I'm out, I'm

I'm basically done with this. I'm not okay with this anymore. And I and yes, that horrifying, that is completely horrifying, But it's so horrifying that I don't want to look at it anymore. It's not it's not fun. It's no longer entertainment or fun. It's just it's just it's just wrong. It's actually unsettling. It's not fun, unsettling, and so and so that's the point at which I kind of gave

up on the series. That's that's kind of my feeling about certain grindhouse horror movies, right where the grindhouse horror was all about the taking exploitation to the furthest limits, to the point where it's just truly uncomfortable to watch it. And if you are, if you are at all entertained, you then feel a sense of shame for feeling entertained by what's unfolding on the streaming in front of you.

Some of the Catching me Gay's films do the same thing for you, and um actually all of them audition audition, and technically the Silent Hill Kids have called out the author of the original novel of addition, um Riamrakhani, as one of their u one of their unches. But but at the same time, I mean, you know so so, so that's that's all part of that, that's all in there. And I think that the Freudian, the psychological and I keep I do keep using the word Freudian, and that's

only because that's all I can really call it. I mean, it's you know, I hate to go to Victorian about things or two to armchair psychology about things, but but it is. I mean, the themes in this game are full of full of doppelgangers and full of uh, all of the representations of things that have come back to haunt you. Literally coming back to haunt you except with knives and coming back to haunt you except with nives reminds me of a girl I used to date. Not

a different show, not tech stuff. But Silent Hill definitely

was a very influential game. I mean we could we can see its influences in other games that came out, things like even games that got super wacky, like Eternal Darkness that was the in sixty four game goes in sixty four, right, yeah, I think it's in sixty four where it was the game would would would mess with you, would mess with you, like it would like it looks like it's suddenly turned itself off, or just the volume, just the volume it would or you'd walk into a

room and everything's upside down, or you'd walk into a room and suddenly you are one of the monsters. You're not you anymore. And the whole idea was that it's it's messing with your sanity, and as your character's sanity decreases, it began to mess with you in a meta way so that you're like, why is my volume going on

the way down? And then you turn the volume and then when the volume comes back to normal, it's like ten times as loud because you've been turning the volume and your television up and it's just been faking that

the volume has been going down. Um. But but you could see elements of Silent Hill informing these later entries into the survival horror genre, including ones you know, like I said that the definition of survival horror has changed over the years to the point now where it's kind of just a broad, uh label that would slap on anything that happens to fall within the horror genre. Right, But but that's not really what the what the genre

is is about. I'm going to go ahead and say that that's not that's not what my survival horror genre is about. That's fine, Lauren, you just go ahead and define it, and we're sticking with your definition. That's what we do here at tech Stuff too. We make sweeping generalizations and then we stand by them. But now, I mean, even even things like BioShock, I think you can see the influence of something like silent heilen Um just because they're they're they're creepy, and and that is that is

their point. Yeah. So, I mean I think that gives us a lot of insight into who you are. You like, you like creepy things. Uh, you get irritated when they change? Yes? Um, yeah, No, I think that's it. I'm pretty sure that's all we need to know. But no, this, ladies and gentlemen, Uh this She is our new co host. Lauren is going to be joining us on this journey that we call text Stuff, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

She and I have had multiple extensive conversations in the office about just about everything, and it becomes pretty clear that her snarky sense of humor and my snarky sense of humor complement each other really well. So I'm really looking forward to this experience of of recording podcasts with you. I can't wait to see what else we come up with.

I've already got lists of Stuff listeners are sending in or the topics that we should tackle, and uh, and so I don't think we're gonna be hurting for topics anytime soon. Excellent. And yeah, So guys, if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, or you just want to say hi to Lauren and welcome her to the tech stuff family, I highly recommend you let us know. Send us an email. Our address is tech stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a line

on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled. There is text stuff hs W and Lauren and I will talk to you again really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics, it has to works dot com