Above is a section of the painting “The Hands Resist Him.” Why is it so incredibly creepy?
Silent Hill came at a time when survival horror was, in many ways, still in its infancy and still struggling to discover what would make gamers’ skin crawl.
Resident Evil had given us our fair share of jumps, but
Silent Hill took a different path, opting instead to make us incredibly uncomfortable. The ever-present radio static, fog, and plunges into the twisted alternate worlds of Silent Hill scared us more based on the threats of being scared than the scares themselves.
It goes without saying, then, that playing through
Silent Hill was a tense experience: one that could make you jump at the smallest of noises. It also meant that the fear factor was very different for everyone who played it, as being scared was often a matter of how scared you allowed yourself to get. Draw the shades, close the door, turn up the sound, and allow yourself to become immersed in the world, and you’ll likely find yourself wide-eyed and gripping your controller with unnecessary, involuntary force.
However, despite whatever experience you had with the game, you can not possibly imagine the abject terror that I experienced. For, you see, I had an added element of fear more horrifying, more ghastly, and more demonic that you will ever experience.
None of you played
Silent Hill in the same house as my mother.
Now, for the sake of full disclosure, let’s get one thing straight. There’s really nothing terrifying about my mom. At 5’5’’ and 100 pounds
maybe, she’s this tiny lady that many of my friends growing up considered a second mother. She did have one quality about her that’s directly tied to her stature, but we’ll talk more about that in a moment.
I played through the majority of
Silent Hill in nighttime sessions on the weekends with one of my friends. We’d sit on the floor, probably far too close to the television, with the intent of getting as freaked out as possible. We genuinely wanted to be scared, so we’d close the door, make it completely dark, crank the crappy TV speakers, and see just how freaked out we could get.
Our biggest scare came during a quiet moment in the game. The player character had just been transported to the twisted version of Silent Hill, and we were both surprised that the terrifying inhabitants of this world hadn’t shown their disfigured faces yet. By this point in the game, we knew the game’s tricks. The moment that we decided that we were safe, the big scare would come. We were expecting something big, and, as we all know, that’s the point at which the tension is highest.
Controller in hand, I round a corner in the game. Suddenly, with utter silence in the game, a voice behind us erupts. It’s whisper, but one of the loudest and most sudden kind. It’s nearly a hiss.
”What’re you guys doing?”
All in the same moment, ever muscle in my body seizes up. I might have even let out a little utterance of fear. My god, what terrifying demon has possessed my television? Is the game looking into my soul?
Nope. Somehow, my mom had crept silently into the room, maneuvered directly behind us, and, analyzing the situation, decided that the best way to address us would be to whisper to announce her presence. Noble intentions, perhaps, but they nearly ended in tears and urine.
It scared the living hell out of us. Despite not actually being a part of the game, it remains the most intense scare that the game gave me. Perhaps someone should make a game where this actually happens: insanely loud female whisper coming from the back speakers at an otherwise quiet yet tense moment.
What sort of scare can you expect around that corner?
Looking at the episode now, I have to wonder exactly what influences contributed to the level of surprise that we felt. As I see it, there were three factors in play.
The game: how much the game itself contributed to the tension of the moment.
External factors: the atmosphere of the room, the volume of the sound, and, of course, my mom.
Internal/personal factors: chiefly, our desire to be scared and our ability to become immersed in the game.
As I see it, there’s a pretty even balance of these factors. However, I think the fact that my mom’s whispering broke the immersion was the most startling. We had, in essence, been transported to Silent Hill, where, in most cases, we knew what the rules were. Sure, we could still get scared, but we knew what sorts of scares we were in for. My mom, in essence, changed the rules of fear. We were suddenly transported to an entirely different plane of fear. And it worked.
So, horror games. I don’t expect you to call up my mom every time I play you so that she can sneak in and scare the crap out of me. But don’t fall into the same rules of fear. Give us your modus operandi, and then throw something at us that is totally out of character. The biggest scares will come when we think we know the rules, and when they’re suddenly and horrifyingly broken.
Haha, your mom is awesome.
@Capncrunk: Haha, your name is awesome! Tell me, what does being a pirate on the sea of crunk involve?
Cool write up, and I love that your avatar is a boss from classic NES title XEXYZ
That sounds like something my mom would do. Cool stuff, yo.
Haha. I laughed a lot.
I remember playing Resident Evil 2 in the same kind of environment with a friend. My first time playing through scenario B. I didn't experience Mr.X yet at the time.
Really casual, there's no zombie, I unlock a screw BAM (The walls shatters), WHAAAT!!!? HOW IN THE, WHAT?? I run, I pass the door, I'm safe BAAAM, WHAAAT.
It's an awesome feeling.
My wife once did the same thing to me while I was playing the first Fatal Frame. The house we lived in at the time had a finished basement. I was down there, lights off, playing the game, and I didn't hear her come home from work. She came downstairs, slowly came around the corner, and said "hey, I'm home." I must've jumped five feet off the couch.
As for mothers...while NVGR, I had a scare moment at a friend's house back when we were little. He just bought the second Nightmare on Elm Street. Sure, the movie is kinda bad, but we didn't know that at the time. It was late at night, we're both glued to the TV, and little did we know that his mom walked into the den with snacks. She quietly put down the tray, and, probably not wanting to disturb us, whispered "there's some food for you two". We both had heart-attacks.
haha man thanks for sharing that story.
@Ryder: Yeah, I had put the crazy little guy into my post about Xexyz, and then I took a step back, looked at it, and said "That absolutely must be my avatar."
@Zombie: Haha, the added creepiness of "There's some food for you two." must certainly have made it way freakier.
Old School survival horror; I can't think of another genre of single player games that are as collectively immersive for both player and spectator. Me and my friend played through Resi 2 together and my sister and I tackled the Gamecube Resi 1 remake and we honestly still talk about the experience to this day!
Cool blog man
Man, I'm glad I wasn't there, I'm a total wuss in situations like this. I probably would have screamed, jumped, and peed. Good story, though!
Pyramid Mom!
This made me think about how keeping a childlike mind helps our enjoyment of games. Immersion is so much easier to achieve when you have an active imagination. Thx for sharing!
@Walk: Awesome, now I'm going to have a dream tonight about my mom wearing a pyramid head helmet and carrying an enormous sword. Thanks.
Heh I remember renting Fatal Frame then trying to get my roommate to play it for me so I could watch. I tried going in myself, but when the first ghost attacked and I realized that combat not only relied on first person perspective, but also on a simple camera, I couldn't keep playing. How the heck is a camera going to protect me when I just want to run away?
Thanks for sharing a fun story.
Ha! This is why I love survival horror!
Really takes me back to when I first played all those games on a small TV late at night, with jacked-in Walkman headphones that didn't extend that far. Great times!