Silent Hill - Shaaaaaron! with Lulu

Waffling Taylors Goes To The Movies

Don’t forget to check out the other episodes in the series. Make sure to click here to see which movies we’ve already covered - we’re sure that you’ll love what you have to say.

Featured Image

Players

Squidge

Jay

Lulu

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Content Warning

Due to the nature of the movie we talk about in this episode, we’d recommend that you don’t listen to this one with little ones around.

This film also deals with some pretty terrible things, whilst we don’t actually talk about the terrible things, please take this as a trigger and/or content warning for harm befalling children.

We’ve also left in all the swears, as it’s an episode about a horror film.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

We started the episode by heading to Silent Hill in our outfits. Lulu went as the Grim Reaper, Jay as a Necromancer, and Squidge as… well, Squidge.

And finally, after 130 episodes, Jay go the intro right

Jay

Hello Squidgey!

You’d have thought it wasn’t difficult to mess up, but he manages it on almost every episode.

As Jay mentioned, this is Lulu’s 16th appearance on the show

check this page for all of her appearances

Surprisingly, not all of them have been about Final Fantasy, too. Although, Lulu was distracted for a moment when thinking about her Hot Trash Daddy and decided that she needed a lobster bib because:

Lulu

it’s easier to just fling it over the balcony then

Thoughts Going In

We didn’t really discuss our thoughts on the film before tackling it, except to say that Lulu isn’t a fan of the sequel.

Lulu

Nope. Burn it.

But we did talk about our backgrounds regarding the games. Jay had played a little of the first one, the gave up; whereas Lulu and Squidge are the experts of the group, having played them all.

There were a lot of references to the video game, as the director (Christophe Gans) is on record as saying that he is a fan of the original PlayStation game and even had members of team Silent Hill on set to oversea certain aspects of the movie. As such, at points it feels like “References: The Movie”.

And, of course, Sean Bean survives the movie. Which is one heck of an achievement.

Why was he in the movie, you ask? Because the studio said

We can’t sell a movie with an all female cast

And not only is this bonkers but it’s also bonkers

double bonkers, indeed

The Plot

Here’s a 10,000 ft view of the “plot”, as we see it:

• SHAAARONN!
• Rose is running around in her sleepy clothes, because someone has gone missing

what’s her name again?

• Cringe-fests and lack of chemistry between Mum and Daughter
• Let’s not forget that Rose was wearing her socks to bed

Jay

Because people on IMDB are like that: they’re weird. They tag, like, "this is a film about…" and then it’s like "horror", and "multilation", and "horribleness", and "socks".

• Chekhov’s Cross
• Travelling to Silent Hill in search of a script
• Even more lack of chemistry

cat noises does not mean that characters have bonded

Squidge

clenched so hard you turned your face into a fist

• WKX-Weird Music on the radio
• “No credit cards for you!” - Boromir Sharpe
• The Silent Hill of the film is based on Centralia, Pennsylvania

It’s worth reading about Centralia, as it’s fascinating.

• “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers”
• More chemistry between the cop and Sharon, than with Rose and Sharon
• Drive-by tattoos at a cafe?
• Running from the police is a bad idea
• It’s the crash from intro to the video game
• Ash is falling, all around me; kid’s gone missing, where’s she gone?
• The fog exists, but only to be creepy

About the Fog

So the fog was included in the original game because the 3D models and environments in the original game were so detailed that the drawing distance for the game had to be very close to Harry Mason’s character model. The folks over at Team Silent (the developers of the Silent Hill games) decided to hide this by adding a fog effect. This served a dual purpose of making everything look really creepy and hiding the incredibly close drawing distance.

This was also why Harry picks up a broken radio, and uses that to know when the enemies are close by. Otherwise, the player would never know and would end up being ambushed by enemies they didn’t know were right there.

The plot is that convoluted, in the early stages, that Jay became super confused and forgot a whole section of the movie: the first time Rose walks around in the town, before being arrested. Anyway, back to the plot…

• Press X to Sharron
• Store fonts are references to the game
• Let’s play Silent Hill (1999)
• Jay and Lulu re-write the movie

this wasn’t in the movie, but they did a great job of doing it in less than 30 seconds

• SYMBOLISM!

Lulu mentions something when talking about symbolism:

Lulu

There’s a lot of deep rooted symbolism in the Silent Hill games. And I think, as a game series, I’d honestly love to do a chat like this with you guys about the Silent Hill series; because so much symbolism

Watch this space, folks. We’re in the process of arranging something with some special guests.

• Meanwhile Rose is busy dropping her lighter and jacket
• Fus ro dah! and Jonny Cash
• Mis-direct mis-fires
• Boromir Sharpe tries to get some information out of a mechanic
• Boromir Sharpe starts phoning it in
• Rose gets arrested, but isn’t read her Miranda Rights
• Cybil crashes because plot
• Cybil leaps into action, but not before taking her jacket off
• Squelchy things abound
• Rose takes a bus without taking a bus
• Meanwhile at the school, Rose finds a torch
• Lulu would be terrible in a zombie apocalypse

again, this isn’t in the movie. But it was an important point to raise

• Rose might have farted, but she finds a desk with “witch” written on it"
• A CLUE: Alessa Gillespie

eh Macarena

• Rose goes to the bathroom
• I double dare you
• No jump scare when everyone expected one
• Stuff goes South, when Rose locks people out of the toilet
• Clive comes to life
• Rose blinds herself with her own torch, then tries a spot of stunt work
• RUN AWAY from Pyramid Head

The inclusion of Pyramid Head in this movie is, at first, very confusing.

Pyramid Head represents the frustrations

of a rather underpants related nature

of James Sutherland (hero of Silent Hill 2) has due to his having to deal with the very slow death of his wife whilst being surrounded by

ed: we hated putting these next two words in the article, but it’s what Team Silent have said

“sexy nurses” and not getting any … underpants related attention.

Because of that, Pyramid Head’s appearance in the movie doesn’t make sense… until you’ve seen the movie through to the end and realise that he was there to protect Alessa. He only ever appears when Alessa is in danger for characters other than Rose. And that’s something which has been backed up by Christophe Gans

the director of the movie

The more you know, I guess

• Rose sings into her torch, and Cybil goes all McGuyver
• Pyramid Head attacks, again
• Lulu’s little theory holds water

but only AFTER you’ve seen the movie

• Cybil freaks out
• Boromir Sharpe makes it to Silent Hill
• THEFT HAPPENS!
• Anna is in a cult
• Boromir breaks in and uncovers a CLUE!
• Rose destroys some art looking for room 111
• Rose is busy dropping her stolen knife
• Rose of the Jungle
• My arms are on fire

Lulu

Not Pigeon-Man; he demands bread

• Anna has eyes, and everyone runs to the church

Jay

They are the international hide and seek champions

• Boromir uncovers more clues
• The Darkness will hurt them

cue: high pitched singing in a strange onesie

explanation for that joke

• Purple is evil, apparently
• Heavy metal devil horns means the movie is metal AF
• Cybil sacrifices herself for Rose
• An express elevator to hell, and the Konami Code

Squidge

Light activated death nurses. I like it.

• Exposition happens through the domino effect
• “BURN THE WITCH! Even though we don’t know that they’re a witch”
• “THEY are more evil that I am, so I’m the good person”
• All heck breaks loose because Rose makes a mess on the floor
• Christabella is murdered in the most horrific way
• “Mother is God in the eyes of a child”
• A slow drive home, over a bridge which isn’t there
• No one is home, or was it all a dream?
• Credits

How Would We Rate It?

We don’t usually rate games or movies, in fact we have never done that. And this was a conscious decision that we made early in the life of the site

we discussed this with Chief on one of his early episodes

But we needed to figure out a way to tell you all whether we think you should watch this movie or not. Normally we would rely on three ratings across three categories, which are:

• Love it (best)
• Try it
• Fling it into a tree (worst)

Across these categories:

• As a horror movie
• As a video game movie
• As a Silent Hill movie in the Silent Hill canon

Lulu’s Ratings

Squidge’s Ratings

Jay’s Ratings

Community Comments

We’d reached out for comments, on Twitter shortly before recording with the following:

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

And we received 200% more responses than we thought we would; which was pretty amazing.

First up White Mage had this to say:

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

And we agree that it’s not a movie for everyone.

After that, CJ from the Casually Meta podcast

remember that name, as we have an episode with CJ coming out very soon

had this to say:

Wellll… that movie was everything I’m terrified they’re going to do to the [Borderlands] film.

External Links of Interest

• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Lulu’s Twitter
• Silent Hill on IMDB
• Chekhov’s Gun
• Centralia, Pennsylvania
• Sharpe
• Team Silent
• Miranda warning

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is No Copyright Creepy Background Music For Videos & Games, by LonePeakMusic on YouTube
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Air Raid Siren Sound Effect
• Heavy Lightning strikes Thunderclaps Sound Effect made available by: Virtual Ambiance - Original Sound here
• Horror Ambience
• Horse sound effect no copyright
• KISS sound effects NO COPYRIGHT
• Press X to Jason
• Wolf sound effect no copyright
• Outro Music is I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)