Editorials
Such Dulcet, Horrifying Tones: The Music Of ‘Silent Hill’
With the recent cancellation of Silent Hills, I wanted to bring back a piece that I had written several years ago. Some minor changes have been made to ensure the piece was up-to-date.
When I was 14 years old, my friend Alex rented Silent Hill, the first of the now infamous Konami series. He invited me over that night, full well knowing that this game would appeal to my horror fanaticism. Little did he know that he was going to ignite a passion for the Silent Hill franchise that has yet to diminish. Also, little did he know that after turning the game off that night, the two of us were so scared that we sat back to back the whole night, steel baseball bats in hand, ready to fend off whatever creatures came our way.
Let me backtrack for a moment, if I might, to discuss my love of music. This is a passion that began when I was but a small child, perhaps three or four years old at the most. You see, I was able to play video games before I was actually able to fully read. As a matter of fact, the first time I read was when I was sitting with my mother on the couch, my father sitting on the floor a few feet away playing a game of Tetris, the music of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” filling my ears.
These early days of video games — when their soundtracks consisted of not much more than two, perhaps three, melodies — are what I credit as the beginning of my love of music. To this day, I feel stirrings in my chest when I hear the overworld theme from The Legend Of Zelda. When the intro screen of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest loads, I become slightly uneasy before I can even press “New Game.” And funny enough, over 25 years since its release date, my father and I can still belt out the level music to Karnov.
Although my musical tastes have long since evolved and grown into other avenues and territories, I still find myself paying close attention to a composer’s work when I play a video game. Music is what draws me in, envelops me, and sets the mood. And no video game composer better exemplifies the proper use of music in creating tension and fear than Akira Yamaoka and his work on the Silent Hill franchise.
Being that there are officially nine entries to the series (I’m leaving out the play novel and The Silent Hill Experience), I decided to focus this piece on the impact the soundtracks of the first two games of the series had upon me.
When I played Silent Hill 1, I can honestly say that my view of video games and their impact changed dramatically. Here was the first time that a survival horror game delivered the full package: a terrifying story, brilliantly executed graphics that embraced the limitations of the system hardware, and a soundtrack the likes of which had never been heard before. (And yes, I include Resident Evil in that statement.)
Instead of going down the Resident Evil symphony path, Yamaoka crafted sounds that seemed to come from some abandoned industrial factory, one that is full of the skeletal remains of machinery which creak, bend, and strain as the years float by. This grime, this dirtiness, served as a complement to the filth and graininess of the game.
The selections “My Heaven,” “Don’t Cry,” and “I’ll Kill You” are perfect examples of the cacophonous insanity that players were treated to during some of the more intense moments of the game. Tracks such as “Claw Finger,” “Fear Of The Dark,” and “Nothing Else” show that even during moments of respite, there is a constant unease bubbling under the surface, eager to break free.
Listening to the original soundtrack to prepare for this article, I constantly felt the need to scrub myself clean, to wash myself of the ichor that seems to permeate these 42 tracks. Believe it or not, I used to fall asleep to this music. I wish I would’ve had some foresight and written down my dreams (nightmares?), if only out of current interest.
Silent Hill 2 was able to up the ante for the series primarily due to its release on the Playstation 2, a major hardware upgrade from the Playstation 1. This meant that not only were graphics vastly improved, but also that the game supported much higher quality sound and music as well as 5.1 surround sound. To say that I took advantage of this is an understatement. Honestly, the only reason I purchased my first surround sound system was to hear Silent Hill 2 in all of its aural glory.
My love of the Silent Hill 2 music began even before the game was released. Rather, it began when the first trailer came out using “Theme For Laura” as the music. So entranced was I by this tune that I immediately found a bootleg MP3, burned it to disc, and proceeded to learn it on guitar. Yes, my parents were slightly nervous because of the joy I was getting out of such a terrifying, sadistic game but they learned to get over it. Hopefully.
After the game was released (and I had beaten it countless times), I found the soundtrack for sale at a local anime store. I immediately purchased it; the soundtrack did not leave my Discman for nearly three months. It drew me into its sublime, eerie beauty in a way that no other album had done before. I felt my heart yearn and ache during “White Noiz.” I shivered in fear during “Ashes And Ghosts.” I felt closure when the final chord of “Promise” faded out.
I could easily spend pages upon pages detailing my love for certain tracks and the beauty hidden within, but I dare not bore you readers any more. As it stands right now, when I search for “Silent Hill” in my iTunes library, 425 tracks come up. In terms of time we are looking at 16.3 hours. In terms of memory, around 1.27GB. I use this music for gentle meditation, study and research, background music, and of course, music during Halloween.
And though these tracks serve mainly as a reminder of the stories of the games, they also serve as markers of different eras of my life. As near and dear to me as some of the main characters of Silent Hill are, the most important character, the one that has been with me the longest, is the music.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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