Editorials
Ten Years On: A Look Back At The Underappreciated ‘Silent Hill: Homecoming’
Once you get past the first three Silent Hill games, there’s a noticeable gulf in fondness and adoration for the rest. Still, even Silent Hill Downpour has its fans (raises hand) and there are some genuinely underappreciated entries in the Silent Hill franchise and ten years ago, Silent Hill: Homecoming became one of them.
Released on PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 30, 2008, Silent Hill: Homecoming is the sixth mainline entry in the series and was developed by Double Helix (Killer Instinct on Xbox One). You play as Special Forces Soldier Alex Sheperd, returning to his hometown of Sheperd’s Glen after a tour of duty. The game begins with Alex having a nightmare about his younger brother Josh, which ends with his awakening in the car of the protagonist of previous series entry Silent Hill: Origins, Travis Grady.
Upon reaching Sheperd’s Glen, Alex’s dream looks to be somewhat prophetic as he finds the town enshrouded in a fog and seemingly deserted. Deserted that is, until Alex discovers his mother, catatonic, babbling about Alex’s father going to find Josh. So naturally Alex goes to find his other family members, but things go even further South and our protagonist finds himself in Silent Hill and up against the local cult known as The Order.
This was the second title in the mainline series to be developed by a Western team, much to the chagrin of many Silent Hill fans who felt (somewhat correctly) that the Westernisation of Silent Hill was diluting the psychological horror that made it so revered to begin with in exchange for a larger slice of the growing Western market. Origins had felt like a huge misstep in that regard, but Homecoming does a fantastic job in building the background behind the town of Silent Hill (which again, was a sore point for purists).
The most prominent sign of that Westernisation comes from the obvious influence that Christopher Gans’ movie adaptation has on the visual design, most notably during the transition between the regular world and the ‘other’ world. The effect is a little dated now, but it’s still a striking literal change of scenery.
There was still some of the Japanese legacy intact within Homecoming. Composer Akira Yamaoka returned to score the game and provide sound effects. He was also joined by another returnee in vocalist Mary Elizabeth McGlynn who had worked with Yamaoka on previous entries
Alex’s story is deeply entrenched in the history of the town and revelation after revelation about his true nature is handled and delivered as well as almost any other Silent Hill plot before or after it. The ability to choose from multiple answers to questions asked by NPC’s added was a big part of that, with consequences coming from how you decided to respond. Hardly novel now, but in 2008, that was fairly unusual for a survival horror. It worked well, even if it wasn’t as subtle or ambiguous in execution as Silent Hill 2‘s choices.
The combat is far more in-depth as well and still manages to stay relatively close to Silent Hill‘s heavy, violent. and unpleasant melee. Wounds are formed where you strike enemies, and there’s grisly finishing moves to boot. It’s not quite as visceral as the notoriously grim Condemned: Criminal Origins, but it’s nasty in all the right ways. Throw in a moveable in-game camera for the first time and actual targeting and Homecoming manages to be the well-made rebirth Silent Hill: Origins failed to be.
It wasn’t quite enough for it to get the reception it perhaps deserved. Even if it wasn’t exactly trampled by critics, the lukewarm feeling towards Homecoming did it no favors and as with everything until PT, it remains largely ignored in discussions concerning the better games in the franchise. With the game added to Xbox One’s sizeable catalog of backwards compatible titles earlier this year, and with no new entries likely for some time, maybe now is the best time to either go back or give it a first try.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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