Editorials
[Editorial] Finding the Ghost of ‘Silent Hills’ in ‘Death Stranding’
Due to the highly collaborative and increasingly technical nature of game development, we don’t see that many auteur directors in the industry, especially where AAA titles are concerned. Even so, there is one name that stands as the exception, recognized even outside gaming. Naturally, I’m speaking of the man, the legend, Hideo Kojima. Whether or not you appreciate his highly cinematic style of game direction, there’s no denying his impact on the medium, and I for one admire his dedication to pushing gaming forward as an artform rather than playing it safe with established formulas.
From the Metal Gear Solid series to Zone of the Enders, this constant stream of creativity eventually landed Kojima right into the captain’s chair of Konami’s leading survival-horror franchise, Silent Hill. While some might find it odd that a designer known for action-heavy titles would be put in charge of the industry’s most memorable psychological-horror series, it’s worth remembering that Kojima never shied away from putting mind-screwing psychic agents, vengeful ghosts and even literal vampires in his epic war narratives (not to mention the copious amounts of John Carpenter references sprinkled throughout all his games), making him the ideal candidate for reviving the severely mistreated franchise.
And so, back in 2014, PSN saw the release of a mysterious free demo titled P.T. (Playable Teaser). The demo consisted of a self-contained first-person experience where players would explore a dreary suburban household while dealing with time loops, cryptic radio broadcasts, and a ghostly stalker. With the help of the internet’s collective brain, players eventually completed the game’s obtuse challenges and revealed that the demo was in fact a teaser for Kojima’s Silent Hills.
While we all know by now that the project didn’t work out and Kojima was fired before completing the game, we were given a brief glimpse at a project so revolutionary that it has since become one of gaming’s most notorious unreleased IPs. That’s why it’s only natural that when the newly-founded Kojima Productions announced Death Stranding in 2016, the internet scrambled to find connections between it and the ill-fated Silent Hills. Having finally completed Death Stranding, I’d like to take a look at these proposed connections and see if fans were actually on to something.
Watch out for Spoilers ahead!
For those who have been living under a well-insulated rock, Death Stranding is a post-apocalyptic adventure title that puts players in the well-worn shoes of Sam Porter Bridges, a deliveryman on a reluctant quest to reunite America after the rules which govern life and death have gone haywire. As players deliver packages and build structures in this devastated wasteland, they must also deal with ghostly B.T.s (stranded souls of the deceased that attempt to consume the living) and other humans that have gone mad from living in this bleak world.
It may initially appear that the only similarity between Death Stranding and Silent Hills is the involvement of the same power trio behind the games (Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus), but astute gamers will eventually realize that both IPs share quite a bit more in common.
For instance, there are recurring characters named Lisa in both games (Clifford Unger’s braindead wife in Death Stranding and the vengeful spirit in P.T.), and both of them have babies that end up dying due to a tragic shooting. That’s not even mentioning the creepy use of fetuses as a way to advance the plot in both titles (through flashbacks in Death Stranding and literal narration in P.T.).
Of course, these are only surface-level similarities and could very well be subtle homages to a game that never got off the ground, but when you compare the main ideas permeating both titles, there are even more recurring concepts.
“Norman Reedus and the funky fetus” was destined to be.
For example, ghosts are an important part of the plot in both games. This is unusual for the Silent Hill series (with the exception of Silent Hill 4, a personal favorite) since these games usually rely on surreal monsters rather than spectral apparitions, but it’s clear that Kojima intended on exploring the more disturbing aspects of grief and a possible afterlife with both of these titles. Silent Hills’ 2014 TGS trailer even featured the ominous handprints that we now associate with approaching BTs in Death Stranding (though they were framed in blood instead of the mysterious black tar in this case) and teased even more unfortunate souls wandering the town.
And speaking of ghosts, the mythology behind Death Stranding’s afterlife is eerily reminiscent of classic Silent Hill lore. Again, for those who haven’t yet played the game, in Death Stranding, Kojima introduces the concept of “Beaches” early on in the story, explaining them as a sort of halfway point between the true afterlife and the living world. These beaches are unique to each person, functioning as a personalized pocket dimension (though if enough people die at once they can merge together into nightmarish monstrosities). This is very similar to Silent Hill‘s longstanding tradition of having the town transform in order to best reflect the nature of its visiting characters.
Back when Silent Hills was first revealed, it was widely rumored that the title actually referred to these many instances of the town, forever-changing according to the main character’s psyche. Hell, there were even some unsubstantiated claims that the game might feature some form of indirect multiplayer, similar to what we would eventually see in Death Stranding. With this in mind, the looping corridors of P.T. might as well be an unfortunate case of a tortured soul trapped in his own horrific version of The Beach, much like Cliff Unger’s eternal warzones as he pursues Sam Porter Bridges.
Again, much like Death Stranding, P.T. was also compared to “Walking Simulators” as it focused more on exploration and subtle narrative details rather than the action-packed gameplay of Kojima’s past work. There was even speculation that the completed Silent Hills would take on a more open-world approach as players explored the nightmarish landscape. There’s actually a bit of evidence supporting this, as modders have since revealed that an expansive (albeit unfinished) map of Silent Hill exists outside of P.T.‘s indoor areas.
A few rooms and corridors gave me nightmares, imagine an entire town!
In fact, over half a decade later and P.T. still has secrets to share, with modders still attempting to dissect the demo for more clues. Recently, it was discovered that the ghost of Lisa is actually invisibly attached to Norman Reedus’s character within the game, always lurking behind the player, just out of view. If the finished game had managed to be even half as interesting as the teaser, I’m confident that it would have been one of the greatest survival horror titles of all time.
Even so, this is all conjecture, so take these comparisons with a grain of salt. Kojima himself stated that P.T. was by no means a definitive reflection of the Silent Hills project, and that it was more like a stand-alone taste of things to come rather than a proper preview.
Additionally, despite discussing the similarities between these titles, I’m in no way implying that Death Stranding is simply an off-brand version of Kojima’s original vision for Silent Hills. As anyone who’s played the game will undoubtedly know by now, Death Stranding is its own thing, and a masterpiece at that. Nevertheless, I think some ideas are just too good to abandon in canceled projects, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the ingredients that would have made Silent Hills great were ultimately carried over to Death Stranding.
Of course, we’ll never know exactly how much these games had in common (unless Kojima or Konami decide to discuss the projects in public), but it’s fun to theorize about what might have been. For now, I can only hope that Konami’s newly announced ideas for a Silent Hill sequel can share at least some of the madly creative inspiration behind P.T., even if Kojima has moved on to bigger endeavors.
In the end, I agree with Norman Reedus when he said that he’s glad Silent Hills was canceled, as Kojima being fired from Konami set off a chain of events that made Death Stranding (and Kojima Productions’ future ground-breaking games) possible. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have roads and ziplines to place, because post-apocalyptic America isn’t going to rebuild itself.
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
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