Editorials
In Memoriam: Remembering ‘Silent Hill’
Today’s the day. I didn’t want it to be, and I’m sure you didn’t either, but none of that matters anymore. This is the day when you and I were suddenly, cruelly and unceremoniously separated from tomorrow’s generation of gamers.
Last month, Konami effectively shuttered Metal Gear developer Kojima Productions and announced they’d soon be parting ways with one of its top designers, Hideo Kojima. The house that Metal Gear built may be no more, but the man who helped mold its legacy will be sticking with its killer long enough to wrap up development of The Phantom Pain.
After leaving us to simmer in our own frothy mixture of frustration and anxiety regarding the fate of Silent Hills, Konami finally got around to letting us know they’ve officially pulled the plug on a dream project that would’ve brought together Hideo Kojima — one of this industry’s greatest and strangest minds — and director Guillermo Del Toro.
Guillermo is an undeniably brilliant director and storyteller who also happens to be uniquely skilled at breaking my heart. Between InSane and Silent Hills — not to mention the numerous canned film projects he’s been involved in — this wonderful man is racking up quite the body count of slain dreams and unfulfilled promises. I still love him, but goddamn if this relationship doesn’t feel one-sided sometimes.
Before we get too deep, I’d like to warn you of what’s to come.
Our music editor, Jon, recently dedicated a piece to explaining how nonsensical it was to cancel Silent Hills. It’s a good read that you may want to keep in mind, if only so you’ll have something to use as a chaser for what I’m about to add to the conversation.
This will almost certainly be a bummer of an article. I’m upset, and since I’m not that interested in counting my blessings or observing silver linings — I’ve already tried being optimistic — the next best thing I could think of was a tribute. This may even qualify as group therapy.
I was away this weekend, sweetly unaware of the fact that Konami had made the bizarre decision to kill a series that’s had a monumental impact on this industry, the horror genre, and me. Especially me. There’s a solid chance I wouldn’t be writing this story now if it weren’t for how deeply Silent Hill 2 resonated with me so many years ago. It might not seem like much, video games get cancelled all the time, but few have this much potential, and fewer still are burdened by the future of a storied franchise like Silent Hill.
As disappointing as this news was to many of us, the worst part of all of it lies with what it means for Silent Hill. It’s disappointing that I won’t be able to play this game, but that’s not the reason why this is upsetting. We gamers have a tendency to feel more entitled than we actually are. Konami was fully within their right to do what they did, and we too have the right to say their decision sucks.
This series deserved this rare chance to be relevant again. It deserved to have two of the most creative minds in entertainment working to make it glorious again. It deserved so much, and while there may very well be a future after this, it won’t be able to regain that momentum. The P.T. demo wasn’t just clever, it was also ridiculously effective, but even it will soon be scrubbed away by the empty husk that now calls itself Konami.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen to them. It’s no longer listed on the New York stock exchange, but many of the claims that the publisher is doomed tend not to take into account their many projects that aren’t related to console gaming. So while I don’t think that Konami, as a company, is dead, I do think that Konami, as a presence in this industry, is just about there.
Let’s say Konami decides to pursue another Silent Hill game. After all this, it’d be an understatement to say that my confidence in the company has diminished significantly. That leaves us with one option I can think of. Konami doesn’t owe us a thing, but if they’re at all interested in making a good decision amid all these horrible ones, they should sell the IP to a more capable publisher.
This leads me to my big question: Which publisher do you trust with the future of Silent Hill?
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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