Editorials
If ‘Silent Hill’ Wants to Move Forward, It Needs to Let ‘Silent Hill 2’ Go
*Spoiler warning for Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill: Origins, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and Silent Hill: Downpour*
White noise from a dusty television pelts James Sunderland with echoes of a horrific act. Amidst the hissing cacophony of static are muffled screams, formerly tucked away deep in his subconscious. James came to Silent Hill searching for Mary, his late wife. But instead of an ethereal reunion between ill-fated lovers, a dark secret rears its ugly head: James is secretly Mary’s murderer.
Silent Hill 2′s big revelation hits like a baseball bat to the skull on an initial playthrough. It’s a moment that subsequent entries spent years chasing the coattail of, much to their chagrin. Too often, there’s this predisposition with being the next Silent Hill 2, and that ambition manifests in the most superficial ways possible. Despite noble intentions.
Silent Hill: Homecoming wasn’t the first in this long-line of imitators, but it’s the most egregious. Alex Shepard, a military veteran, comes home after fighting overseas to aid in a search for his missing brother Josh. Eventually, the trail leads straight to Silent Hill. While “war is hell” might be overplayed in horror, fans salivated over the idea of a soldier’s nightmarish delusions manifesting in the titular ghost town. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, when the story stumbles towards its climax, Alex learns he wasn’t in the army, but rather a mental hospital after an unfortunate boating accident took Josh’s life. What’s supposed to be a gut-punch instead yields belly laughs. Nevermind how goofy it is that Alex can blitz monsters with spinning back-fists despite never being trained by the army–this cheap twist highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of what made Silent Hill 2’s revelation so potent.
When you learn that James killed Mary, it recontextualizes the entire game. From sexually-charged bubblehead nurses tormenting James to numerous doppelgangers reenacting Mary’s death–the town projects their abusive relationship in terrifying metaphor. These are nightmares born of James’ unconscious mind, with propose weaved into their existence. Punishment not just for what he did to Mary, but for his desperate attempt to blot out the truth. Meanwhile, the twist involving Alex is just a massive unearned gotcha. Somehow, he’s completely forgotten that he was in a hospital, with an elaborate fantasy to boot. Unlike James, who’s denial comes from a selfish state of mind, Alex doesn’t have a real excuse to forget what happened. Josh’s death was an accident, and regardless, there’s no strong through-line as to why that event would push Alex to take on a soldier’s persona. The shaky reasoning is that Adam Shepard, their father, was a soldier, so Alex took after him, but that’s it. Worse yet, this twist is forgotten about almost immediately after it’s brought up, with barely a whisper of it before the credits roll.
It’s a crying shame. Homecoming ditched exploring wartime trauma through Silent Hill’s foggy lenses because of a half-assed twist. For years, the series indulged in this what-if-the-protagonist-just-forgot nonsense. In Silent Hill: Origins, Travis Grady forgets that his father hung himself until the town reminded him. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories took it one step further, with Harry Mason discovering he lived inside his daughter’s dreams during therapy. None of it was real. No matter how different the answers might have seemed, they were still copying Silent Hill 2’s homework.
Silent Hill: Downpour tried to side-step this criticism by tweaking the formula a bit. Murphy Pendleton is a convict, and he can recount every single solitary detail of his crime. During a routine transfer to another prison, though, his bus takes a tumble into Silent Hill, where he braves the fog without delusion as a crutch. Murphy was locked up because he shanked a fellow inmate in the shower. Revenge for his son’s murder. Naturally, that backstory comes to a head while he’s in Silent Hill. In a scene devoid of subtlety, Murphy confesses to a nun that what he did was wrong. Immediately after, the town decides he’s reformed and free to leave.
Downpour might have bucked the trend in some regard, but only slightly. Unlike Alex, Murphy is aware of his baggage from the get-go, but the confessional undermines Silent Hill 2 in a catastrophically different way. At the curtain call, there are several possible outcomes for James. In one ending, he crashes into Toluca lake after realizing Mary is gone forever, while in another, he attempts her resurrection through evil magics. Every finale is just as “canon” as the other. Silent Hill isn’t passing judgment, no matter how reprehensible its occupants are. So when Murphy gets the okay to leave, this implies that Silent Hill wants every bad person to fess up, and that’s it, rather than being an ambivalent force that projects people’s nightmares. Which is fucked up when you consider Silent Hill 2’s “Leave” ending. James skips town; weird how the guy who murdered his wife in cold blood can walk free. Without really even admitting murder is bad!
Ironically, all these imitators failed to take one of Silent Hill 2’s most poignant lessons into consideration: the importance of standing on your own. It didn’t try to be Silent Hill: Part 2, despite how beloved the first entry was. Where Silent Hill conjures up images of fire, occult magics, and how familial bonds are thicker than blood, Silent Hill 2 evokes melancholy, broken promises, and how powerful emotions will always bubble to the surface. No matter how ugly the outcome. That’s why 18 years on, Silent Hill 2 is so revered, and not solely because of the damn good twist.
With whispers of a new Silent Hill taking shape, my only hope is that whoever is behind it forgets about Silent Hill 2. We’ve been there, done that, with several mediocre wannabes copying its notes already. Now is the time for new characters, stories, and horrors to emerge from the fog, without two-decade-old shackles weighing them down.
If we want more Silent Hill 2, it’ll always be there, waiting for us.
No conversation about cartoons based on live-action movies is ever complete without mentioning The Real Ghostbusters.
This animated continuation is, warts and all, a notable example of turning a hit movie into a hit series. And although the new target demographic skewed a little younger, even kids-at-heart could partake in the further adventures of Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore and Egon Spengler.
For a good part of its run, the show required fans to wait at least a week for more Ghostbustin’. That’s torture for a kiddo. Luckily, though, the entire series, or at least most of it, is now available for streaming.
So, as you revisit The Real Ghostbusters on Tubi—for now it’s just the first five seasons there—use this guide to help prioritize some must-see episodes.
The Boogieman Cometh
“The Boogieman Cometh” (Season 1)
Season One’s “The Boogieman Cometh” is a classic episode featuring one of the show’s more iconic villains. It’s hard to forget the unique character design used for the Boogieman (whose creepy voice was provided by Ray and Slimer’s actor, Frank Welker). In this story, Egon is reunited with that bump-in-the-night entity who haunted his own childhood, all while trying to keep him away from his latest targets: the brother and sister claiming to have the Boogieman in their closet. Although the Ghostbusters do save the day here, the Boogieman eventually returns (“The Bogeyman Is Back“). That same episode also features the love-’em-or-hate-’em Junior Ghostbusters.
Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream
“Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream” (Season 1)
You could say the namesake of “Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream” had good intentions for putting mankind to sleep for the next few centuries—he wanted to end war and keep everyone dreaming. Sounds nice until you remember that whole free will business. But when it seems like the Ghostbusters have lost to their latest foe, the last one standing, Winston, gains a sudden ally. Janine’s dream of becoming a Ghostbuster is manifested, and she helps put this rogue spirit to bed.
When Halloween Was Forever
“When Halloween Was Forever” (Season 1)
Before the show’s execs capitalized on Slimer’s popularity by making him the focus of later episodes, early stories like “When Halloween Was Forever” better utilized that gooey ghost. Here, the spirit of Halloween itself, Samhain, hopes to make the holiday a permanent thing by stopping time. And who does the embodiment of All Hallows’ Eve use in his nefarious plot? Slimer, of course. Thankfully, the lil’ green bud knows where he really belongs, and Samhain is banished (at least until Season 3’s “Halloween II 1/2“).
Night Game
“Night Game” (Season 2)
Because Season Two was rather long, in comparison to other seasons, it accumulated quite a few solid episodes. One of the most beloved, though, is that ultimate good-versus-evil story, “Night Game“. Winston gets to shine here as he participates in a battle that was 500 years in the making. Except this time, the fighting is done on the baseball field. The other-dimensional settings in The Real Ghostbusters are always great, but the one here is particularly memorable.
Drool, the Dog-Faced Goblin
“Drool, the Dog-Faced Goblin” (Season 2)
Not all ghosts and whatnot were bad in The Real Ghostbusters. As “Drool, the Dog-Faced Goblin” showed, some were actually benevolent. Sadly, it took a lot of convincing, and one very heroic act, for Peter and the others to see past this goblin’s grotesque appearance. The heroes find more than one shapeshifter at a sideshow carnival in the Poconos; a sinister Class-4er called the Metamorph does a swell job of menacing the Ghostbusters before they finally realize Drool’s not their culprit. The good guys indeed win here, but that victory is a bittersweet one.
The Collect Call of Cathulhu
“The Collect Call of Cathulhu” (Season 2)
While “The Collect Call of Cathulhu” does misspell “Cthulhu” in the title (probably to avoid legal issues), it is clearly the Old One in this Lovecraft-inspired episode. The story kicks off with the Necronomicon being stolen by the deity’s modern-day cult, who then raise their ancient god at Coney Island. From there, the Ghostbusters’ typical methods don’t work on the big guy, so they seek advice from an old issue of Weird Tales (or “Wierd Tales”, as it’s spelled on screen). That build-up to the finale comes with a decent amount of dread before the Ghostbusters, as well as a scholar named Alice, face off with one of the show’s most powerful entities.
Knock, Knock
“Knock, Knock” (Season 2)
A number of Real Ghostbusters episodes could be reworked into big-screen features, but perhaps “Knock, Knock” is the most hopeful. It helps that this story feels in step with the first two movies. Here, some ignorant construction workers accidentally uncover and open an ancient door in the subway. What’s behind said door is none other than those unspeakable evils that only the Ghostbusters can quell. A good deal of the imagery here is prime for adaptation.
The Grundel
“The Grundel” (Season 3)
One of the darker episodes, which was written by the prominent J. Michael Straczynski, is “The Grundel“. Here, a boy is being influenced by the titular entity, a type of ghost who ultimately turns his targets into new Grundels. The episode does have something of an after-school special quality to it, but that doesn’t take away from the eerier moments. For more Grundel lore, be sure to check out the episode “Grundelesque” from the sequel series, Extreme Ghostbusters.
Standing Room Only
“Standing Room Only” (Season 4)
It’s no secret that The Real Ghostbusters experienced multiple changes after the second season. Out of all of them, though, retooling the show so that Slimer would get more of the spotlight is maybe the most egregious. Thankfully, Season Four (the first to be called Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters) didn’t completely obey that new directive; episodes like “Standing Room Only” felt more like the old days. The focus here was on the well-being of the city and its people, rather than on the series’ green mascot (or the Junior Ghostbusters). In the episode, Peter’s new ghost attractor isn’t to blame for the ensuing chaos; the ghost-eating Mee-Krah is what’s really imperiling everyone. And the Ghostbusters must dish out everything they have to avoid a doomsday situation.
The Halloween Door
“The Halloween Door” (Season 5)
While many fans will skip the later seasons in their rewatches, episodes like “The Halloween Door” are still worth checking out. This colorful helping of Halloween pandemonium premiered on primetime, so the animation is better than usual. And save for a random musical moment, it’s an enjoyable event. Here, a group of anti-Halloweeners tries to cancel the holiday, but they only end up making things worse by unleashing a baddie named Boogaloo.
The first five seasons of The Real Ghostbusters are available on Tubi, starting on July 15.
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