Brookhaven Hospital


 * This article is for Brookhaven as seen in the games and in the first film. For the second film incarnation, see Brookhaven Asylum.

Brookhaven Hospital is a mental institution located in the South Vale area of Silent Hill.

It has appeared in Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill: The Arcade, as well as the Silent Hill film. However, it is always seen in the Fog World or Otherworld, in which it is primarily abandoned and full of monsters. Nurses are frequent monsters here.

Alchemilla Hospital is another health care institution equipped more for physical medicine and operations, while Brookhaven and Cedar Grove Sanitarium are specifically intended to help mental health.

Symbolism
Brookhaven Hospital seems to represent the fears of those who are both physically and mentally ill, and possibly deteriorating healthcare or even medical malpractice. In Silent Hill, hospitals are used to exemplify fears of sickness, suffering and death, and neither is Brookhaven an exception.

In Brookhaven, it seems doctors don't really care about their patients' health, and instead want to profit off them as much as possible. Although Mary Shepherd-Sunderland didn't actually go to Brookhaven, she said, "It'd be easier if they'd just kill me. But I guess the hospital is making a nice profit off me, they want to keep me alive...", meaning that doctors profiting from patients is a theme of the game.



The poor quality of various patients' care is made particularly evident throughout the series. It is implied some patients are even mistreated, abused and neglected by doctors and nurses with barbaric, cruel, inhumane, archaic and old-fashioned practices, possibly against their own will and consent. This is in contrast to the Hippocratic Oath, which governs how medical personnel are required to treat patients.

Mentally ill people are locked in dark and claustrophobic padded cells for hours; in at least one instance, it is implied it once caused someone to bash their head against a wall until it was left completely covered in blood.

History
Prior to the 1600s, the area where Silent Hill was eventually established was the home of members of an unnamed Native American tribe that used the land for sacred rituals. At the end of the century, settlers arrived and founded the town; soon after, they began to rapidly die off. The deaths were attributed to an epidemic, and Brookhaven Hospital was built to treat those affected. It was originally little more than a shack, but it gradually grew.

Eventually, the settlers fled the town, leaving it abandoned for nearly a century, until it was resettled as a penal colony in the early 1800s. Around 1810, another epidemic broke out, and Brookhaven Hospital was rebuilt and reopened. Brookhaven Hospital was put to great use during those dark times.



In the 1860s, during the American Civil War, Brookhaven Hospital was put into use as a medical hospital. The incarnation of Brookhaven in Silent Hill 2 and 3 has existed since it became large scale in the late 1800s.

Eventually (at an unspecified time, anytime after the American Civil War or in the 20th century), Brookhaven transformed from a hospital to treat the epidemic and disease to mainly a mental hospital. This is likely due to the older infrastructure of the hospital, with only one small elevator and narrow hallways unsuitable for emergencies. Some aspects of the hospital used to treat mental health include a garden, a pool, and a day room for recreation.

Silent Hill 2


In the first game where exploration of Brookhaven is possible, James Sunderland and Maria enter here in pursuit of Laura. Like many of the buildings James enters in Silent Hill, the general feeling here is one of abandonment, a dilapidated husk void of life and activity. Bubble Head Nurses roam the corridors and halls.

After leaving Maria in Room S3 on the third floor, on the roof, James is assaulted by Pyramid Head and falls down into a previously inaccessible area of the hospital. He eventually finds all the clues needed to solve the Louise Puzzle and reach Laura on the first floor.



After James defeats the Flesh Lips, Brookhaven Hospital undergoes a genuine, though comparatively subtle, Otherworld transformation: the walls are covered in tarp and many doors are blocked by either boxes or material. Unfortunately, Maria is killed by Pyramid Head in the basement.

Many strange sounds and noises can be heard. Some examples include glass shattering, a pig-like creature squealing in the basement, and a disembodied heavy breathing being heard in the room where James discovers Maria is missing.

Silent Hill 3
Heather Mason explores Brookhaven when she first enters Silent Hill. She enters the hospital after splitting up with Douglas Cartland in order to find Leonard Wolf, as suggested by Vincent Smith. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Stanley Coleman is leaving notes for Heather. There are also Nurses here. The hospital is slightly more modern-looking, with typewriters being replaced by computers.

The Otherworld of Brookhaven in Silent Hill 3 is much more of an organic change in the environment compared to the dark, derelict version of the second game. The walls have a blood-soaked appearance, pulsing with throbbing veins, and doors and floors are sometimes even obscured by this almost palpitating environment. Tying in with the games theme of impregnation and birth, these environments may be symbolic of a uterus, especially the interior. Numerous hanging corpses can be seen strung up behind mesh walls and inside cramped cages, much like those witnessed by Harry Mason. Seemingly abandoned hospital beds with corpses covered beneath blankets are also left lying around, and Valtiel lies within view numerous times, usually engaged while suspending the Brookhaven Nurse over drops, or turning a valve.

In the 3F alternate Brookhaven Hospital, there is a storeroom containing a very large mirror. As soon as Heather enters the room, the door will lock and she will be trapped within for some time. The mirror shows the reflection of the room covered with black tendrils; the same seen coming out of the bathtub in the Hilltop Center. The tendrils in the reflection crawl into a sink, and then come out of the sink on Heather's side of the mirror. They take over the room, and the room will turn dark red. Heather's reflection will cease moving at this point. Eventually, the room will be covered completely by the tendrils which will take on a sickening red glow, and spread over Heather's body. Should Heather remain within the room for a prolonged time during this, the effects will eventually overwhelm and kill her.

There are also some new locations previously unseen in Silent Hill 2, including the exploration of the previously unaccesible BF and a morgue in Otherworld's B3.

Silent Hill: The Arcade
Eric and Tina explore Brookhaven near the beginning of the game, where they chase after Emilie Anderson. There are two bosses: Pyramid Head and Tuberculosis. During the Pyramid Head boss fight, Jessie is ambushed and they must defeat Pyramid Head in time to save her.

After Tuberculosis's defeat on the roof, Eric and Tina leave Brookhaven with Emilie and head to the Silent Hill Historical Society to search for her father.

Flashbacks occur of Hanna and her mother Lorraine in a hospital. As Hanna was a very sickly girl, it is possible they stayed at Brookhaven.

Silent Hill film
In contrast to the games, the film's version of Brookhaven Hospital shows no signs of being a mental institution, but rather appears to be a regular hospital. It is also abandoned, due to the great fire of Silent Hill, West Virginia. Compared to Brookhaven in the video games, it is much larger in size and was built in 1909. Rockwood Asylum, an abandoned mental institution, was used for exterior shots to represent Brookhaven Hospital.

Alessa Gillespie was immediately taken to Brookhaven Hospital after she was burned alive by the town's religious cult. While in the hospital for an unspecified amount of time (it could even be for a few hours after the town fire), Alessa's rage grew out of control and she split her soul, creating Dark Alessa and the Otherworld.

For the next thirty years, Alessa laid in the Otherworld version of her hospital room B151 in the basement with Dark Alessa watching over her and a nurse with burned eyes tending to her.

Alessa's hospital room is considered to be "the core of the darkness". Led by Christabella and the other cultists, Rose Da Silva enters the Otherworld version of the hospital to find answers about her missing daughter, Sharon. Christabella discovers the likeness between Sharon and Alessa and Cybil Bennett is captured as she defends Rose, who escapes the clutches of the cult and descends in an elevator into the basement of the hospital. After a close encounter with nurses in the basement, Rose finds the badly burned Alessa lying in a hospital bed. In an extended flashback, Rose learns the truth of how Alessa came to be burned and why the Otherworld exists, and she agrees to help Alessa gain her final revenge to save her daughter.

Silent Hill: Revelation


In Revelation, Heather Mason explores Brookhaven "Asylum", which has the same map of Brookhaven Hospital in the games. However, it is not referred to as "Brookhaven Hospital".

It is unknown if the Asylum is Brookhaven Hospital converted into an asylum, a building that is connected to the hospital, or a completely separate building altogether. (For this reason, it remains a separate article on this wiki.)

Comics

 * Dying Inside - Though not mentioned, it is assumed (based on events from Hunger), that the conflict between Whately and Lauryn LaRoache over the fate of a female patient occurs in Brookhaven Hospital.


 * Hunger - Aickmann, under the supervision of Whately, has been abducting women and bringing them to Brookhaven in hopes of finding one capable of nurturing the seed of Samael, allowing the being to be born on Earth.


 * Sinner's Reward - While searching for his girlfriend, Jack Stanton and Sara Linwood seek shelter inside of Brookhaven from a pair of wolf-like monsters. As they explore the hospital, Jack begins to hear screaming coming from the upper floors. Certain that it's Jillian Conway, his missing lover, Jack takes off to investigate with an unsure Sara following behind.

Trivia



 * In both Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3, there are posters on the hospital's fence that say "PERMIT PERKING ONLY".


 * In Silent Hill 2, the hospital name above the main entrance is misspelled "Blookhaven". This was corrected in Silent Hill 3. The reason for this being that Ls and Rs are interchangeable in Japanese grammar because of their similar pronunciation.


 * In Silent Hill 2, the hospital isn't labeled on the map. This was also corrected in Silent Hill 3.


 * A sign in the reception office in both games reads "gonna beach in the sea". This is likely a translation error on behalf of the developers.


 * Some fans believed that Mary Shepherd-Sunderland was a patient at Brookhaven Hospital, due to a diary which James finds on the roof. However, Masahiro Ito confirmed that this is false. Due to the connections to Rachel and Frank Sunderland, it is more likely that she stayed at St. Jerome's Hospital.




 * The green substance found in the bathroom drain is very similar to the substance found in the Wood Side Apartments. These are the only two times in the series that the substance is found.


 * In Silent Hill 3, Heather finds a teddy bear glued on a wall which may be a reference to Laura playing with teddy bears in the hospital.


 * In Silent Hill 3, the player may unlock references to Silent Hill 2. In one of them, Heather comments about the sturdiness of the fence on the roof, thinking that it doesn't look like it's about to break and fall. This is a reference to Pyramid Head's encounter with James on the roof.




 * In Silent Hill 3, Heather may hear a loud, bull-like scream on the roof. This same noise can be heard in the Forest World in Silent Hill 4: The Room.


 * In Silent Hill 3, during Heather's climb and transition to the Otherworld version of the hospital, the corpse of a nurse can be seen near a wall with the words "what a wonderfull [sic] world" scrawled on it. This is a reference to the film The Exorcist III, in which nearly the same words and imagery appear.


 * In Silent Hill 3, if Heather re-enters the Otherworld storeroom, the blood will not appear, but after being in the room for a few moments, the gurgling sound will occur again.




 * Brookhaven Hospital along with Hilltop Center is the setting of Usagi.


 * Some parts of the hospital model (Reception Room, Doctor's Lounge) are reused in Silent Hill 4: The Room in the Hospital World.


 * It is possible to call Brookhaven in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.


 * There are a few real-life Brookhaven Hospitals, including one in New York and one in Oklahoma, which is, in fact, a mental hospital.

Gallery
For a complete list of images of Brookhaven Hospital, see Brookhaven images.

Silent Hill film
Brookhaven Hospital Госпиталь Брукхейвен Ospedale Brookhaven