Silent Hill, West Virginia


 * For the town of Silent Hill in the game canon, see Silent Hill, Maine.

Silent Hill, West Virginia is the version of Silent Hill seen in the Silent Hill film and its sequel. While the game's version of the town is populated, the film's version is a cursed ghost town, having been abandoned after a fire started in the underlying coal mines on November 1st, 1974. The founders of Silent Hill were witch hunters.

Silent Hill is in Toluca County, West Virginia. The town is most likely on the border with Ohio, as Rose Da Silva is able to drive there quickly from her home in Sidney, Ohio.

Geography


Silent Hill is located along the shore of Toluca Lake, which is located to the north-east of the town, and is surrounded by forest regions. Pleasant River appears to be located to the west of the town (rather than the east, as seen in Silent Hill: Downpour), although it is unknown if Pleasant River is a town or simply a body of water in this universe. Either way, the majority of Silent Hill is to the south of this river. The north of the town is likely the entrance, where a welcome sign greets those who enter the town.



The life of the town is centered around the business district, located in heart of the town. Residential districts are located on both sides, the east and west, of the business district. Simmons Street connects the north entrance to the business district.

The town map has a number of streets and roads highlighted, which resembles the Brethren's symbol. In the center of the business district is a main church. To the north-east of the church is Midwich Elementary School, and to the west of Midwich is Brookhaven Hospital, located a few blocks away. To the northwest of the church is the Grand Hotel.

History

 * For a complete timeline of Silent Hill, see Timeline (film)

According to Revelation, Silent Hill was originally a prison colony, built on ground taken from the native "Indians". They called it "The Place of the Silent Spirits".

Silent Hill's past isn't touched upon much prior to the events of 1974, though it is known that the town was founded by a group of witch hunters who secretly ran the town. In the original script, Anna claims when the "witch" Jennifer Carroll was burned at the stake, the town's river rose and drowned the town.

The Brahams Herald suggests that the Grand Hotel has seen its share of hauntings and supernatural occurrences, though the cause is never explained.

The Great Fire
On November 1st, 1974, Alessa Gillespie was taken to a sacrificial chamber, located next (or part of) the Grand Hotel, where she was burned alive as a witch.



The town was destroyed by flames when Alessa's immolation went awry, and the fires burned into the coal mines beneath the town, leading to its eventual evacuation and abandonment. How many of the town's buildings were set on fire is unknown, but it is extremely unlikely that the entire town was ignited. The people tried to evacuate as quickly as they could, but nevertheless, people were dying and disappearing; half of the bodies could not even be found.

Despite the cult's efforts, Alessa survived the fire and was hospitalized at Brookhaven Hospital for an unspecified amount of time; it could have been for a few hours after the fire began. In the hospital, Alessa was overcome by rage and pain. In her drive to take revenge on everyone responsible for her suffering, Alessa split her soul into a dark manifestation who could help her exact her revenge. Alessa created the Otherworld and the Fog World, two alternate realities infected by her split psyche. She dragged the Brethren into these worlds, where she punishes them for their crimes against her.

Ghost town
The entire town of Silent Hill was evacuated due to toxic fumes from the coals burning underground and is subsequently fenced off.

Parallel universes
The film's version of Silent Hill shows three different parallel universes, each based on the one before it. Two of the universes are created and controlled by Alessa Gillespie, who uses them as a means to punish the people she entraps there. After Alessa is burned alive by the townspeople, she splits her soul, creating Dark Alessa as well as the Fog World and the Otherworld. The shifting of the Fog World into the Otherworld is symbolic of what was done to Alessa's body. The alternate realities are the "darkest dream" of Alessa, and they represent her suffering.

Until the end of the film, neither the Fog World nor the Otherworld can enter the main church of the cultists due to Alessa's belief that they must be shown "the truth" before she can kill them. Rose Da Silva releases Alessa's tainted essence into the church, allowing the Otherworld to overtake it in the final climax scene.

Real World


This universe is the real world and shows Silent Hill in its natural state. Christopher Da Silva and Thomas Gucci traverse this plane, searching for Chris's missing wife and daughter. The town is run-down and dirty in this state, with the sun shining down on the abandoned buildings.

A past version of the Real World shows Silent Hill as it looked to Alessa Gillespie when she was a child. At that time, the town is a regular small American town, though it's largely controlled by a fanatical cult.

Fog World


The most-seen universe in the film is the Fog World. In this dimension, the sun never shines through the thick, gray fog that smothers the entire town. Ash rains down from the sky and everything is covered in a layer of ash and dust. The Fog World appears to have been built off of Alessa's memories of the town she grew up in and contains exact similarities to the Real World version of the town, including perfect replicas of abandoned buildings and cars. The Armless Man is seen in the Fog World, despite the cultists generally considering it to be "safe", though those that stray too far from the church are required to wear mining uniforms for protection.

Otherworld


The Otherworld overtakes the town every few hours, affecting only those already trapped in the Fog World. Birds in this alternate reality often alert the cultists of the rising of "the Darkness", who then set off air raid sirens to warn any cult members caught outside of the church. When the Otherworld takes over, the town goes through a dramatic shift. Blood drips from the walls, wood melts away to reveal rusted metal, corpses and monsters appear from every area, and the whole town goes completely black. Eternal fires burn beneath the town, with vents in the floors allowing steam to rise into the air.

The Otherworld symbolizes the hatred and pain of Alessa, and the twisted creatures that appear there also represent her and things she saw during her life. A permanent version of the Otherworld exists in Brookhaven Hospital, where the adult Alessa lies in a hospital bed, and her doppelgänger, Dark Alessa, watches over her.

Trivia

 * Four sets had to be built for most of the locations seen in the film to show the current state of the town, the past state of the town, the Fog World, and the Otherworld.
 * Silent Hill, West Virginia is based on the real town Centralia, Pennsylvania, while the game's version in Maine is unrelated to Centralia.
 * Parts of two cities in Canada, Brantford, Ontario, and Hamilton, Ontario were taken over to film the outdoor scenes.
 * Set designer Carol Spier used imagery of the Chernobyl disaster for influence and inspiration.
 * The fact that the cultists in the movie carry a canary in a cage to detect when the Otherworld is coming is a reference to mining. In reality, miners often took a pair of canaries with them into the mines to detect leaking gas such as carbon monoxide, which has no smell or taste, and henceforth humans cannot detect it. With their heightened sensitivity and fragile breathing structure, the birds would react by showing signs of distress, prompting the miners to leave quickly. The canary in the movie, as well as the birds that fly from the roofs of buildings before the "darkness" arrives, supports the fact that animals can either smell or sense something humans cannot. This is now considered archaic animal abuse and animal cruelty, however, as the birds were often poisoned and killed from this. Gas detectors are used for this purpose.