Sepulcher

Sepulcher is the first boss monster encountered in Silent Hill: Homecoming. He is the manifestation of Sam Bartlett's guilt over murdering his son Joey, whom he buried alive in the garden of the Grand Hotel as a sacrifice to maintain the pact with the Order and their god.

Sepulcher appears when Alex Shepherd finds Mayor Bartlett in the Otherworld Grand Hotel. After presenting him with Joey's watch, Bartlett throws it away, and it sinks into the ground. The tree behind them then uproots itself, revealing it to be Sepulcher. Bartlett pleads with God to have mercy on him, but in response, Sepulcher slams his hand down on him, crushing him with a single blow.

Afterwards, he is promptly defeated by Alex, who then blacks out and returns to Shepherd's Glen.

Appearance
Sepulcher appears as a gigantic cross between a corpse and a monstrous tree. His whole body hangs from the ceiling, and his bloated underside resembles a destroyed trunk of a tree, with bits of bodies hanging out of it. His "trunk" is connected by hooks to several bodies that are wrapped in cocoon-like sacks of flesh. He supports himself with his long arms and large hands, he only has three fingers with four fingernails (which he also uses to attack), and his face is dominated by a root-like, fleshy tumor.

When he is dismounted from the ceiling, he will crawl on his arms and drag the rest of his body behind him. The skin on his arms are stretched thin, reminiscent of a decomposing corpse. The oozing growth over his mouth could also represent Joey's suffocation while buried alive, and the tumor-like growth also bears a resemblance to Amnion's umbilical cord.

Character
Sepulcher's size and mass offer him enough strength to smash a man flat with a single strike. In his first phase, Sepulcher attacks using his massive arms and by shaking debris from the ceiling to damage Alex Shepherd. Alex can take cover behind the several bookcases in the room; however, the monster will break these after enough hits. In the spaces between the bookcases, there are several fleshy sacks surrounding the boss. These must be attacked enough that they recede up into the ceiling. The number of fleshy sacks varies depending on the game's difficulty setting.



After all the sacks have been destroyed, Sepulcher drops from the ceiling. He can be stunned with a melee or ranged attack, which is the perfect time to strike him a few times close-up. However, in both forms, his arms do a large amount of damage, and when on the ground, he can grab Alex to crush him, killing him. To avoid damage, it is recommended that Alex not attack his center. Striking Sepulcher's arms with a melee weapon will cause him to fall, allowing Alex to unleash a chain of attacks on the monstrosity.

Symbolism
Sepulcher is, at least by assumption, a physical manifestation of Mayor Bartlett's guilt over his son Joey's murder, who was sacrificed via being buried alive. The garden in which the creature is encountered was possibly where Joey was buried, who then rises from the hole as a larger-than-life monster with a dark, oozing gag in its mouth, which may represent Joey's suffocation as he was buried. Its body is at first encased in the bag Joey was buried in, and all of the bags around him represent him as well. When buried, Sepulcher's backside appears as the central tree, which reflects Joey's adoration for plants.

It should be noted that Sepulcher's first phase bears resemblance to a spider's mannerisms; he hangs upside down from a set of wires, much like a spider would hang from a web.

Trivia

 * "Sepulchre" (from Latin "sepulchrum", literally meaning "tomb") is a cavernous tomb, and according to Christianity, Jesus Christ was buried in a sepulchre before being resurrected three days later. This is where Sepulcher got its name and most likely links Sepulcher to Joey's murder, as Joey was buried alive in the same way that Jesus simply put can be said to have been.
 * "Vivisepulture" is the term used for someone who has been buried alive. The "vivi" part means "alive", while the "sepulture" part means "tomb" or "burial". Although the spelling is slightly different, the connections are clear between the term for Joey's sacrifice and the monster's name.
 * When Sepulcher crushes Alex, he will stand up if he has been hit with a non-fatal attack.
 * Defeating Sepulcher in the Xbox 360 version unlocks the achievement "Six Feet Under".
 * The name Joey is etymologically linked to the name Joshua; Joey is a derivative of the name Joseph or Yeosheph, which means Yehova (God), while Joshua is a derivative of the Hebrew name Yeoshua, meaning literally "Jehova will strike". This may symbolize that, through the monsters, the Order's god is striking at the residence of Shepherd's Glen as punishment for their failure to uphold the contracts. Alternatively, it may symbolize the manifestations striking back at those who upheld the sacrifices instead.