Room 302



"Help me! There's something wrong with this room! Help me! Help! Let me outta here!
 * —Henry Townshend screaming for help"

Room 302 is an infamous location that plays an important role in Silent Hill 4: The Room. It was constructed about 40 years prior to the events of the game. It initially appears to be an ordinary apartment room in South Ashfield Heights; however, it acts as a prison, and also as a sanctuary that becomes increasingly hostile to the protagonist, Henry Townshend. The front door is barred by several indestructible chains and padlocks which render it inescapable for Henry.

History
34 years prior to the events of Silent Hill 4: The Room, Walter Sullivan's parents lived in the town of Ashfield in Room 302. It was speculated by the building superintendent, Frank Sunderland, that they had financial troubles or were somehow in danger. The young couple fled the apartment and left the newborn baby behind. The infant was later discovered by Frank Sunderland who gave the baby to the nearby St. Jerome's Hospital, while he kept Walter's umbilical cord in a box in his room.

There was another previous resident of Room 302. His name was Joseph Schreiber, a journalist who investigated Walter Sullivan's case. He disappeared about six months before Henry moved into Room 302. Notes under the door contain pages from his diary and his experience of being trapped in the room as Henry is. Joseph is also famous for his Wish House article which is found in the Brookhaven Hospital in Silent Hill 3.

After two years of living in Room 302, Henry suddenly becomes trapped inside his own apartment room.

Silent Hill 4: The Room


In the first moments of Silent Hill 4, Room 302 is covered in rust and blood. The air is thick and heavy while the living room wall has an eerie face on it. A ghost appears out of the wall. The person being controlled by the player in the beginning is Joseph Schreiber instead of Henry.

Henry finds a hole in his bathroom which progressively gets larger and rounder throughout the game. The hole brings him outside of his room into several of Walter's Otherworlds, where ghosts and monsters lurk. He returns to his apartment through more holes, resembling Halos of the Sun. After crawling back through a hole, Henry wakes up on his bed. There is only one save point in the game, and it is located on a small table in the living room of Room 302.

By returning to Henry's apartment, his health bar will automatically, gradually replenish. There are also storage containers where one can pick up or drop off items. However, once hauntings begin to appear, this will no longer occur, even if Henry has eliminated those present.

Henry receives notes from under his front door and sometimes, beside his shelf. He can look through his peephole and may see Eileen Galvin, Richard Braintree or Frank Sunderland among others, outside. There are bloody handprints on the wall which show the number of victims that Walter Sullivan has murdered.

There is also another "peephole" that Henry can use. By looking at this "peephole" made by Joseph, he can see his neighbor, Eileen. At one point in the game, Eileen may stop what she's doing and look directly at the player/peephole, lean forward a little, and then go back to whatever she was doing. It is possible that Henry is in a parallel universe, as no one is able to hear his cries for help when he's shouting and banging on the door, even when others are directly on the other side of the door.



Henry eventually finds a secret room between his bedroom and the bathroom, where Walter's corpse is tied to a cross. Inside Walter's jacket are the keys that open Room 302's front door, and Henry soon discovers that his apartment has also been turned into a nightmare.

Peephole


Through the peephole, Henry Townshend will always see two rows of bloody hand prints, the number of which starts out at 15 and increases as the number of Walter Sullivan's victims increase. There are several scenes Henry can see through his peephole at different times of the game:
 * Eileen picking up dropped groceries, mumbling, "Oh, man... Hope my luck changes before the party..."
 * Eileen sweeping the hallway.
 * Eileen ringing the doorbell as Henry shouts for help, which she can't hear, although she says she does hear weird noises. Eileen and Richard discuss how neither of them know much about Henry, but that something's going on in the room. Richard says he can't see much from his room (207), and that he's going to call the super (Frank).
 * Richard investigating the door.
 * Frank Sunderland, the superintendent, knocking loudly on the door and endeavoring to unlock it, but failing. Henry calls out to him desperately, but clearly cannot be heard. Frank will also comment on how similar the situation is to when Joseph Schreiber lived in the room.
 * Eileen can be seen talking to Frank Sunderland about the whole apartment being "cursed", most specifically Room 302. Frank continues to tell Eileen about the umbilical cord he keeps in his room.
 * Eileen moving about aimlessly, swiping the air at presumably unseen insects.
 * Frank staring at the door for many moments before walking away.
 * Frank pacing back at forth, always glancing at the door.
 * Frank Sunderland arguing inaudibly with an unseen person.
 * Walter Sullivan peering directly into the peephole for an extended period of time until walking away.
 * A ghost version of Henry with disfigured skin around his neck, whispering deliriously. (Bloody peephole Haunting)

Henry may see a sentence written on the far wall in blood: " BETTER CHECK ON YOUR NEIGHBOR SOON! " This can only be viewed before Eileen's assault. After reading this, if Henry looks out his window, he will mentally comment on how the man (Walter) in room 207 is pointing at Eileen's room.

Hauntings
During the Hospital World, the ceiling fan in the living room collapses and the air becomes heavy. At this point, the room should be searched for any anomalies that seem to invade from the Otherworld. Some examples of hauntings are banging windows, a faucet that pours blood and a crying shadow in Henry's closet. The room gets progressively more possessed as Henry explores Walter's Otherworlds. If Henry stands near a haunting, his health will drain immediately, although there is a way to get rid of hauntings by using two items: Holy Candles and Saint Medallions. Placing a Holy Candle near the haunting or standing next to a haunting with a Saint Medallion equipped will eventually make the haunting disappear. The purpose in getting rid of hauntings is to eliminate possible health risks and to achieve a better ending. However, once the ceiling fan falls and hauntings begin to manifest, returning to Henry's apartment does not refill his health as it did previously, even if all abnormalities have been eliminated. If any hauntings are present in Henry's apartment, his radio in the main room will emit static if turned on. Should his room be free of them and the stereo is switched on, it is silent.

The ending received is partially dictated by whether or not the player cleanses Room 302 of these hauntings immediately. To receive the "Escape" or "Eileen's Death" endings, the player must clear the room of at least 80% of the hauntings.

For unclear reasons, the PC version of the game is missing a few hauntings. According to a website, the kitchen faucet, wandering slippers, peephole Henry, closet shadow, Walter portrait, and babies above the item chest are absent.

List of Hauntings

 * Bloody chair - Blood will appear all over Henry's chair in his living room.


 * Shoes - The shoes by Henry's front door will have moved to the kitchen, leaving bloody footprints along the way.


 * Shadow boy - A shadow of a young boy (possibly the child Walter or Billy Locane) will appear in the closet, point at Henry and cry.


 * Fridge cat - A "mysterious lump of flesh" will meow and twitch inside Henry's refrigerator. This is an allusion to a woman also living in South Ashfield Heights who had her cat shot by a neighbor with a cat allergy and a hobby for guns. She mourned over her dead cat and put its body in her refrigerator, wrapping it in a bloody pair of pants she received after the incident with Richard and Mike.


 * Ghost victim - Jimmy Stone, the first of Walter's 21 victims, will struggle out of the wall through a portal and look around the room. This is able to be seen in every part of Room 302. Oddly enough, he can be still encountered as a haunting even if he is pinned down with a Sword of Obedience. This haunting is also seen in the opening scene of the game, with it being heavily implied that it resulted in the death of its previous occupant.




 * Wall cracks - Bloody cracks will appear on Henry's wall. If Henry stands close to them, they will move and pulsate.
 * If Henry examines the peephole during this haunting, the cracks will also appear in Eileen's room.


 * Clock - Henry's clock will tick rapidly, and the hands will spiral out of control.


 * Windows - Henry's living room windows will rattle up and down.


 * Phone - The phone in Henry's bedroom will deliver a male voice, repeating, "I'm always watching you. I'm always WATCHING you. I'm ALWAYS watching you." It may be Joseph or Walter.


 * Peephole - Henry's peephole will bleed. Examining it from a distance will allow the player to see a ghost version of Henry with disfigured skin around his neck, whispering deliriously.


 * Sink - The kitchen sink's faucet will pour blood.


 * TV - The TV will turn on and deliver static, and it will occasionally show a fleeting image of a twitching, upside down man (possibly Joseph Schreiber or Andrew DeSalvo).




 * Picture - The picture of Silent Hill's church in Henry's bedroom will transform into a picture of Walter Sullivan's corpse.


 * Shabby Doll - In the Apartment World, Walter Sullivan will offer Henry an optional item, the "Shabby Doll" that Eileen had given him when she was a little girl. If Henry takes the Shabby Doll and puts it in his storage box, fifteen female doll-like children will materialize out of the wall above it. As taking the doll is optional, this is the only haunting that can be avoided before the game's second part. After exorcising the haunting, the Shabby Doll disappears from the item box.

Henry's pictures
There are several photos in the room that Henry can examine and describe his thoughts about. The comments are varied in different stages of the game and add some background details to the plot and setting.
 * The Lighthouse Photo.
 * The Church Photo.
 * The Lake Photo.
 * The Bicycle Photo.
 * Photos of Henry.
 * Photo of Silent Hill (Living Room).
 * Photo of South Ashfield Heights.

Creator commentary
"The game is set in the U.S., but our goal in designing the room was to give it a sense of reality - like you were really living there during the time you were playing the game. I think that even in everyday life, there are many things you encounter throughout the day that can give you a sense of fear, but in the Silent Hill series, it’s a matter of how much of a sense of everyday life and reality we can make the player really feel."

- Masashi Tsuboyama

"You can look out your window and such from Room 302, but there’s absolutely no intervention from outside, no interaction. That’s part of the “fear of isolation” that I think is new for this installment - the idea that, ultimately, you’re all on your own. And so this time, the protagonist is a unilateral victim, right - just in the worst possible circumstances. Every time he goes to the Otherworld, he’s attacked by these restless souls, and he doesn’t even know what’s happening with his own situation, yet this impending doom just keeps bearing down upon him - so there’s also that fear, I think."

- Masato Akiyama

Trivia

 * A falling severed head can be seen outside by looking through Henry's living room window. This head appears to be Andrew DeSalvo's. It will briefly fall from the sky and it vanishes once the player returns from the Building World.
 * When Henry first examines the dresser hiding the hole to Eileen's room, he says that he had the furniture in his living room with him before he moved in two years ago. However, after moving the dresser, he instead says the furniture had been in the apartment since he moved in.
 * Robbie the Rabbit, the pink rabbit stuffed animal in Eileen's room, will move after the player finishes the first visit to the Apartment World. It now faces Henry's room, pointing at him with blood around its mouth.
 * There is a Robbie the Rabbit hot air balloon which can be seen in the sky outside Henry's window sometimes.
 * If the player inputs the phone number on the billboard found outside of Henry's window into his phone, ghosts and monsters can be heard making strange noises and sounds in the Otherworld.
 * The photo of Silent Hill in the living room appears to be a processed photo of Venice.
 * After Henry uses the Pickaxe of Hope, the resulting hole resembles the secret passage found in Green Lion Antiques.
 * The "strange black fluid" in the depression below Walter's crucified body may be a reference to the season 2 finale of Twin Peaks, when Special Agent Dale Cooper passes through a mysterious red curtain appearing over a pool of scorched, black oil in Glastonbury Grove. Just as Cooper re-enters the Red Room; so, too, does Henry re-enter another world draped in red, after using the Keys of Liberation.
 * Upon discovering the Keys of Liberation and using them on Henry's door, the locks magically pop open and the chains come loose which somehow prompts the door to come ajar. In the next scene however, the player sees that the door is completely closed before Henry bursts out from behind it.
 * In Silent Hill: Downpour, Murphy Pendleton's jail cell number is "302B". This is likely a nod to Room 302, and how Henry was trapped inside of it. Murphy and Henry also bear a similar physical appearance and have certain personality qualities in common; namely, their quiet demeanor and desire to avoid conflict.
 * An easter egg appears in Silent Hill: Downpour in the form of a replica of Room 302 (this is not the real Room 302, as South Ashfield Heights is not located in Silent Hill). Found on northern Lansdale Ave in Pearl Creek, it is one of the second story apartments accessible via the emergency ladder, which Murphy Pendleton must lower with a ladder hook. The room is just as it appears in Silent Hill 4, with the exception of the famous "Don't Go Out!! --Walter" scrawled in blood on the chained door, and the addition of a new door between the bedroom and bathroom at the end of the hallway where Henry broke down the wall to reveal Walter's corpse. Two items may be found in here: a first aid kit on the chair by the television and a handgun on the kitchen counter.
 * In Anne's Story, Anne Marie Cunningham and Mark Cunningham are seen in a house or apartment that looks very similar to Room 302, possibly implying that they moved into Room 302 after Henry, or lived in South Ashfield Heights at the least. This would give an in-universe basis and reason for Room 302 manifesting itself in Downpour as a part of Anne's Otherworld.
 * In Silent Hill, Room 302 in the Otherworld version of Alchemilla Hospital contains a save pad and a television set and is an area relatively safe from enemy interference as a result. While it's extremely unlikely this is an allusion to Silent Hill 4 and no developer has ever stated or pointed out the similarity, Team Silent did allude to Silent Hill 4 as early as Silent Hill 2.


 * In Voidpoint's 2019 retro-style first-person shooter Ion Fury, a replica of Room 302 can be found in the fourth map of the game, Cultural Divide. To reach it, the player must find three switches hidden in secret areas of the level. Each switch has either the number 3, 0, or 2 etched into the wall above it. If the switches are flipped in the correct order, a locked door will open in a nearby coffee house. Upon venturing through the door, a siren sound effect is played, similar to those heard throughout the Silent Hill series, and after travelling down a short hallway, the player will find themselves at another doorway with the number "302" printed above it. Through the door, the player will find a desaturated approximation of Henry Townsend's apartment, along with some powerful armor and ammunition. Upon picking up the items or venturing into certain areas of the apartment, certain 'spooky' effects are triggered, such as the television set turning on with loud static, the stereo powering on by itself, or the phone ringing. If the player looks at the apartment doorway from the inside, they will see that the doorway is surrounded by hanging chains, similar to how they appeared in Silent Hill 4, albeit no longer lashed across the door (the door itself appears to be missing). Entering this room will credit the player with finding the zone's "Mega-Secret" and also award an achievement if playing on a platform with achievement/trophy support.