WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Return to Silent Hill. The Silent Hill franchise is not known to be particularly romantic. Based on Konami’s 1999 survival horror game, Christophe Gans’ 2006 film is a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which a frightened mother wanders a monster-filled netherworld, desperate to find her adopted daughter. An oft-forgotten 2012 […]
We piece together this upsetting backstory as James explores the treacherous fog. Just moments after their first interaction, we catch a glimpse of Mary’s floating corpse, a hint that Silent Hill is not what it seems. Sometime later, James drinks alone while dodging calls from his therapist. After receiving a letter from Mary begging him to find her at “our place,” James returns to the once-picturesque overlook that now leads to a deserted wasteland. In addition to the aforementioned cult storyline, pulled from the original game, Gans remixes several characters and plot points to fill out this dystopian world.
As James descends the overlook stairs, Angela (Anderson) greets him with a dire warning, explaining that Silent Hill has been destroyed by flood, fire, and contamination. In town, James meets a little girl named Laura (Evie Templeton) who cradles a mutated baby doll. But most painful is Maria (also Anderson), a woman who looks just like Mary save for her more provocative dress and worldly demeanor. With unspoken pain hanging in the air, James allows himself to enjoy Maria’s companionship, awakening a long-dormant need for connection and love.
After narrowly avoiding certain death, Maria begs James to leave Silent Hill and accept that Mary is gone. But James abruptly turns on her and seems to summon a dangerous beast. As he angrily calls Maria a distraction, a muscle-bound brute known as Red Pyramid (Robert Strange) appears behind the frightened woman and impales her with a massive blade. A peek inside the monster’s rusty helmet reveals James’ own angry eyes, and we realize that this deadly creature is a manifestation of our protagonist’s rage. If Maria exists as a chance to move on and find happiness with someone else, Red Pyramid is a means of purging this temptation and punishing James for finding happiness. With all mental obstacles removed, James reconnects with a monstrous Mary who pulls him back to reality. As he lies in a psychiatric hospital bed, we learn that his girlfriend died several months ago, and James cannot bring himself to say goodbye.
This revelation reframes the story, and we see that the decimated Silent Hill is actually a metaphysical recreation of James’ shattered mind. Trauma has darkened his view of the world, and each memory spawns new monsters that James must battle as he faces the truth. The moths that constantly swarm each scene stem from a single insect on the wall next to Mary’s hospital bed. The frightening horde of faceless nurses nod to the stress of a long hospital stay (though in the game, they symbolize James’ attraction to Mary’s female caregivers). It is not Silent Hill itself that has been destroyed, but the visions of their once happy life.
James eventually admits his girlfriend’s full name: Mary Angela Laura Crane, and we realize that each survivor represents an element of her painful past. Gans liberally pulls elements from the game to inform our doomed heroine’s story. The original Angela seeks revenge for sexual abuse at the hands of her father, while Laura is an orphan whom Mary had planned to adopt before she died. Gans uses both characters to symbolize parental betrayal and Crane’s systemic abuse of his own daughter. In the depths of the ruined hospital, James finally finds Mary, a writhing, mutant combination of these three personas. But his lovingly placed hand on her cheek shows that he has finally seen every part of her and decided not to turn away.
Only after accepting Mary’s traumatic past can James confront his own worst memory. Walking through a fiery door, he finds her body on the blazing roof and remembers his return to the real Silent Hill. We flash back to a sunny hospital room where Mary gazes weakly out the window. In the final stages of an illness caused by her father’s drug, she begs James to end her suffering. Sobbing, he acquiesces and smothers his beloved with a towel. This devastating scene is both a recreation and a subversion of the original game’s most upsetting moment in which James murders Mary out of growing resentment and frustration at the massive weight of her care.
Mary’s request to die at James’ hands changes the story from one of a selfish man lashing out to a lovesick boyfriend condemning himself in order to save the woman he loves. As James remembers this horrific moment, Mary’s corpse rises from the hospital’s roof, transforming into a monstrous yet beautiful moth-like creature. Rather than a final boss James must defeat, she is an aching reminder of all he has lost.
Though Silent Hill 2 has no official canon ending, players can experience one of six various endings, ranging from James and Maria leaving town together to a sentient dog pulling the strings. However, Gans follows the ending of the 2006 novelization and opts for the heartbreaking “In Water” finale. Having received forgiveness from Mary and reconciled his unthinkable choice, James carries her body to his car and drives it into the nearby lake. Rather than try to move on without her, James has returned to Silent Hill to die alongside the love of his life. This heartbreaking scene harkens back to the early image of Mary’s floating body, reminding us that their love was always destined to end in tragedy.
Gans leaves the logistics and timing of this disturbing act vague, allowing James to die in a moment of beauty. As the water swirls around him, headlights flash before his eyes, and we’re transported back to their special place. We watch as James once again crashes through Mary’s luggage, and they meet at the Silent Hill overlook. But this time, James seems fully aware of the twists and turns their story will take. He savors each moment with the oblivious Mary, knowing he will get to experience it all again. By navigating the treacherous town, he has confronted his darkest moments and found a way to assuage his guilt. Though their love story ends in tragedy, James is rewarded with an eternity spent enjoying his most treasured memory.
