As a paranormal blogger, a lot of people ask me about my most favorite horror movie.
And I have to say this movie. It really gave me the creeps. Also, you may or may not know, but there’s REAL event behind it.
Centralia, Pennsyvania was once a bustling mine town.
A fire at the town dump ignited an exposed coal seam, setting off a MASSIVE fire that eventually led to the demolition of nearly every building in Centralia — a whole community of 1,400 simply gone.
This fire still burns TODAY. The entire city is abandoned.
Thank you for the added information.
Anyway here are some connections of Centralia with the game/movie I got from this site
FOG
The fog effect in the game represents that constant carbon monoxide gas that keeps spewing up from underneath, creating the smokey poisonous atmosphere in Centralia. .
Town
The empty foggy town of Centralia, which had general stores, elementary schools, post office’s and other stores, represent the town Silent Hill.
Road Blocks
The constant road blocks that you witness in the game when you reach a caved in dead end, represent the unexpected route blocks that are distributed outside of Centralia, which are put their as part of a safety procedure leaving only one road available to enter Centralia. This is also another element that is displayed in the movie and games.
Secret Society
The secret society within Silent Hill, represent the Molly McGuire’s, a secret society consisting of Irish only, that use to coincide within the town during the 1800’s. They were known for kidnapping people and their criminal activities within Centralia.
For all those heavily debating amongst themselves about whether Centralia influenced the movie or the game, can we all just be friends and enjoy the realized connections between the real event and the movie/game regardless of what came first
This post said that there’s a real event behind the video/game and that there are connections (which there are), and not that this thing is based on the other thing.
Silent Hill is pretty much my favorite of anything ever and I love anything connected to it. (This is the first time I’ve heard about that secret society, though)
The Silent Hill Wiki has a pretty good list of 'inspirational works' (though it appears they left out Hans Bellmer in the artists section, which is a bit disappointing.)
Example of one of Bellmer’s dolls:
They also have a pretty good section about Jacob’s Ladder, which had a huge impact on some of the visuals.
And Session 9:
TL;DR Silent Hill is awesome and draws from a lot of fascinating sources. I love all of it and I love excuses to talk about it.
Please don’t forget to mention Francis Bacon!!
His artwork influenced (from what I remember reading) all of the above. If you take a look through his paintings, you’ll see the details that are prevalent in Silent Hill especially. (Look at the concept art/official art for Pyramid head)