The Silent Hill franchise remains one of the most frightening horror game experiences with some of the scariest monsters ever. It’s been quite a while since the series had a proper release, but a new Silent Hill game reportedly received a title and rating, so the series may return after all with brand-new horror creations. Yet no matter how old these games get, they are still able to instill a sense of fear that sticks with players long after they put down the controller. The horrifying and often grotesque appearance of Silent Hill's monsters has a lot to do with this, but another critical factor that keeps them in the player’s mind is their symbolism and connection to the psyche of each game's main character.
Silent Hill 2 was the game that firmly set the series’ focus on psychological horror. Each game has since tried to live up to its success, and some have done so in spades - especially Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room. However, even in the entries that didn’t quite live up to the pedigree of the main four, the monsters have proven to terrify audiences and hold up as some of Silent Hill’s scariest games.
P.T. is a notable outlier because, while not technically being a full-blown Silent Hill game, it was labeled as a teaser for Silent Hills, set to be created by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. The full game never saw the light of day, but P.T. is often considered the last real promise of the franchise’s return; as such, monsters from it will be included in this list. Below is a list of the most horrifying monsters in the Silent Hill franchise, ranked from least to most terrifying.
10. The Eileen Head In Silent Hill 4 Is A Real Horror
The Eileen Head is one of the series’ rare monsters that cannot physically harm the player. In some ways, that makes it even creepier. The monster is featured in Silent Hill 4: The Room, which is worth revisiting for some of its creative monsters. To call this a monster, too, doesn’t really do it justice. The head seems more of a psychological projection from the main character Henry Townshend, which is backed up by the fact that the real Eileen Galvin never remarks on the giant version of her head even though she can be with Henry when it’s encountered. The eyes of the Eileen Head follow Henry around the room, and it breathes and moans heavily. The monster could be a manifestation of Henry’s anxiety over protecting the real Eileen.
9. The Original Silent Hill's Grey Child Is Still Creepy Today
The original Silent Hill is over twenty years old now, and its Grey Child is still scary. These are the first monsters the player encounters when the town transforms into the Otherworld, and being cornered by a swarm of Grey Children remains one of the most frightening moments in the series, which proves the original Silent Hill needs a remake. The Grey Child is a monster with pale green skin and a blurred face that looks like a child. The monsters could symbolize several different things, such as the protagonist’s anxiety about finding his lost daughter, or they may be a manifestation of the children that bullied Alessa Gillespie.
8. The Amnion Is One Of Silent Hill: Homecoming's Scariest Designs
The Amnion is the metallic, spider-like monster that serves as the final boss of Silent Hill: Homecoming. While the Amnion’s legs are machine in nature, its body is that of a naked pregnant woman with pale skin. Its face can extend forward like a camera lens and spits a toxic sludge that damages the player. Amnion’s camera and spider-like aspects seem to be references to the protagonist’s brother, Joshua, who was fascinated with insects and photography.
7. Silent Hill 4's Gum Head Is Intelligent Enough To Wield Weapons
Gum Heads are the freaky ape-like monsters from Silent Hill 4: The Room, the PC release of which is now on the GOG storefront. They even sound like monkeys when attacking the player, which they often do in packs, making them dangerous to engage with. They are also some of the rare enemy types in Silent Hill that can wield weapons, making them feel sentient in an odd way. Gum Heads are marked by their gorilla-like frames and a growth emerging from their throat that appears to be another head. Their “normal” head is smearing down into the growth like a piece of chewed and stretched gum.
6. The Memory Of Alessa Makes Silent Hill 3's Dark World Come To Life
The Memory of Alessa from Silent Hill 3 would be a horrifying monster to encounter in real life. The Memory is a dark version of the protagonist, Heather Mason, a popular Silent Hill cosplay character among fans, but has the mind of Alessa, who was burned to death over twenty years ago by that point in the narrative timeline of the series.
The encounter with the monster is a symbolic battle depicting overcoming oneself's negative and self-destructive thoughts. This is hauntingly portrayed in the Memory’s appearance, which is a bloody and rotting version of Heather. However, the most terrifying moment with the Memory of Alessa isn’t the boss fight. It happens earlier in the game at Brookhaven Hospital when Heather looks into a mirror and sees her reflection slowly rot and bleed.
5. Silent Hill 4 Creeps Out Players With The Twin Victim
The Twin Victim from Silent Hill 4: The Room is one of the most disturbing-looking monsters in the franchise, yet its design is more straightforward than the rest in some ways. Twin Victim isn’t blood-soaked or abstract; instead, its features are distinguishable, like the zombies and monsters from the Resident Evil series, which adds to its fear factor. It’s a large creature with a face of two babies joined together that walks on long, oversized arms. It only attacks the player if provoked, and when they do, they inflict massive damage. The scariest aspect of the Twin Victim is its ominous pointing and whispering at the player before it is alerted to the player's presence.
4. The Closer Is An Iconic Silent Hill 3 Monster
The Closer is one of the first monsters players face in Silent Hill 3. Their slow, menacing walk and massive size make them feel dangerous and unpredictable. Their faces are made of a pair of convulsing lips that emanate a saturated, wet sound. This almost wasn’t the case, however, as the game’s art director revealed that Silent Hill 3 was nearly an arcade shooter. As for most of Silent Hill’s monsters, there are several ways to analyze the Closer’s symbolism, but the most apt describes the monster as a grotesque depiction of a human corrupted by capitalism and consumerism. This is supported by the creature’s enlarged hands that resemble shopping bags and its initial appearance in the Central Square Shopping Mall.
3. Silent Hill 2's Pyramid Head Became The Series Mascot
The Red Pyramid Thing from Silent Hill 2, now better known as Pyramid Head, is the most iconic monster to emerge from the Silent Hill franchise, and its creepy symbolism played a considerable role in making this so. Pyramid Head is a dark reflection of James Sunderland. It represents his shameful desires and thoughts while his wife suffered from her sickness and is a means of self-punishment. Despite the monster’s popularity, the game’s art director Masahiro Ito wishes he never drew Pyramid Head.
The developers have often cited that the horror in Silent Hill 2 revolves around sex and death, as these concepts strike deep into the core of human psychology. Pyramid Head encapsulates both, which is depicted in its violent and erotic attacks on other monsters James happens upon. A monster that so hauntingly and creepily targets these parts of the human psyche was bound to be memorable - even if it did become overused in Silent Hill media generally.
2. Silent Hill 2 Gets Extra Disturbing With The Abstract Daddy Monster
The Abstract Daddy from Silent Hill 2 is one of the most horrifying creatures ever created, and it's not even seen from the scariest perspective. The version the player sees in-game is filtered through the lens of James Sunderland’s psyche, which relates to why James is really in Silent Hill, but it is implied to be even more terrifying from the perspective of Angela Orosco. The monster is suggested to be a manifestation of Angela’s sexual trauma from childhood, while it appears to be a twisted depiction of James’s wife in her bedridden condition. The form that James faces is scary enough, so it can only be that much worse when imagining it from Angela’s eyes.
1. Lisa Had The Potential To Make Silent Hills The Scariest
Lisa from P.T. is by far the most horrifying monster in the franchise, partly because there is nothing the player can do to stop her. P.T. is a non-combative game, so the player can only watch Lisa as she haunts them in order to progress the game. The design is the perfect combination of visual and auditory elements to make Lisa’s ghost as scary off-screen in Silent Hill's P.T. as she is on-screen. She is oddly tall and uncontrollably twitches her head. The dress she wears is blood-soaked and filthy. With a mouth that's perpetually smiling, players are given the impression that she enjoys haunting them, made all the scarier by the brown stains around her mouth and her missing right eye, which is reduced to a bloody eye socket. She makes a weird sound between laughing and crying, filtered through a baby monitor. Lisa is pure nightmare fuel, and one look at her is sure to keep anyone up at night for days.
While Silent Hill as a series has had its ups and downs, and ultimately it's hard to say which monsters are the most frightening, as fear can be quite an individual thing. But one thing is certain: Silent Hill has become a horror game icon, and if any theorized future titles in the series are going to live up to what came before, they'll need to be sure to include monster designs as creepy as those of the first four Silent Hill games.