by Anthony O’Connor
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
... a worthy addition to a series that seems to be pleasingly rising from the grave.
Believe it or not, in the quite recent past it seemed like the Silent Hill series was pretty much dead. Japanese publisher Konami had pivoted away from making actual video games and invested in pachinko machines and banal evil. That all changed in 2024 with the Silent Hill 2 remake, which was both a critical and commercial hit. The latter aspect is key because Konami may be artless monsters, but they sure do love a dollarydoo. So, instead of simply greenlighting more remakes (which are on the way, be assured), they also invested in a new entry in the series, the oddly titled Silent Hill f. Against all odds, and in defiance of logic and reason, the game is a cracker and a worthy addition to a series that seems to be pleasingly rising from the grave.
Silent Hill f is the story of introspective, tomboy schoolgirl, Shimizu Hinako, who lives in the rural town of Ebisugaoka in 1960s Japan. Always a bit of an outsider and only close to her male friend Shu, Hinako has to deal with a violent, alcoholic father, a passive mother and a creepy fog that is enshrouding her small town. The fog also seems to come with bonus monsters. It’s up to Hinako to unravel the disturbing mystery at the centre of this nightmare, preferably with the lives of her friends and her own sanity still intact.
Silent Hill f is both a departure from and a perfect example of the Silent Hill series. The former because it’s set somewhere other than America, and the protagonist is a seemingly well-adjusted teenage girl as opposed to an angst-stricken bloke with a dark secret haunting his soul. The latter because mechanically it’s very much business as usual: disturbing monsters to whack with melee weapons, loads of exploring eerie locations and liminal spaces and a sense that the very walls of reality are eroding, slowly revealing a darker truth.
The story is actually really effective, conveying the very closed-minded and frustrating society that Hinako has to deal with extremely well thanks to a deftly written script from Ryukishi07. The way the narrative switches from quasi-reality to a dreamscape that utilises a lot of iconography from Japanese folklore is also engaging and gives texture and variety to the aesthetic. Slightly less successful are the combat and puzzles, both of which never rise above workmanlike. The enemy variety could also have used a little more love, as by the end of your ten hour journey you’ll have seen, and bludgeoned, every slimy creature available many, many times over.
However, all that’s of lesser importance to a Silent Hill game. Expecting good combat from an SH entry is like waiting for plot twists that make sense in a Dario Argento movie: it’s not going to happen. Silent Hill f gets the main aspect of the series very right: the vibe. This is a genuinely tense, scary and imaginative video game that thrusts you into the action early on and tasks you with finding your way through an increasingly surreal horror labyrinth. It’s not quite the equal of last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake, but it’s a damn fine addition to a series that is pleased to squirm its way back into reality and hook its slimy fingers around your quivering soul.
