Sometimes, things don’t go according to plan.

“Don’t Panic” becomes an essential turn of phrase in these moments

A sneaking suspicion remained within me, that breaking up a playthrough of a survival horror game into an extraordinarily segmented episodic fashion may have the unfortunate side-effect of watering down what already is an experience that takes a special kind of suspension of disbelief for me to throw my emotional weight behind. To be clear: I am a big fan of the genre, and the Silent Hill series makes good on delivering the thrills and frills of that which goes bump in the night, the matter of the fact is that while im drawn to the pretense of horror and media that revolves around the ghastly, I’m neither squeamish nor easily frightened, so anything that further distances myself from any intensity involves the promotion of fear is sure to help contribute in making the experience feel quite pedestrian in the grand scheme of things.

A working plan I had for today, in regards to the writing process, was in fact something akin to a full embrace of the atmospheric zeitgeist of what Silent Hill is throwing down. Attempting to shove my own mind into the beating heart of what makes the game, channeling the horror that surrounds the residents of the cursed town. Kind of like a more extreme version of a social courtesy, like when you’re at work, and you might be talking to a boss, and you’re in “humor receptive mode”, so a joke they might tell which you normally wouldn’t laugh at may get a chuckle, in what would otherwise be an aside that wouldn’t even move your humor needle an iota any other moment of your life. I can’t stress enough of course, this is really not me trying to belittle either Team Silent or Blooper Teams work on Silent Hill 2 and the remake, just yesterday I ended up writing what was a fairly glowing pseudo review of sorts granting praise for the endeavors of glowing the genre up, even. This is more of a me thing, and how my emotionally reserved status as an individual, one who is often overburdened with rationality, finds a great deal of difficulty in being confronted by much in the realm of horror.

So, where as the working plan was once “let’s get this bread” in terms of helping to lubricate the metaphysical process in a pants shitting display of emotional solidarity, has now thusly transformed into the complete opposite, with me feeling so physically worn out and emotionally exhausted, even forcing myself to sit down and write feels as if a herculean effort, and the only true sense of fear visceralized within the realms of madness. This did get me thinking, however, on whether or not there is an added bonus of suffering from feelings of desolation and despair, in not having the emotional capacity to feel an externalized sense of dread as a result. To put it another way, the most competent navigators of a haunted house scenario would be the heartbroken and the downtrodden, both feeling so internally devastated from the state of things, something like creatures of murderous intent attempting to muck about with their insides is a no nothing whatever to them, some may even invite the early grave invitational, opting for a quick release than the agony of the everyday. I would tend to concur at the given moment; I’ve never been a fan of long waits, so a quick end is the way to my still beating heart at the present moment, or so my melodramatic ass of delusional woe so whispers into the surrounding air of mortal fury.

I was just imagining Marvin the robot from Hitchhiker’s Guide being able to totally stomp Silent Hill, due to his depressive and existential tendencies. One would think this would have more to do with the inherent notionality of him being a robot, and therefore one who is functionally speaking, is beyond the traditional concept of life and death itself; one would be wrong. Though, the thought immediately following that one was then connected to the idea of whether or not there yet exists a survival horror game starring a robot, and what that would look like. I figure the devs involved might have carte blanche to be even more gruesome than normal, due to robots being ripped to shreds having similar vibes as humans, but maybe not taken to such scrutiny by the ratings board, leaving the imagery to get truly graphic in one sense, as it wouldn’t be bone and sinew being mutilated, but wire and copper being eviscerated in front of the user. I imagine the game could explore some fairly unique approaches to body horror, and themes of existentialism and personal identity to really up the emotional dread factor of a survival horror game. I’m digging the concept already. Would ghost in the machine be too on the nose for a high tech themed freight fest?

Sadly, that’s about all the time I have for today, though it’s not as if my energy reserves were going to hang out much longer anyways, due to my rather melancholy nature that may have been brought about by another case of the “Saturday Sorrows”. The fact of the matter is that it’s a small miracle I was able to wring this much creativity out of my being in the first place today, so I’ll count this one as no small victory.

Till next time.

-Pashford