Less Than Silent Hills

Brock Wilbur and Rachel Jane Andelman, two comedians plowing through the history of Silent Hill video games, finally hit upon the mobile/handheld adventure that is wildly better than one might expect. Silent Hill Zero is a long-haul trucker line-in to why a child gave birth to another child while a different person's entire family committed suicide, but everyone else turned into angry revenge-hamburger. A lot to unpack, as you might expect!

As Rachel and Brock worked through the first four Silent Hill games, there were a few episodes where time ran out and the ability to dive into the deeper stuff got cut. That's where Whitney Chavis (Chemi_Ro) comes in. Whitney runs the Silent Hill Historical Society and live-streams the games for charity and just generally has a doctorate in this haunted town, whereas Rachel and Brock are more like haunted undergrads. So join us in circling back for some fascinating facts and theories and skinless creatures.

Rachel and Brock take a bit of a celebratory lap to talk about the Christophe Gans film adaptation of our favorite damn thing. Is this the episode where they hit their stride? abso-goddamned-lutely. Tune in for a better informed discussion of what percentage of good ideas and terrible nonsense makes for a perfect SH adaptation, and some engaging debates about what type of parent is so bad at parenting that they curse an entire town. Happy 20th anniversary, haunted town!!!

Against all odds, Rachel and Brock have reached the fourth installment in the Silent Hill series. First there was a city and then there was a more personal city and then there was the sexual awakening of a mall but now.... oh now... now stuff is complicated in the laundry room! The final Team Silent game is a bizarre mish-mash of good ideas and uh Ideas ideas and the end result is Brock's favorite Silent Hill and our collective best discussion of what-in-the-dang-hell in goin' on here. Thanks Akira Yamaoka!

We're into the third game of the Silent Hill series, where Rachel and Brock learn why you don't enter a haunted mall after hours and why you never leave your dad home alone when you're hunting the ghosts of his past. Our exploration of the series hits a fascinating point here where there's just SO MUCH to unpack, we know that this has to be the first in a series of episodes about this game. We'll circle back at some point. Until then, here's our first chunk of uzis and reproductive rights.

It's a bit tricky to ramp up into processing one of the Most Important Games Of All Time, but that's we try to do here. Basically, Rachel and Brock do a good introduction episode to the story, themes, and spooky stuff from Silent Hill 2. We're really going to have to dig into SH2 more in the future, and we're hoping to have some Real Silent Hill Specialists do guest episodes. But right now, here's a very fine starting point. Thanks for listening and we'll have Silent Hill 3 up before Halloween!

We start at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start. Rachel Jane Andelman (@rajandelman) and Brock Wilbur (@brockwilbur) begin their journey through all of Silent Hill with the very first title on the original PlayStation. This 1999 adventure proves to be a difficult replay for Brock and a less interesting story than everyone was hoping for. Still, you have to start somewhere. And... this is... that place.