Themes that Connect Silent Hill 2 & Jacob’s Ladder

I don’t mean questioning the system of government you’re under, or the way other people live their lives, or even if you should keep working at your current job.

I mean, have you ever wondered if the world around you is the one you left behind when you went to sleep last night?

Have things changed in some way? Almost like you slipped into some alternate version of your life.

If you were to ask me that, I would ask you if you had forgotten to take your meds this morning.

And I think most people, yourself included, would agree with my line of questioning.

However,

In the world of horror stories, this is a common occurrence.

Too often within this genre, people take the step from our world into another, causing a terrible journey through fears unknown to our daily lives.

Often, we hate such concepts, desiring for them to never come close to oppressing us as they do the protagonist of those tales.

But what if, in desiring to avoid those experiences, we are in fact missing the point?

In 2001 a game was released for the PlayStation called Silent Hill 2, a sequel to Silent Hill.

It was a psychological horror game based in the fictional small American town of Silent Hill.

The game saw you traversing the foggy town as the character of James Sunderland, in search of your wife.

A deceptively simple premise.

The game ended up as a hit, selling over one million copies.

And, in 2024, there was a remake by Bloober Team.

Another smash hit! It sells over two million copies as of writing this and introduces the classic to a new generation.

The reviews are stellar. You don’t have to look far online since the remake’s release to find someone singing its praises and analyzing even the smallest details of the game.

If you have not yet played the game, either the original or remake, I can’t recommend it enough. Just don’t forget to bring a change of pants with you… expert tip.

What if I told you that in 1990 a movie came out called Jacob’s Ladder, the story of a man who is haunted by visions of monstrous creatures after returning home from the Vietnam War?

What if I also told you that this movie played as one of the main inspirations for the game Silent Hill 2?

What if I told you that the themes of both of these stories were identical?

Now, let me be clear!

I am not the first to compare these two iconic pieces of horror media.

Many people have pointed out the sharing of initials between the two protagonists (James Sunderland/Jacob Singer), as well as the two wearing the same iconic M65 jacket. There are also design similarities in some of the sets and creatures.

However, I would like you to indulge me as we go over the plot of each story and compare the message of each.

Note: SPOILERS FOR BOTH MOVIE AND GAME!!!

In 1971, Jacob Singer, a philosophy professor, is serving in Vietnam. He and his troop are sitting joking amongst each other when the alarm that they are being attacked sounds.

The men try to get to their positions; however, very abruptly many of them begin to fall over from convulsions, bleed from their eyes, and even run about in some sort of manic episode.

Jacob, having made it to the woods and readying himself to fight, is seen from someone else’s POV as they rush up on him and stab him with a bayonet.

He then wakes up in the present day, on the subway.

Disoriented after falling asleep and missing his stop, he moves to leave the cart. As he is walking out the door, just before they slide closed, he notices a homeless man sleeping inside. Looking down at the bottom of the man’s coat, Jacob just barely glimpses a tentacle being pulled in.

Then the subway leaves, and Jacob must get to the opposite platform.

He almost makes it when another train comes headed straight for him.

Diving for the side of the platform, he narrowly avoids being hit but notices that the whole train is full of people pressed up against the windows watching him. And, in the very last cart, is a man with no face waving at Jacob as the train disappears into the darkness.

When Jacob gets home to his girlfriend, Jezebel, he finds out that one of his sons brought a package of old family photos that his ex-wife was going to toss out.

In this he finds a picture of his youngest son, Gabriel, who died before the war. Seeing that the memories upset him, Jezebel secretly burns the other photos.

Jacob later goes to his chiropractor, Louis, who, after doing a deep adjustment on him, causes Jacob to see back to a memory of just after being stabbed in Vietnam.

While this does unnerve him, Jacob feels much better and even compares Louis to an angel.

On his way to work, Jacob is nearly run down by a car that is clearly targeting him. Inside of it are convulsing, demon-like beings, along with the man with no face.

Feeling as though he is losing his mind, Jacob goes to see his psychiatrist but is told that he has no record of working there and also that Jacob has no record of being there.

Jacob is confused by this and is terrified to witness the nurse talking to him accidentally reveal small horns atop her head when her hat falls off.

Without having the ability to access any medication, Jacob eventually has a full mental breakdown during a party where he sees his Jezebel dancing with a man who morphs into a winged creature.

After being brought home, Jacob falls under a sudden extreme fever, having to be put into a bathtub filled with ice. This causes him to convulse in agonizing pain, screaming about how they are killing him.

He wakes in bed. His wife lies next to him, and his sons are just down the hall. He is back home again. A peaceful relief from the lowest level of life he was found living moments ago. It was all a nightmare.

Gabriel, still alive, wakes up and asks his father to help him get back to sleep.

Like a good father, Jacob sings his baby boy back to sleep, and then, despite Gabriel begging him to stay, he goes back to his own bed. Regret of having to leave his son and the heaven of being home again.

When he wakes up, he is back in the tub. His old life is gone.

For the remainder of the film, Jacob joins together with his old war buddies, who are having similar visions and encounters, to find out what happened to them.

Convinced the army did some sort of experiment on them, they hire a lawyer to look into it.

Not long later, Jacob is told that all of his buddies backed out and that even the lawyer wants nothing to do with his case, claiming that after looking into it, he and his friends have no record of ever being in Vietnam.

Jacob won’t let up, though and soon two men in suits threaten to kill him if he doesn’t stop his hunt for the truth. In the process of fighting them off, Jacob is paralyzed.

Before any help can arrive, a donation Santa steals his wallet containing the last photo he has of Gabriel.

Jacob is taken to a hospital, and while he is being brought to surgery, the building changes. It is shown to be grimy with leaky pipes and flickering lights. Then he is taken through what seems to be a hall of mentally insane people, followed by the final section of blood and gore covering the floor and walls; chopped off limbs are pushed aside as his cart is pushed to the operating room.

In surgery he is strapped down in outdated equipment more similar to torture devices.

Just before a syringe of some unknown liquid is driven into his forehead, Jacob notices that some of the doctors resemble the creatures that have been following him.

Jacob survives the surgery and wakes up in the patients wing, being greeted by his ex-wife and kids. His family is thrilled to see him alive. His wife strokes his cheek lovingly, reassuring him that she still loves him. Everything will be alright.

The voice speaks from just off camera, as Jacob sees something just beyond our sight, filling him again with fear and destroying his hope.

Another dream.

Louis shows up and helps Jacob to escape the hospital, threatening to kill anyone who tries to stop him and calling what they are doing barbaric.

He takes Jacob back to his chiropractor office and heals him of his paralysis.

David tells Louis that he was just in hell and how he doesn’t want to die.

Louis responds with a reference that he read from Eckhart:

“You know what he said? The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn ’em all away. But they’re not punishing you, he said. They’re freeing your soul.“

He then, seemingly miraculously, cures Jacob to where he can walk again.

Jacob, feeling at the end of his rope, goes home. He pulls out a cigar box full of his life’s memorabilia. His degree, papers from the army, and old photos. All things he holds dearly onto.

When the creatures get to be too much, in a final act, he takes a taxi to his old apartment where he lived with his family before the divorce.

There he sits on the couch in the dark house and ponders over what Louis told him.

With a final moment of acceptance, he surrenders.

The sun comes out for Jacob.

Gabriel, who is standing at the bottom of the staircase, asks his father to come with him.

Jacob ascends the staircase with his son and is engulfed in light.

The final scene of the film shows two military doctors in Vietnam declare Jacob dead.

One of them mentions how peaceful he looks.

So, the whole movie was from the last moments of a dying man’s brain.

He is stuck in hell, trying to find his way through the maze to heaven.

The movie does deal with something difficult. The act of letting go and facing the truth.

Jacob is constantly attempting to find other answers as to the cause of what is going on.

Maybe he is simply losing his mind, or maybe it is demons, or maybe the army experimented on him.

Even if any or all of these things are true, he is dying. You can’t answer your way out of that one.

We are given the philosophy from Louis that the only things that burn in hell are the things you are afraid to let go of. It is not punishment. Instead, it is an attempt to free you.

Jacob, who is desperate to hold onto his life, sees anyone who is trying to do this as a demon instead of an angel.

It is an interesting thought to take from the movie into your daily life.

Let me ask you something. If you were a drug addict, and God himself came down to save you from a life threatening addiction that you were unwilling to let go of, do you think you would see him as God or the Devil?

Are you still with me?

Good!

Then let us move on to the second plot before the final analysis of both stories.

Since Silent Hill is a game, much of it will be simplified. I will not be going over every single moment from a game that can take as long as three movies.

Instead, I will stick to just the main plot points.

I’m sure you will appreciate that. I know you have things to do.

The letter he received from his wife (as quoted above) signals his reason for coming here. There is just one small issue plaguing James’s mind.

So, who sent you the letter? Is this some sort of cruel joke? Or was it… real?

Traveling into the town, you find the streets shrouded in fog.

At the graveyard you find a young woman looking through the headstones. She says that she is looking for her “mama” and that you should maybe not go to town.

She claims it isn’t safe but struggles to explain why, as if she herself doesn’t understand.

You go anyway.

In the town, the whole place looks abandoned. As if there was some sort of rapture that took place. Strange marks and liquids are seen throughout the town.

Then you spot it. Something walking away just out of sight in the fog. You follow it, hoping to find some answers. However, the closer you get, your heart starts to pound as the sounds the creature is emitting are anything but human.

When you finally get close enough, it is revealed to be some type of nightmarish entity, like a leathery husk sewn together on top of two stomping legs. And it indeed has no intention of leaving you alive.

Another realization comes to you: the place Mary wants to meet, “your special place” (which certainly doesn’t narrow it down for anyone), might be the park on the edge of the lake.

You realize all of the roads to get there are mysteriously blocked, some of them are even just simply gone, and the only way there is through the apartment buildings.

You find the apartments to be no safer nor easier to traverse. Vile creatures are within the dark halls and rooms, lurking behind every dark corner and prowling just out of sight in the lengthy hallways. It feels like the only way through is never to be found easily.

Strange holes in the walls with oozing slime, corpses resembling yourself. Jail cell like bars blocking off whole portions of the building. Articles about serial killers. Whispering around every corner only to find nothing there. The feeling of a nightmare grows ever stronger in your brain.

This is where three characters are brought to us:

You find a little girl within the halls, but she manages to run away before you can stop and question her.

In one of the rooms you stumble upon another corpse and an obese man vomiting in the apartment’s bathroom. You find out his name is Eddie, and while he does seem a bit shifty, he swears to you that he did not kill the person in the other room. The two of you go your separate ways, telling each other to be careful.

Finally, we are reunited with Angela, the woman from the graveyard. She is wielding a knife, in a deep depression, suggesting that she intends to turn the blade on herself. While you manage to talk her out of using it on herself, she does give you this response before parting ways:

Very unnerved by all of your encounters in the apartments, you are nearly free from them when one more entity cuts you off.

A large man, donned with a large metal pyramid style helmet that covers its entire face, it drags behind it a sword sized butcher knife.

Its intentions are made clear when, just before your escape, it corners you and attempts to enact its blade upon your flesh.

Managing to fight it off, backed by a gun you found in one of the apartment rooms, you escape the Woodside apartments and enter the park.

Now in the open air again, you run into the little girl again, who we find out is named Laura. She claims to have known Mary and that you, in fact, never loved her. Two bold claims.

It matters very little, as you have finally gotten to the location where you suspect your wife to be. But someone else is standing where she should have been.

Yes, this woman looks like your wife in her facial features. However, her style and behaviors are much more… sensual.

Her name is not Marry, but Maria.

After making light of your situation, she does lend a helpful hand in suggesting if there was another special location for you and your wife. This brings up the memory of the Lakeview Hotel. Your next goal.

You and Maria make your way through town and into a bowling alley where you find Eddie and Laura talking. Eddie claims that he ran away to this town to escape the police after some sort of minor crime, and Laura asks why he doesn’t just apologize instead of running away.

Laura runs after spotting the two of you, and you give chase after her into the hospital.

Going through the hospital, it is similar to the apartments, only probably less clean.

When you do catch up with Laura, she seems confused as to why you would be concerned about her safety at all.

She adds to her story about knowing Mary, claiming to have met her at the hospital last year.

Since Mary died three years ago, you know that she is lying; however, your outburst disputing her claims causes her to run away from you again.

In your attempt to escape the hospital, you once again find yourself cornered by Pyramid Head.

Just before you slip from his clutches once more, he kills Maria, giving you the chance to go free.

Making your way through the town once more, you come across the Historical Society. Within, there is a hole in one wall leading to an absurdly long staircase downwards to a room with what seems to be a bottomless pit.

Jumping down, you find a second pit, then a room. Inside is Eddie.

He has a gun and has shot someone who now lies dead next to him. He claims it was in self-defense, then that the person deserved it for the way they looked at him, and then claims that he actually found the person like that when he got there. Before you can do anything, Eddie runs away, leaving you to continue your journey alone.

After jumping down several more pits, the world becomes more surreal and nightmarish.

Eventually one leads to a room with a prison cell in it, holding a now living Maria.

When you ask her how she is alive, she seems confused by the question, telling you how forgetful you, are and that you probably forgot the videotape that the two of you left in the hotel.

This statement makes you question who she really is, since only Mary could have known that.

She responds with:

You leave, and eventually come across a meat locker, where Eddie is standing alone with his gun.

He has clearly finally snapped, stating how he has no problem now killing anyone who crosses him, which now includes you.

After a fight, you manage to kill Eddie, and while you seem distraught at the idea of killing another human, something about it comes across as familiar.

Through the meat locker, you find the exit from the surreal rooms and are now at the docks of the lake.

Taking one of the canoes, you make your way across the foggy water of Toluca Lake to the hotel on the other side.

Finding the tape Maria mentioned, you make your way to your old room and place it in a VHS player.

The tape is a home video of you and Mary when she was still alive and healthy. The joy she shows seems to sprout from the screen in the gloomy atmosphere of the hotel. Then it abruptly cuts to her deathly sick in bed. You are shown walking into the room and smothering her to death.

Laura comes in asking if you found Mary, to which you respond with your confession. Laura, enraged, tells you how much she hates you before running away once again.

James hears Mary’s voice over the radio, asking him to come to her.

As you make your way to the rooftop where Mary is, you are shown memories of the doctors telling you that there is nothing they can do to save your wife.

You hear the past voice of Mary changing from her healthy, loving self to someone who is mentally broken by disease, losing all hope.

You are given one more confrontation with Pyramid Head, realizing how his only purpose there was to punish you for your sins. Some sort of outcry from your deep psyche being projected onto the world. But now that you know the truth, you don’t need him anymore and can finally kill him once and for all.

Then, at the rooftop, you are before your wife once more.

Her on her deathbed, you sitting next to her, one final moment to talk.

She says that she was begging to die since she was living in such fear and agony and that she doesn’t blame you.

You confess the whole truth. That you grew to hate her. That you hated how she stole your life away, and how that was the real reason you killed her.

Her response… :

To those who have played the game, you know that there are multiple endings based on how your personal playthrough went. Each one offering a different ending to James Sunderland’s story. I will not be spoiling them here. I have left out much of the game and wish to leave you with some reasons to still play through it, as it is a very rewarding experience.

However, I will give an analysis of the events I have brought before you.

In truth, yes, Mary has been dead the whole time. She was in the back of your car in the beginning of the game. It was in the bathroom that Silent Hill grabbed James’s mind and brought it into a state of delusion based off of denial of his own actions.

Of course Mary died from the disease years ago!

But, even though James might attempt total denial of his actions, the town of Silent Hill knows the truth of your mind and projects it into existence.

James still felt the guilt and the need to be punished. Thus the town created all of the monsters within its fog. Pyramid Head being the main antagonist as some sort of demonic executioner.

Through the game, the scenery changes from the normal town into a nightmare landscape full of unnatural rooms and enemies. With each area, it grows more grotesque until the hotel. The hotel is instead untouched. It is open, clean, and normal. Seemingly some sort of frozen time capsule for James to have no more distractions from the unfiltered reality of his actions.

This also explains why each of the other characters within the story were all confused as to what James was talking about. Each was projecting different antagonists for themselves based on their own internal battles with guilt. Laura being the only one with no projections, given her age and life experience.

It is only after James learns of the truth that he has any power over his tormentors, finally confronting and killing Pyramid Head. However, his ability to deal with the truth in the end of it all simply will depend on one thing…

How did you play the game?

Jacob’s Ladder. Silent Hill 2.

Both deal with a common theme. A protagonist who refuses to see reality. Even when the world of evil reaches out to shake them back to the reality of their situation, they strive to find answers in any other place but the truth.

I think this is something all of us can find sympathy with. How often do we strive to avoid the truth of our own lives? How often do we not want to reflect on the actions we have taken?

Something that stands out to most viewers and players is the creatures that both characters face.

In Jacob’s Ladder, many of the things seen are reminiscent of what he saw happen to his fellow brothers in arms moments before his own demise. The convulsing, screaming men with their limbs blown off strike a horrifying resemblance to the demons following Jacob around the city.

For James, many of the creatures have a sexual theme to them. While not being arousing by design, there is an uncomfortable erotic nature to them. This plays into the sexual frustration of James no longer having the ability to be with his wife, in almost a mocking way, as to show a shallow view that he might secretly have of her. The only antagonist that does not have this in mind is Pyramid Head, as stated before, being some sort of final punishment of death for James.

These creatures work as a direct push to our protagonists, the truth of the reality they don’t want to see, forcing its way into their world against our hero’s wishes to be left in ignorance.

Something that stands out to me is the fact of how alone our protagonists feel on their journeys.

For Jacob, his wife and kids are gone. His girlfriend leaves him for being crazy, and his army buddies and lawyer bail on him when things get tough.

For James, the only other people in the whole town, including James himself, seem disinterested in spending much time with each other. Giving the tone of, “I am here to run away from people, not to team up with them.”

However, I couldn’t think of a better way to put it.

In these journeys of self-reflection and raw honesty, no one else can make us do it. No one else can dig into our minds the same way we can. Sure, Jacob has Louis giving him some relief as some type of guardian angel, but when Jacob tells him he doesn’t want to die, all Louis can do is tell him how to die well.

This is because Louis is not here to save him, just as the other creatures are not there to destroy him. Instead, they are there to push him towards the ugly truth and salvation.

In Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob does not want to see the truth of what the world has done to him.

In Silent Hill, James does not want to see what he has done to the world.

In Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob must press upward to the top of the ladder, letting go of his life.

In Silent Hill, James must descend even further into hell to face his own actions.

One teaches how to die with nothing. The other, how to live with everything.

And when one does that, they will truly have to face demons.

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