Welcome, everyone, to Horrorfest 2020, our annual event where I, Red Lanyard, tell you about terrific (and sometimes absurd) horror movies during the month of October to help you prepare for Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year. This year for Horrorfest, I’m structuring my pieces around various icons of horror–the people, either real or fictional, who have made our beloved genre the delightful niche and multi-million dollar industry that it is today. This first week, I’ll be highlighting some of the fictional antagonists who have carried the horror genre on their backs, briefly discussing what they’ve contributed to our macabre hobby and a recommendation for you to watch. Enjoy!
Pyramid Head (Silent Hill)
OK, who broke the over/under on 7 days before I talked about Silent Hill this year?
I can’t talk about horror villain icons without talking about one of the biggest characters in horror video game history: Pyramid Head. Originally premiering in 2001’s Silent Hill 2, a game often called the best horror game of all time, Pyramid Head served a symbol of retribution and punishment for the SH2 protagonist: a silent yet horrifying hunter who stalks newcomers to Silent Hill to punish them for their sins as a manifestation of their own guilty conscience. Pyramid Head’s introduction ranks up there with some of the most disturbing character intro’s in horror history, and his sparse yet persistent appearances throughout the game immediately launched him into the annals of spooky antagonists, and he went on to appear another Silent Hill game (the ill-received Homecoming), the live-action 2006 Silent Hill adaptation (which we may be hearing more about later in the month), most recently in popular video game Dead by Daylight as an antagonist.
Pyramid Head’s appeal–or rather revulsion–lies in both his appearance and his behavior. He’s literally just a ripped dude carrying a big sword and wearing a giant metal trapezoid as a helmet, and what might sound like an absurd character design is surprisingly striking in its actual depiction. There’s just something not right about Pyramid Head, and that sense of unsettlement is compounded and evolved into outright horror as the player observes his unrelenting pursuits. His lack of a voice calls back to classic horror villains such as Michael Myers, and the utter immersion of Silent Hill 2 easily places us in its path, maximizing the fear and unknown that swallows us every time the big bastard shows up in the hellish town. There has been some complaint about PH’s inclusion in other games, although (pushes up glasses) more knowledgeable fans know that he is not a sole experience of Silent Hill 2’s protagonist (getting generous with that word there); indeed, Silent Hill 3 contains lore that says multiple visitors to the town have reported seeing their own Pyramid Head’s, making his horror all the more real: guilt and self-loathing can come for just about anyone if left unresolved. Pyramid Head is the perfect manifestation of our own insecurities and sins, and it earns him a bonus spot on our horror villain week.
