"Religion was based on the sense of guilt and the remorse attaching to it" (503)

Silent Hill is a survival horror video game franchise with numerous installments that later took to the big screen. Both the game and the movie focus on a deserted town called, no surprise here, Silent Hill. The main character ends up stranded in this town and experiences the horrors of what hides within it: every so often, the entirety of the town transforms into a purgatory like state. The player is submerged in a hellish atmosphere with monsters and has to find a way to escape. Focusing on the plot of the film (an amalgamation of the first three games with some modifications here and there), main character Rose takes her child, Sharon, to Silent Hill and crashes her car consequently going unconscious. When she wakes up, Sharon is missing. Thus, Rose begins her terrifying exploration of the city to find her child. During her search, she encounters this hellish transformation and is confronted by numerous religious fanatics who take refuge from the transformation in the church. As Rose uncovers the past of this condemned city, she discovers that the reason why the city experiences what it does is because of what they did to a little girl: Alessa. The city used to be ruled by cult members who partook in witch burning. Society despised Alessa because she was born out of wedlock and had no father and therefore dubbed her a witch. They attempted to burn her, however due to some freak accident the fire consumed the entire building. Alessa survived the burning and was hospitalized. It was there that her anger and bitterness manifested in the constant purgatory like transformation of the town.
     Freud's quote relates to this movie because the townspeople now use the church as a refuge from the consequences of their actions. The guilt of having done what they did, of knowing that the torture their town goes through was because of their foolish misconception of salvation, results in a focus on religious protection now more than ever. Every time the town transforms, a tangible reminder of their actions, they run to the church in order to cope. One specific example (used in both the games and the movie) is the monster Pyramid Head. Characterized by it's giant stature and menacing appearance, the Pyramid Head is said to be a manifestation of intense remorse. It is no coincidence that during one of the scenes in the movie, he appears on the steps of the church as the town transforms and murders townsfolk as they try to escape (a twisted metaphor for the townsfolk attempting to escape from their very own remorse).
     I am sure Freud would have a lot to say about the rest of the symbolism in the film. For example, the head of the religious fanatics (the one who tries to escape sin and purify as much as possibly) dies through penetration with barbed wire; but I found it interesting how this quote was applicable to the movie. The guilt in both scenarios stemmed from different situations (in Freud's case the killing of the father figure and in Silent Hill's the attempted murder of Alessa), however the movie still managed to represent such a remorse symbolically.