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Carceral horror: Punishment and control in Silent Hill

2017; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1741659017699045

1741-6604

Kevin F. Steinmetz,

Narrative Theory and Analysis

Prisons have become regular fixtures in late modern media. Despite this ubiquity, little research has been conducted examining representations of prisons and punishment within one of the most popular forms of contemporary entertainment media: video games. Drawing from cultural criminology and Gothic criminology, the current study examines punitive and carceral elements in the horror video game franchise of Silent Hill. Eight games within the series are analyzed through a combination of ethnographic content analysis and autoethnography to reveal two dominant themes evident throughout the series: retribution and confinement. As argued in this study, Silent Hill—like many horror productions—revels in ambiguity and expresses cultural anxieties stemming from the paradoxical vertiginous sentiments of insecurity amidst increasing securitization and prisonization of society and everyday life. Survival horror, including Silent Hill, is a product of both Japanese and American cultural formations. This analysis therefore argues that Silent Hill reveals an American-Japanese public imagination that clamors for respite from insecurity while also becoming horrified by the carceral apparatus it created.