WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Jacob’s Ladder and Return to Silent Hill.
On the surface, Jacob’s Ladder and the world of Silent Hill have very little in common. One is a psychological horror film about a Vietnam veteran struggling to adjust to life after war, while another is a post-apocalyptic survival horror video game plagued with mutant monsters and a giant pyramid-headed brute.
But Christophe Gans’ sequel Return to Silent Hill builds upon themes of grief and sorrow to bridge the gap between these two worlds. Both explore the tenuous line between life and death, creating visceral depictions of profound grief and the tragic beauty of letting go.
Adrian Lyne’s 1990 film begins in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta as a unit of American soldiers is attacked by an unseen enemy. But just before the world explodes, several men begin acting strangely. Some collapse or experience catatonia, while others begin spinning out of control. We will later learn that they have been secretly fed an experimental hallucinogen designed to increase their aggression on the battlefield, and something has gone dreadfully wrong. Fleeing the attack, Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is stabbed with a bayonet and lies bleeding on the jungle floor. But just as quickly as this chaos began, we’re pulled into 1975 New York City and a mostly deserted subway train. Having fallen asleep on his evening commute, Jacob spies a tentacled passenger and ghostly faces while crossing the tracks to make his way home.
Jacob’s Ladder plays out in three distinct timelines that merge together in a shocking twist. Clearly suffering from PTSD, the Vietnam veteran has periodic flashbacks to his time “in country.” He recalls being airlifted out of the jungle by a helicopter that also sustained enemy fire. Jacob also remembers his life before the war with his ex-wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember), and three young boys. A cache of family photographs introduces us to his youngest son, Gabe (Macaulay Culkin), who was killed while riding his bike in the street. Now Jacob lives with his new girlfriend, Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña), who works with him at the post office. But devilish forces seem to be intruding on Jacob’s life, inching closer with each passing day.
At a house party, Jacob sees a rapidly trembling man flash through a series of sinister faces, one masked with what appears to be a plastic bag. On the dance floor, he sees Jezebel dancing seductively with a vaguely demonic entity. A lizard-like tail seems to penetrate her, and a devilish horn bursts from her gaping mouth. But perhaps most disturbing, a flirtatious fortune teller reads Jacob’s palms and coyly declares that he’s already dead. These strange occurrences increase in severity as Jacob reunites with his fellow veterans who may be experiencing the same frightening visions. Only a trusted chiropractor named Louie (Danny Aiello) seems capable of calming Jake’s fears and realigning his life.
In one of the genre’s most poignant twists, we learn that the palmist was right all along. Rather than a series of informative flashbacks, Jacob’s time in Vietnam is an objective reality. The film concludes with field medics pronouncing him dead, noting that the deceased soldier put up “one hell of a fight.” His time in New York with Jezebel has been a projection of his mind’s attempt to reconcile with oncoming death. Louie makes sense of these complex visions by paraphrasing the 14th-century theologian Meister Eckhart: “if you’re frightened of dying and… and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.” Jacob concludes his time in New York by reuniting with his angelic son, Gabe, who gently leads him up a set of stairs and into a bright white light.
Past, present, and future merge together as Jacob finds peace and finally lets go.
Two decades after directing the cult classic Silent Hill, Christophe Gans uses the post-apocalyptic setting to explore similar themes of life and death. Adapted from the 2001 game Silent Hill 2, Return to Silent Hill follows James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) on a quest to find his missing girlfriend Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson), who begs him to meet her at “our place.” Like Lyne’s powerful film, Gans’ story plays out in a trio of timelines. We open with James meeting Mary at a bus stop overlooking the town after swerving to dodge an oncoming truck and plowing through her stacked suitcases. Charmed by this gorgeous woman, he offers to drive her back to the picturesque Silent Hill and eventually decides to stay. But flashbacks reveal trouble in paradise as Mary’s involvement with her late father’s cult puts a strain on their burgeoning relationship. When James glimpses a disturbing ritual in which the cult’s followers bathe in Mary’s blood, he breaks off their relationship, leaving Mary alone.
Upon receiving a cryptic letter from his estranged girlfriend, James returns to find an altogether different Silent Hill. Ash perpetually rains from the sky, and a morose survivor explains that the town has been decimated by fire and contamination. As he walks the foggy streets, James hears periodic sirens and radio static that warn him of monsters lurking nearby. A spindly wraith spurts acid from a gaping chest wound while giant cockroaches with humanoid faces crawl out of rapidly rotting floors. While searching for Mary, James discovers a massive mutant spider merged with the torso of a decapitated woman, but this creature is killed by one of the game’s most iconic threats, a muscle-bound monster known as Red Pyramid (Robert Strange). Wielding a gigantic knife that cracks the floor, this being’s head is obscured by a large, triangular helmet that hides a face of twisted rage.
As James slowly uncovers the town’s dark secrets, he finds Mary transformed into a monstrous moth with spindly claws that penetrate his soul. James awakens from this disturbing confrontation as a patient in a psychiatric ward. His concerned therapist explains that Mary actually died several months ago, and he’s been unable to say goodbye. As the truth crashes in, we meet Jake in what appears to be objective reality and find Mary lying on her deathbed in a sunny Silent Hill hospital room. She begs James to end her suffering, and he reluctantly smothers her to death. Only then do we realize that Silent Hill’s monsters are all manifestations of James’ grief and guilt designed to protect his fragile mind from this devastating memory.
The three timelines merge as James follows a vision of his healthy girlfriend to the hospital’s fiery roof and watches her transforming body ascend. Now, a terribly gorgeous moth-like entity, she offers him the forgiveness he so desperately needs. Having made peace with abandoning Mary in her time of need, James is finally ready to say goodbye. He wraps her body in a white sheet and places it inside his waiting car, then crashes into the nearby lake. We finally understand that James has returned to Silent Hill to die amidst these memories. Though some details have been altered, this devastating conclusion mirrors “In Water,” one of the game’s six possible endings. But like the dying Jacob Singer, Gans allows James to transcend his painful time on earth and enter a peaceful afterlife.
James gazes into his submerged rearview mirror, and a pair of headlights rapidly approaches. A blinding white light swells, transporting us back to the bus stop overlook and James’ first interaction with Mary. But this time, the lovestruck man seems aware of the turns their story will take, yet prepared to savor each moment of bliss. Smiling, they drive away from Silent Hill toward the promise of a happy life. Revisiting Eckhart’s prophecy, the demons of Silent Hill have tried to pull James’ life apart, but in finding peace with his painful past, they have become angels guiding him into the light.
Though markedly different in nearly every way, Jacob’s Ladder and Return to Silent Hill both cause us to reckon with the fleeting nature of life and the inescapable fact of death. But they also serve as gorgeous reminders that if we can reframe our fear and let go of our time on earth, we can find our way into paradise and an eternity spent with those we love.
