Content Warning: Silent Hill: The Short Message contains explicit and continuous themes and references to self-harm, suicide ideation, child neglect, and child abuse. While I won’t delve into these in detail in this review or go into further specifics, please be aware of this before proceeding to read or, indeed, play the game yourself.
It has long been recognized that different Silent Hills await different individuals. For some, perhaps most notably, there are faceless, curvaceous nurses lurking in the rust-covered corridors. For others, towering flames surround them, depriving the air of all light and hope. For Anita, sticky notes smeared with crude insults are piled up like feathers on every surface. It’s a kind of beauty in a dark, melancholic, and messed-up manner.
A kind of beauty in a dark, melancholic, and messed-up manner is actually a rather fitting summary for Silent Hill: The Short Message. I entered with hope, albeit with caution – I’m well aware of how many false starts Silent Hill has had. But by the time I emerged a couple of hours later, I was astonished not only by how complete The Short Message feels but also by how much it impacted me.
Halfway through, I didn’t feel this way, though. The Short Message’s message is not subtle. You play as Anita, a school-aged teenager plagued by profound self-esteem issues that manifest in self-harm and suicidal thoughts, which are inextricably linked to the crude and cold approval metrics of social media. Her friend, Maya – a somewhat renowned graffiti artist with a modest social media following – texts to ask if they can meet at an abandoned apartment block in their town. So, Anita heads to the abandoned apartment building, with only her phone as company. As if she’s never watched a horror movie before.
No, the themes here are not softened by symbolism or metaphor. However, TSM has only 90 minutes to convey its story, and given the untold damage that social media inflicts on people of all ages, perhaps someone decided that subtlety simply wasn’t necessary. There’s disappointingly little subtext, and with Anita constantly voicing or texting her innermost thoughts to her friends, you’re rarely left in any doubt about her feelings.
Scratch the surface just a bit, and you’ll find that the story you think The Short Message is telling is actually a bit more complex. What some might dismiss as vapid teenage angst actually frames a broader exploration of love, loss, and the malevolent power of jealousy, as well as the cyclical damage caused by generational trauma and abuse. I have no idea why the team crammed its most powerful and harrowing subplots into the final act. Nevertheless, it is here that The Short Message blossoms from a predictable cliché into something more befitting of the psychological horror tagline and, dare I say, a rightful place in the Silent Hill canon.
