• Silent Hill 2 and Lost Highway:

      The story of Silent Hill 2 (The best game in the series, in my opinion) bears a fairly striking resemblance to the events of the film Lost Highway. The game's story is told from the point of view of main character James Sunderland, a young widower haunted by the memory of his dead wife, Mary. According to James, Mary died of "that damn disease" some time before the game begins. James has returned to the resort town of Silent hill, where he and Mary spent many happy times, after receiving a letter from Mary. The letter tells him that Mary is waiting for him in Silent Hill, in their "special place".

      James attempts to make his way through the strangely deserted town, which is shrouded in a strange fog and haunted by horrible monsters. As the story progresses, James encounters a woman named Maria, who is nearly identical to Mary. She is a recurring figure throughout the story, accompanying James for a large part of his journey before meeting an untimely demise...twice.

      As we near the end of the story we, the players, begin to suspect that there is something wrong with James' version of the story and ultimately something wrong with James himself. He begins to act a little squirrelly. After an incident in which James is forced to kill another character (the deeply disturbed Eddie Dumbrowski) the letter from Mary which James has carried with him all this time turns into a blank piece of paper. Later still, it disappears altogether.

      When James finally makes his way their "special place" (a lakeside hotel where they shared a romantic weekend shortly before Mary became ill) James finds something in the room he and Mary stayed in: A videotape. On first glance, it would appear to be a tape which James shot during that weekend, but when James watches it he (along with the players) finally learns the truth. Mary was sick, yes. Terminal, even. But it was James who killed her. Unable to bear watching her waste away, he smothered her with a pillow. Then, unable to cope with his own actions, he rewrote history in his own mind. He might have gone the rest of his life not remembering what he had done if the town of Silent Hill had not called him back...

      You probably know where I'm going with this: The story of James and Mary/Maria is not dissimilar from the story of Fred Madison and Renee/Alice. Like James, Fred murdered his wife and couldn't cope with his own actions. He, too created a false series of events in his mind and convinced himself it was the truth. in both stories, the protagonists' dead wife returns in the person of someone who is exactly the same...and yet different (like Alice and Renee, Maria and Mary fall into Lynch's signature Blonde Woman/Dark Woman dichotomy). And in both stories, dark forces conspire to punish the protagonist by revealing the truth to him...via videotape.

• Silent Hill 4: The Room and Eraserhead:

      A departure for the series, Silent Hill 4: The Room introduces us to Henry Townshend, a young man with a peculiar problem. He wakes up one morning to find that his apartment has been completely cut off from the outside world. A series of locks and chains has been placed on the inside of his door. He can't get the windows to open. The telephone is dead (most of the time) and he can't even make himself heard to the various people who pass through the hallway outside. His only connections to the world outside are his radio and what he is able to see through his windows and the spyhole in his door. Stranger still, it seems that someone or something is trying to contact him through a series of notes slipped under his door.

      Soon, Henry hears a loud crash coming from his bathroom. He goes in and discovers that a large hole has appeared in the bathroom wall. This hole is the first in a series of portals that will lead him to the strange and dangerous alternate worlds that make up the bulk of the game as Henry is drawn into the mind of a serial killer named Walter Sullivan.

      With Silent Hill 4: The Room, the parallels are not as overt as with SH2. It's not the story so much as the imagery that suggests (to me, at least) a more than passing connection to Lynch's first feature Eraserhead:

• SH4's protagonist, Henry Townshend, is literally trapped in his claustrophobic apartment. In Eraserhead, Henry Spencer may not be trapped in his apartment, but he certainly feels that way once his, er, child is born. The bulk of the film takes place in Henry's apartment, and very little is seen of the outside world.
• Both Henry Townshend and Henry Spencer have a sexual attraction to their female neighbor.
• In one memorably disgusting sequence, Henry Townshend must kill a seris of large sluglike creatures that fall from the ceiling. He kills them (as they squirm and writhe on the floor) by stepping on them with his heel. he doesn't sing "In Heaven Everything Is Fine", but still...
• Disturbing imagery suggestive of reproduction occasionally pops up, like the spermlike creatures that rise up from the floor of several rooms.
• Both Henry Townshend and Henry Spencer seem to travel to alternate worlds from the confines of their apartments.

"What? Did your life pass before your eyes? Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea..."