10 Terrifying Silent Hill Monsters (And Their Meaning)

This one's exactly what it looks like.

Perhaps the most overtly phallic creature in video game history (outside of Persona's infamous Mara, of course), it's no accident that the Split Worm appears in the only numbered Silent Hill game with a female protagonist - the game being Silent Hill 3, and the heroine being Heather Mason.

The Escapist Magazine put it best when they described the plot of the third Silent Hill as "...a Teenage Girl's Worst Nightmare", as the story revolves around Heather being forcibly impregnated by a cult who want her to give birth to their god. Knowing this, the implications behind Split Worm's design become even clearer. Its phallic design is clearly meant to imply Heather's disgust at being impregnated against her will (even if it was done through a magic ritual, as opposed to the more unsettling alternative), and the head emerging from Split Worm's torn-open skin shows Heather's understandable fear over giving birth to a monster.

There's also the manner in which Heather hunts down the monster. Just before the fight begins, Heather has to use an item to lower a ladder that leads into the creature's lair. The item in question? A stretched-out wire hanger. Given what Split Worm represents, the symbolism behind Heather using a hanger in her quest to kill the monster is grimly apparent...