Nurse (Silent Hill)

The Nurses are fictional monsters in the Konami's survival horror video game series "Silent Hill". They are the trademark enemy of the series, having appeared in some incarnation in four of the five released games and the "Silent Hill" film, which featured the nurses on advertising material for the film and the film's DVD cover.

History

In the "Silent Hill" franchise, monsters are manifested by the town of Silent Hill, which acts as a mirror of individuals' anxieties and fears. Due to the recurring themes of hospitalization, insanity, and death, each of the games features, at some point, a trip to one of Silent Hill's two hospitals, Alchemilla (which houses the town's emergency room) and/or Brookhaven (which houses long-term patients and the mentally ill). Invariably, once inside the hospital, the player will encounter monsters manifested by the town which resemble deformed nurses.

"Silent Hill"

In the first "Silent Hill", they are called the "Puppet Nurse". They look like average, dark- or blonde-haired women, and are seen wearing blue or green cardigans and white blouses with matching skirts, to resemble the attire worn by nurses before the adaptation of scrubs. The nurses walk bent over at the waist, their torsos at an angle, with writhing, worm-like parasites jutting out of holes in their backs. They carry scalpels which they use to attack the player. They are also controlled by a parasite, giving them a humpbacked appearance. They come from Alessa's fear of hospitals and nurses. They also have a male counterpart, the "Puppet Doctors", who appear in this game only.

"Silent Hill 2"

In "Silent Hill 2", they are called the "Bubble Head Nurse", and manifested from the mind of protagonist James Sunderland, combining his anxieties surrounding his wife's terminal illness and the sexual deprivation that came with it. Here, the nurses wear low-cut blouses with the first several buttons undone to display their massive breasts; their heads face backwards and are swollen and bloated, and twitch and convulse violently, as if about to burst. They attack with melee weapons, and will swarm James if he finds himself trapped in an area with several of them.

"Silent Hill 3"

In "Silent Hill 3", the nurses (known in this game as the Bobble Head Nurses) are manifested from the mind of protagonist Heather, who is in actuality the now-grown Alessa Gillespie; as such, like the first "Silent Hill", the nurses' appearance here comes from Heather's hatred of hospitals and her memories of her painful hospitalization. Similar to the first "Silent Hill", the nurses here largely resemble average women, albeit with extremely pale skin and straight, black hair, as opposed to the curly brown hair sported by the nurses in the first game. They wear a similar outfit to that worn by the Bubble Head Nurses in "Silent Hill 2", although their outfits do not reveal much of their exaggeratedly swollen breasts. Their mouths are surrounded by blood, although the source of it is never identified. When they walk, they make squishing sounds, and scream like real women when they die. Unlike the first two games, the nurses here carry firearms in addition to melee weapons.

"Silent Hill 4: The Room"

As of 2008, "The Room" is the only game not to feature the nurses. Instead, they are replaced by "Patients", extremely tall, gangly creatures resembling deformed maternity patients, to tie in to the game's theme of villain Walter Sullivan's anxieties regarding his mother and his own birth.

"Silent Hill: Origins"

The nurses found in "" are nearly identical to the Bubble Head Nurses, although their heads face the right way and do not twitch; additionally, they wear surgical gloves, and appear to have surgical masks made of flesh fused to their faces. They vary in two colors- a red/flesh-like version in the Hospital and a green version in the Sanitarium - but there is no known difference between them. They represent Travis' sexual anxiety and his discomfort around women. They are the most common victim of The Butcher, with Travis witnessing one being gutted in the butcher store and finding another one completely split open outside the entrance of the store on his second visit. They attack with syringes.

"Silent Hill: The Arcade"

Screen shots reveal that Nurses resembling those from "Silent Hill 3" make an appearance in the light gun shooter "". ["Siliconera" [http://www.siliconera.com/2007/02/16/more-on-the-silent-hill-arcade-game/ More on the "Silent Hill" arcade game] February 16, 2007]

"Silent Hill Homecoming"

In the upcoming "Silent Hill Homecoming", the nurses have been confirmed in some screenshots, one of them features the main character Alex when he's attacking two nurses with a knife, causing injuries on one of them in real time. They are nearly the same as those of the film, although their bodies and aren't as dark and dirty as the film Nurses, but they do have the same rips on their face, and their outfits are still sexually suggestive, with the upper part open revealing their chest and breasts like the Bubble Head Nurses on "Silent Hill 2". They also are attracted to loud noises.

Film

The Nurses appear briefly in the "Silent Hill" film, near the ending. They are provocatively dressed and have disfigured faces, resembling the nurses from "Silent Hill 2". Here, they also represent Alessa's envy of the adult female body, that she can never have.

Rose Da Silva finds them when advancing upon Alessa, but they only move when she turns her lamp on. Rose tries to sneak between them, but she is detected. One nurse blindly swings her blade, cutting another nurse's throat. They all soon begin to swing their weapons killing one another. Rose uses this to escape and go through them.

Reception

They are ranked sixth on "EGM"’s Top Ten Badass Undead. [Scott Sharkey, “EGM’s Top Ten Badass Undead: Thriller Night,” "Electronic Gaming Monthly" 233 (October 2008): 106.]

References