Toilets

Toluca Lake Observation Deck toilets.

Toilets, or public restrooms, are facilities within the town of Silent Hill that offer relief to both visitors and inhabitants, male and female alike. While creepy and dilapidated in the Fog World, they are altogether nasty and inhospitable in the Otherworld.

Occasionally, toilets will yield unexpected surprises, especially for those who have no qualms with sticking their arms inside them, regardless of their contents.

Silent Hill: Origins

The player frequently visits bathrooms in Silent Hill: Origins, since Travis Grady uses mirrors to travel from the Fog World to the Otherworld and back. The bathrooms in Alchemilla Hospital hold important clues, keys, and other items. The bathroom on the first floor of the female ward in the Cedar Grove Sanitarium is a major room because it holds a mirror and is also part of a puzzle later on. The bathrooms in the Riverside Motel are also vital, holding items and, in one case, a mirror.

Silent Hill

Harry Mason visits the public restrooms at both Midwich Elementary School and Alchemilla Hospital. Both encounters prove dangerous, particularly the school, as they have a tendency to mislead Harry from one floor to the other. Harry frequently finds important items in the restrooms. The shotgun is found next to a corpse in a stall in the school, and items are found in the bathrooms in the hospital and Nowhere.

Passing by one stall in particular, Harry can hear the faint cries of a child.

Silent Hill 2

In Silent Hill 2, James Sunderland begins his journey inside the Toluca Lake Observation Deck restrooms, where he refreshes his face in front of a mirror before continuing on. Later, while in Room 203's private toilet within Blue Creek Apartments, James sticks his arm down the toilet in attempts to fish out the wallet swimming inside. Much later in Wood Side Apartments he meets Eddie Dombrowski.

In a later sequence within Toluca Prison, James hears a female scream after knocking on the door and walking away from the locked stall.

Silent Hill 3

In Silent Hill 3, Heather Mason frequents numerous toilets. In one scenario, she starts to remove the thing blocking the toilet, but stops saying: "Forget it. This is way too gross." She then stares at the player and says: "Who would even think of doing something so disgusting?". This scenario is only unlocked if the player has Silent Hill 2 save data.

Also, in the beginning of the game where Heather is in the restroom, it is optional for her to knock on a stall door at the end (the fourth stall). Another knock will be heard, and Heather will say, "Guess someone's in there." In the Otherworld version of the same restroom, Heather can knock on the stall again, wondering "Is someone really in there?" when the knock is once again returned. But as she turns to leave, the door will open, revealing a toilet soaked in blood. Examining it, Heather will wonder if it was all just her imagination.

Silent Hill 4: The Room

Cynthia's mannequin in the subway washroom.

Henry Townshend's bathroom in Room 302 contains the first hole leading to Walter's Other Worlds until the Hospital World. Also, in the Subway World, the bathrooms play a considerable role as a hole leading back to the room, and the place from where the Sniffer Dogs emerge for the first time. There is also a mannequin in the female toilets that resembles Cynthia.

The men's bathroom is the perfect place for Henry to trap Cynthia Velasquez's ghost (since she appears there, too), as it is rather small for her to run away when pinned.

After a few of Walter's Other Worlds are visited, if the player examines the toilet in the apartment's bathroom, Henry will comment about something being stuck inside. If the player decides to reach for it, Henry will comment that he does not have the courage to do it.

Silent Hill: Homecoming

Alex finds a corpse in a stall.

Alex Shepherd's adventure begins in Alchemilla Hospital. It is in a public restroom here that he experiences his first shift into the Otherworld, after pulling free a knife that was embedded into the mirror. A mutilated corpse lies in a pool of blood in one of the stalls, and a nurse skulks out from a previously locked stall and approaches Alex to attack him.

Silent Hill: Downpour

A toilet in the diner.

When Murphy Pendleton enters a restroom in the Centennial Building, the stall at the end of the room will open. Frank Coleridge will appear in the mirror and reminds Murphy to trust himself when he approaches the stall. Likewise in the bathroom in St. Maria's Monastery, a sink will turn itself on and Murphy will briefly see an image of the Bogeyman swinging its hammer at him when he reaches out to shut off the water. Murphy can usually find First Aid Kits in cabinets inside bathrooms throughout the town. It is also possible for Murphy to flush any undamaged toilet found in-game, although doing so does not cause any abnormal reactions or effects.

P.T.

The toilet in the bathroom.

While traversing the hallway, the player finds a closed door behind which a baby is apparently crying. The door is later revealed to be the bathroom's. Quite filthy, the room hosts several bugs as well as a fetus in the sink, which is the source of the baby cries. On several occasions, Lisa will appear in the bathroom, hinting at a possible link between her and the baby.

Silent Hill: Orphan

Ben first talks to Karen through the vent in the bathroom, and he finds a pair of tongs in a toilet. The bathroom is used as a portal to and from the Otherworld.

Silent Hill film

Otherworld bathroom in the movie.

In the movie, Rose Da Silva finds the corpse of Colin in the bathroom of Midwich Elementary School, which comes to life when shifted to the Otherworld. She then escapes before it can attack her. The same bathroom was where Alessa Gillespie was sexually assaulted 30 years earlier.

Urban legends

Video footage of the toilets in the series. Toilets in the Silent Hill Series

It was common in early Japanese times for the toilets to be holes in the floor that would require you to squat over, and in many instances this is still present. Urban legends speak of children who fell down these holes, which gave Team Silent the inspiration to make the toilets of Silent Hill so oppressive and fearful places to be.

The most notable urban legend is that of Hanako-san, a story of unknown origin around the 1950s where a girl called Hanako seemingly waits behind the third stall of the girl's restroom on the third floor of any given school. The legend says that if you knock on her stall three times, speak her name, then ask her a question, she will answer. If Hanako answers, and anyone is brave/foolish enough to enter, she grabs them and drags them down the toilet.

Many artists and film adaptations have centered around this urban legend, and it seems that some influence could have been used with Heather and the bathroom stall of the Central Square Shopping Center in Silent Hill 3, as well as the bathroom scream in Toluca Prison in Silent Hill 2.

Gallery

Travis Grady in a bathroom.

James begins his journey.

The toilet James puts his hand in.

Heather and a toilet.

A bloody toilet.

The school bathroom in the Otherworld.

School toilets in Silent Hill.

James and the wallet taken out of the toilet.

Maria examining the toilet with the wallet.

Henry wondering if he should stick his hand into a toilet.

The school bathroom in the Otherworld.