Silent Hill art director Masahiro Ito recently took to Twitter once again and dropped some behind-the-scenes nuggets of info regarding the making of Silent Hill 2. The topic once again centred on the creation of everyone’s favourite monster in Pyramid Head, which it turns out was inspired by Mel Gibson‘s Braveheart.
According to Ito, the background of Pyramid Head as the executioner of the town came from the scene where Braveheart is executed (the famous “Freedom!” scene). Specifically, the hooded executioners were the inspiration behind background of the franchise’s most famous antagonist.
Following that tweet, Ito then went back to a tweet that he had made back in 2017 where Ito had showed off some art from when he was a student that inspired the look of Pyramid Head. “Aft I designed P-Head based on the 1st image in this tweet, I started thinking the background. I remembered the film/that ppl who put a bag on their heads & then I looked the ppl up in books. I finally came up w/ the idea of an executioner of the old town.”
This isn’t the first time that Ito has taken to Twitter to talk about his involvement in the Silent Hill games. Ito has revealed info on Pyramid Head before, as well as other Silent Hill monsters. As for what Ito is up to these days, he last mentioned that he was part of a project that was under NDA back in 2020, which may or may not have been his involvement in the 2020 Halloween event for World of Tanks.
Meanwhile, director of the 2006 Silent Hill film, Christophe Gans, recently gave credence to the rumour that multiple Silent Hill titles are in development, including a remake of Silent Hill 2.
The inspiration for the background of Pyramid Head from SH2 as the executioner. From a film Braveheart. pic.twitter.com/B2GAbHAsuB
— 伊藤暢達/Masahiro Ito (@adsk4) October 13, 2022