Lynchian Games

Pyramid Head is the personification of Jame's guilt and his shadow; Jame's tried to separate himself from his evilness e.g. Pyramid Head is brutal to the bubble head nurses who remind him of when Mary, and how much he really hated her. He has an energy not unlike Frank Booth's but I do not know if that inspired Pyramid Head's creation.



Both protaganists rescue a disturbed and sexually abused femme-fatale like character; both try to subdue their evil tendencies by killing the uninhibited representation of their desires.

(I believe Kyle slapped Dorothy not out of mercy or Booth's influence, but to suggest part of Kyle wanted to, and maybe expose the veneer of white picket fence America.)

(This article explains more about the similarities between Silent Hill 2 and Blue Velvet.)

I was weak. That's why I needed you... needed someone to punish me for my sins... but that's all over now... I know the truth. Now it's time to end this. - James

Like in Lost Highway James meets his deceased wife and accepts he killed her, after being confronted with tapes.

Silent Hill 4 felt less like Silent Hill because Henry wasn't drawn to Silent Hill because of a tragic past, but got there by coincidence; moreover, the plot and monsters far more typical of Japanese horror than Lynch or western horror. Still, Silent Hill 4 pays homage to Eraserhead and is interesting. The slugs, deformed baby, umbilical cord, and the hole are taken from Eraserhead.

Eraserhead and Silent Hill 4 are claustrophobic nightmares about men trapped in their apartments; they're named Henry Spencer and Henry Townshend, respectively. Spencer is terrified of his life being ruined by having to take care of his sickly and monstrous child; possibly Townshend sees his complete hikikomori life ahead of him and is terrified of ruining his life. In my mind, both Henrys went insane from being nonexistent to or distant from everyone. Spencer is just as responsible for ruining his life because blaming fatherhood is a lame and cruel excuse.

Deadly Premonition is a camp pastiche of Twin Peaks.

The small town in Alan Wake certainly evokes Twin Peaks, but I'm unsure if the characters and the story are influenced by Twin Peaks.

According to this wiki, Lone Survivor is influenced by Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and the Lynchian games Deadly Premonition and the Silent Hill series.

At the time, Twin Peaks was rather popular. The drama was all about a small number of characters in a small town. I wanted to make something that, while it would be small enough in scope to easily understand, it would have deep and distinctive characteristics [, and suspicious characters]. Takashi Tezuka (one of the co-writers of Link's Awakening), Iwata Asks (Nintendo)

Someone on the internet claimed Mulholland Drive influenced this game, but because he gave no explanation and I never played this I am unsure.