"Monsters? They look like Monsters to you?"

[Axel_98]

I feel like they really push the whole "You're killing real people" theme throughout the game. That you are not in some otherworld but you are in reality, just warped from your perspective.

For instance: The cop cars. Your constantly running around town hiding from them. Of course they're looking for Murphey since he just escaped / prison bus just crashed.

We are had a couple of the "Monsters" turn back into people at least in Murphy mind like Hammer Man to Napier and Wheelchair guy to Frank. Finally Murphy shows up as Hammer Man to Anne so if Anne kills Hammerman then she kills Murphy.

There might be more but I cannot think of it at the moment.

[teosoleil]

All those examples you listed were manifestations. Not real people.

Maybe the cop cars were real, but in my honest view, they were fake. Being able to disable them shows that they were at least a fragment of Murphy's subconscious.

[Axel_98]

All those examples you listed were manifestations. Not real people.

Murphy being viewed by Anne as Hammer Man is a clear indication that they do see real people as monsters. We see the transition as we look down her gun that Murphy looks like Hammer Man to her and Murphy is obviously real.

[AuraTwilight]

Murphy's transformation into the Hammer Man is an extremely special circumstance, since he seems aware of the change himself and has perfect control.

Also, the cop cars will try and run over you if you walk near them, and will be replaced by a swarm of monsters. They're not real.

[Dark Shadow]

The police cars are pretty clearly not real, and the Wheelman and the Bogeyman are both special cases.

[NanayaShiki]

The answer is simple. In some rare cases someone may see a person as something else. The Missionaries in SH3, for example, and how Anne sees Murphy as the Downpour-Bogeyman. But there is always a reason behind it and it's usually involves the person's feelings towards the person they are seeing. Casual monsters are very likely NOT people. There may be mysterious disappearances in Silent Hill often, but eventually the town would be deserted for real if 50 people wind up dead or gone in a Hospital or Apartment building or, even worse, an orphanage (even a corrupt one). Thinking all the monsters are people is silly, in my opinion, as it requires hundreds of people to go missing or dead once in awhile. I've never even taken the Vincent quote to mean that. Or at the very least, to imply it's really true.

The police cars are pretty clearly not real, and the Wheelman and the Bogeyman are both special cases.

Well, the Wheelman is clearly a manifestation of Murphy's, so it's not really relevant. Frank was dead and not even in Silent Hill at the time.

[Falconv1.0]

The Bogeyman can't actually be a person either, Dark Shadow. Unless you didn't mean that, then mah bad.

Also if I'm suppose to believe those cop cars were real, I'm gonna laugh.

[Avianna]

I was thinking the same thing a bit because I choose all good things in the beginning of the game, but in the end I had all the negative endings. Someone told me your score goes down if you kill more monsters. Could this be a tie in to this theory? I wondered that the entire way through when I hadn't figured out the Anne plot twist yet.