In SH 3 when Vincent implies that the monsters Heather has been killing aren't monsters at all is there truth to that?  Is she under the influence of White Dahlia or some other sort of halucenogin (sp).  And why is there ash falling from the sky in SH 1 and here?

bump

I don't really know. I think the unreliable narrator is an  interesting concept to be explored in games. I mean for all you really know she could have been a psychopath and the whole game could be the justification of why she is killing innocent people, they are all monsters or something like that. But yeah I think that is a really interesting thing for a game to explore, can you trust the character you're playing as, essentially the person who's eyes you are seeing through. Can you trust the characters' perception of the world around them?

nope, they're a punch of pixels that appear on your tv screen

There is no canon way to argue a "no" or a "yes" in the debate about whether or not Heather might be killing people in the game. Both Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 imply that there's three versions of the town, the two our protagonists visit and a third, a "real" one, where there are actually people living in the town. But both also make clear that the protagonists do not interact with the "third one". At the same time, there is no real canon as to how Silent Hill interacts with people.

In SH1, according to the interpretation that makes most sense, The foggy world is created by Dahlia Gillespie and both the dark world and the monster are created by Alessa/Cheryl.
In SH2, the "town" summons people who can interact with one another but seem to perceive the town altogether differently. (Eddie sees people, James sees monsters, laura doesn't, Angela sees a "flaming" world), and the monsters are created subconciously by James.

Creating a canon, we must assume that the "otherworlds" of the town were created by Alessa/Cheryl in the first game. The game depicts Harry Masons journey as Alessa and Dahlia both try to use Harry and seize control over the otherworlds. Dahlia is killed and Alessa/Cheryl becomes Heather. The otherworlds did not disappear, but assumed a "life" of their own, which could be entered (and in some cases, manipulated or deformed) by people with similar mental troubles as Alessa/Cheryl. Neither SH1 nor SH2  confute that a "real" Silent Hill might exist outside of what we've seen, and SH3 introduces quite a lot of people with this exact opinion ("It used to be a nice, quiet place").

Silent Hill 3 is special insofar that Heather doesn't have any real problem. She is not looking for somebody, nor is there anything wrong in her head. She "created" the otherworld, left it, but carried a part of the demon inside of her, and with its growth, she gets sucked back to Silent Hill. Every monster in the game is either "child/childhood" or "double personality"-themed, so the appearance of the demons, just like James' demons, comes right out of Heathers head. The boss battles also depict intercourse, conception fetal growth and childbirth. If you ask me, no, Heather does not kill real people, because it's still the same otherworld and if she killed people, Harry and James did so as well, and we know ("It used to be a nice, quiet place") that they didn't.
However, Heather is it's creator, and the demon was getting stronger. Who knows what they're capable of?

I was just scared shitless of pyramid head tbh - i'd kill that fucker 20 times over ot be sure - monster or nay!

Thanks Meowayne that was a really good explanation.  And OmegaPirate... I agree.

^_^ that guy is too creepy - he even sexually assaults other monsters dammit!