#genre: psychological

[cinema-hallucinations]

Prompt: create a movie concept for a psychological horror story that centers around undone laundry.

Title: Laundry Day

Tagline: Can a stain of the soul ever be cleansed?

Logline: Eleanor, a once-proud homemaker trapped in a web of obsessive-compulsive disorder, drowns in a sea of unwashed clothes, each garment a canvas of imagined bloodstains echoing a past sin she desperately tries to scrub clean. Reality and delusion collide in a horrifying climax that forces her son to confront a truth more terrifying than he could imagine.

Characters:

Eleanor (50s): A woman consumed by guilt and delusion. She was once a meticulous housekeeper, now lost in a world of unwashed laundry and haunting memories.

Leo (30s): Eleanor's estranged son, concerned but unable to break through the wall of her paranoia. He seeks help from a therapist to understand his mother's condition.

Dr. Park (40s): A compassionate therapist struggling to decipher Eleanor's fractured reality and the truth behind her crippling fear. (deceased by climax)

Plot Summary:

Eleanor's once-immaculate home is now a suffocating prison of unwashed clothes. The crisp whites are replaced by a sea of grays and faded colors, each garment a suspected canvas of crimson stains. Haunted by a past she can't articulate, Eleanor believes these stains are proof of a horrific act that remains shrouded in secrecy.

Leo, estranged from his mother for years, arrives to find her drowning in self-inflicted filth. Desperate to help, he seeks the counsel of Dr. Park, a therapist experienced in treating OCD and trauma.

Dr. Park enters a twisted world where laundry becomes a sinister entity. Eleanor speaks in hushed tones about the "blood clothes," each piece a constant reminder of a past sin. She fixates on unseen stains, imagining them staining her own skin, mirroring Lady Macbeth's desperate handwashing. Dr. Park, with a combination of patience and skillful prompting, manages to coax a confession out of Eleanor.

Whether the crime is real or a figment of Eleanor's illness becomes irrelevant in the face of her escalating mania. The act of confessing, even to a single person, shatters the fragile barrier she has built around her delusions. Driven by a warped sense of needing to "cleanse" herself completely, she attacks Dr. Park in a sudden burst of violence.

Leo, alerted by the commotion, arrives to find his mother attempting to hide Dr. Park's body amidst the piles of laundry. The task is gruesomely made more difficult by Eleanor's self-mutilation, which has resulted (amongst others) in her severing her own left hand entirely. Her other hand, raw and bloodied from her own obsessive scrubbing, is a chilling testament to her mental state.

Themes:

The destructive power of guilt and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The blurred lines between reality and delusion in mental illness.

The burden of a hidden past and its devastating consequences.

The lengths to which a disturbed mind can go to achieve a twisted sense of peace.

Ending:

The film offers no easy answers. The ambiguity of the crime remains. The final scene could depict Leo, heartbroken and terrified, standing amidst the mountains of laundry with his wounded mother. Sirens wail in the distance, signaling the arrival of the authorities. Eleanor, her eyes vacant and glazed, reaches out to touch a white garment hanging on a nearby line, its pristine innocence a stark contrast to the horror that has unfolded. The closing shot focuses on Leo's face, etched with a mixture of grief, fear, and a chilling uncertainty about the truth behind his mother's murderous act.

[theannypetite]

Omega Files

Time to Read: 1 minute Due to a bizarre suicide case, Song Bei asked the eccentric medical examiner Shan Bo for help. Shan Bo reluctantly agrees, and the two set out to solve the case. In the process, Song Bei learns of Shan Bo’s unusual autopsy method. Continue reading Omega Files

[alivingmel]

I don't know what I was expecting when I looked up manatee anatomy the other day, but it was not that manatees have like. . . Fully-fledged hand bones.

(They're incapable of individual finger movement but still, according to someone on Reddit that had a male manatee fall in love with her, THEY HAVE A VERY STRONG GRIP.)

[ryan-is-a-god]

Love a good lesbian love story that starts with murder and betrayals.

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: psychological

[gl4m0ur0us]

women in horror: red

carrie (1976)

house (1977)

suspiria (1977)

pearl (2022)

the shining (1980)

the love witch (2016)

black swan (2010)

us (2019)

terfs dni with this post

[skunkes]

longlegs fucking sucked 😭

[idiot-business]

saltburn is to 2023 what kill your darlings was to 2013 i think

[fyepertine]

Demon at the Temple

[just-a-living-meat-thing]

I’m fascinated by horror and for me, I feel like I’m drawn to it because of all these things. However my main reason is probably because I relate to it or find it oddly comforting in a way—and no, I can’t elaborate unfortunately. I do not know why the Horrors™️ give me the warm fuzzies

[monakisu]

p5 mementos thoughts

i know it's meant to be an adaptation of jung's collective unconscious shenanigans but i think it'd be SO Cool to imagine mementos as some sort of living creature...

it's an amalgamation meshed with tokyo's urban metropolis environment so you'd notice the familiar stuff first, like train tracks and stations, but staying long enough in mementos reveals that it's still very much alive. you're exploring its innards! the walls are fleshy and veiny and pulsate verrryyy slowly to the rhythm of breathing or heartbeats, the wandering shadows can be thought of as bacteria or protein, and the reaper's obviously the immune system kicking in with its very determined white blood cell gunning to eliminate you the virus!!

and i like to think that metaverse costumes not only serve Stamina and Style (the two essentials) but also sorta trick mementos into thinking you "belong" in its body—at the very least, you're not food anymore! like, if the world's luckiest unluckiest human managed to noclip into mementos and somehow avoided evisceration via shadows, imagine if the floors and walls have been secreting a subtle acid and by the time this human notices their sneakers corroding away and how moist and raw their palms have gotten, they finally realize that they've been caught in the process of digestion! but of course metaverse users are safe and sound from turning into a goopy gooey mess :]

i especially enjoy likening mementos to the tunnel in Coraline that connects the real world with the other world + the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park in Texas :D both are creatures so massive that they breach eldritch proportions, and you the human are sooo itty bitty you've basically only been wandering in a single blood vessel out of an entire circulation system! or something like that!!

[cinema-hallucinations]

Prompt: generate a movie concept for a slow moving psychological drama involving heavy gaslighting and workplace abuse between the workers in a shoe store.

Title: The Instep

Tagline: A Descent into Retail Hell

Logline: Trapped in a dead-end shoe store job, a meek new employee is slowly broken down by a manipulative coworker, blurring the lines between reality and manufactured insecurity.

Major Characters:

Evelyn Thorne (30s): Soft-spoken and eager to please, Evelyn takes a job at The Instep to support her art career.

Mavis Gary (50s): The store manager, Mavis is a seemingly friendly veteran with a sharp tongue and a talent for passive-aggressive manipulation.

David Flores (20s): The only other employee besides Evelyn and Mavis, David is observant but avoids confrontation.

Plot Summary:

Evelyn lands a job at The Instep, a small, struggling shoe store in a decaying mall. Mavis, the veteran manager, takes her under her wing, showering her with praise and "helpful" advice. However, Mavis's compliments quickly turn into subtle criticisms of Evelyn's appearance, work ethic, and artistic aspirations.

David, the other employee, witnesses Mavis's behavior but remains silent, fearing for his own job security. Evelyn, desperate to please and naive to workplace dynamics, begins to doubt herself. Mavis strategically withholds training, assigns impossible tasks, and spreads rumors about Evelyn among the store's few customers.

As weeks turn into months, Evelyn's self-esteem crumbles. She questions her own memory and perception. Her artistic pursuits fall by the wayside as she becomes consumed by the daily emotional beatdown at work. The once bright and hopeful Evelyn becomes withdrawn and paranoid.

The film follows Evelyn's slow descent, punctuated by moments of clarity where she glimpses the truth of Mavis's manipulation. The climax arrives when a new shipment arrives, and Evelyn, at her wit's end, explodes, confronting Mavis in front of a bewildered customer.

Themes:

The insidious nature of gaslighting and emotional abuse.

The power dynamics within a seemingly mundane workplace.

The struggle to maintain self-worth in a toxic environment.

Visual Style:

The film utilizes a muted color palette, reflecting the drab and sterile atmosphere of the shoe store. Long, static shots emphasize the monotony of Evelyn's daily routine. Close-ups capture the subtle shifts in facial expressions, highlighting the psychological battle between Evelyn and Mavis.

The Instep is a slow-burn drama that explores the devastating effects of emotional abuse in an unexpected setting.

[theannypetite]

We're All Transmigrators, so Why am I the Criminal?

After dying while escorting hostages, Li Changtian wakes up as a beggar next to a body in ancient times. While trying to save her, he’s seen and assumed he is a murderer. Grand Inspector Yan Shu gets involved, trying to solve the case and prove Li Changtian killed her. Continue reading We’re All Transmigrators, so Why am I the Criminal?

[sagaubeloved]

I don’t know if this is something I READ or something I thought of in passing and just kept forgetting about, but the basic idea is that the things the Creator comes into contact with (mainly literature) is recreated within Teyvat.

But it was more in the sense that even if the Creator hadn’t read the book it would still appear. However, those books that weren’t read would be faded, barely there scribbles that are not discernible and thus not as important to the Creator in comparison to the things they have read.

In that way, I thought how funny it would be that if-and-due to the Creator being a college student there are all these various poems, post-colonial literature, plays, biology, communications, etc just popping into existence and the people of Teyvat believing that the Creator really enjoyed knowledge and the arts.

(Maybe that can cause a long standing argument between Sumeru scholars and those who prefer the arts?)

Would this include the things the Creator writes? Essays and such? Yes, because it is something the Creator interacted with, and no less created themselves!

For me I really like essays, but it also depends on what it is the essay is going to be about, that’s where it can turn from an essay of 10 pages easily or a trudging essay with blurbs. (Just imagine seeing your school essay glorified somewhere as fact and your just there trying not react because you wrote that one thing while sick, and high as a kite at 3 am on a school night; wtf is it doing in that glass casing for all of Teyvat to witness??)

Similarly, if the Creator enjoys reading in general, all those things come into existence even if those things existed by way of technology only, ie. Fanfiction.

So imagine when the Creator descends they are at first confused and then upset because I still have so many things to read! I still have so many things to write! I had a project due in a week! And then stops in bewilderment because —

Wait, isn’t that… isn’t that the novel they had in their To Read list?? Wait isn’t that a story they already read?! Oh no, everyone is witness to your reading habits!!

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

saw speak no evil last night, which i really enjoyed! it proved to be my very favorite kind of stressful movie, i.e. a slowburn thriller where people go to a beautiful and remote location and then Things Go So Wrong! it reminded me a lot of other faves ex machina, men, 10 cloverfield lane, the menu, ready or not, the recent blink twice, etc.

just some thoughts about this movie (spoilers!)--

+ i really enjoyed all the gender role stuff going on in this one a whole bunch. this is, of course, a classic gothic romp in my eyes. therefore, watching the dad -- down on his luck, feeling emasculated by his female family and by life not favoring him as much as it was supposed to! -- get seduced by the alpha male andrew tate-y bs embodied by james mcavoy's character, like the dad was but a shrinking naive gothic heroine missing or even lusting after all the red flags, was SUCH a fun subversion to me. yes! yes!!!

+ every time that mackenzie davis's character tried to establish boundaries and they got run over and then she let it slide to be palatable, i viscerally FELT THAT. there was, of course, a big element of 'privileged people wanting to appear woke so they keep being boundlessly pityingly nice to the poor people', but even deeper than that, i think this was a great portrayal of how women in particular are expected to constantly accommodate and ignore their intuition. the bit with making her eat the goose. D: and it got worse!

+ i also really liked how in the big showdown, the mom and the kids were the ones who actually took out the enemies, and the dad was the only one without a 'kill' to his name. (though he did sacrifice himself by jumping off the roof, mirroring Accomplice Wife's self-sacrificial death!)

+ gosh, the dark implications re: Accomplice Wife's character were so harrowing - the victim becoming the abuser - and the fact that the little girl was being primed to follow in her footsteps ..... D:

+ i enjoyed that the kids were the ones who had the sort of Big Finding Bluebeard's Closet Of Dead Wives Reveal. (my bf pointed out that this is a bluebeard story, and it so is! my favorite!) that sort of ASOUE-y feeling of kids having to make it on their own because adults aren't a guaranteed source of safety. MAN, poor ant. :'( that kid had a HORRIBLE time. i really admire his persistence in keeping on fighting and trying to communicate.

+ i saw someone in the reddit discussion thread say that couple vs. couple is an underrated trope, and i agree! would love to see more of that in cinema.

+ love how the title operates both on the level of "this kid can speak no evil about what we do because we cut his tongue out" AND "don't ever say anything mean to people or you might hurt their feelings and what could possibly be worse than that (oh, this, i guess) 😬"

+ can't believe they did nick miller's favorite song cotton eyed joe so dirty like that. :( that scene honestly brought tears to my eyes from pure misery. the fact that some parents really do treat their kids like that ...................... (even if that wound up not being totally the situation in this particular movie). disgusting and heartbreaking.

+ the most a+ "eternal flame" use since gilmore girls.

+ after i watched the movie i read up on what the original film was like, and may i just say: that would have broken me psychologically in the movie theatre. thank god i didn't have to see that. THANK GOD! sometimes american optimism really works for me, honestly. if it's a gothic, then in the gothic, they've always got to make it out at the end!!! bruised and bloodied and haunted but still standing! so i'm really glad they did!

+ it honestly never occurred to me that people would thirst over james mcavoy in this movie, because he's so gross and horrible, but it takes all sorts to make a world, it turns out. the internet teaches me that every day!

+ anyway, i had a great time watching this! would definitely watch again! but gosh, was it a special kind of fun and stressful to watch it unfold the first time.

[notverycolonthreeofyou]

I love writing creek fics because it’s always Craig living his romcom dreams falling in love meanwhile Tweek is in so much emotional pain he’s having the worst time of his life