This was a ride of a film; I loved it. It was a sensory experience that left me on the edge of my seat. As a viewer, I was taken on a vicarious journey along with the main character, as she listens to an occult-style podcast.

The stage is set for a spooky interview with an unknown serial killer. Everything is fun and light-hearted—until the viewer realizes that the main character is being hunted. After that, everything spirals into darkness, and the main character is shown as being consumed by the same monster she was listening to.

Now, I have a theory. I wonder if the theme is the development of paranoia after watching or listening to disturbing content.

I say this because of the shift in the main character’s behavior. She is fine at the beginning of the film, then after she starts listening to this podcast, she starts to change. She is doing laundry, and everything is normal, then her reality is warped, and the longer she listens to the interview, the more the two worlds collide. When the voice on the podcast tells her not to take out her earbuds and stop listening, I think it was her internal voice speaking to her. We all have a voice that subconsciously eggs us on, and her voice is telling her to continue listening, despite her discomfort. She is intrigued, even obsessed. She is sucked into the story and cannot detach herself. The podcast interview may or may not be fictional, but to the main character, it is real. She is listening with her mobile device, but she is living the experience, too.

The girl who died was real. She can feel it. If the circumstances were different, then it could have been her, and that is what drives her horror. She is like the killer’s victims, and her mind starts to simulate the setting that the victim was killed in—what she may have seen, what she may have felt, how she may have looked, even going as far as to accuse the laundry clerk of being a suspect. She is consumed by the story.

When the main character finally takes out her earbuds, she is left in an eerie silence. Now, the real fun begins because her mind begins to pick up where the story left off.

Obsession and paranoia are unique horrors because they stay with a person long after the moment is over.

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