SHRINK CHAT: Impetigore, Shadow in the Cloud & Swallow

How early can a child tell when you’re faking it?

Content note: discussion of a curse and violence against children in Impetigore, an assault scene, pica and compulsive swallowing, child abduction, and drug-related crime.

We open with Jordan Peele’s plans for The People Under the Stairs and Horror Facts with Cath, then new research showing that children as young as three are already judging the adults around them. Our buddy watch is Impetigore, Joko Anwar’s Indonesian folk horror. Then it’s A Good Woman Is Hard to Find, Jo Nesbø’s novel The Snowman, Shadow in the Cloud with Chloë Grace Moretz in a B-17 gun turret, Swallow and its portrait of pica, and two Peter Cushing classics, The Creeping Flesh and The Beast Must Die.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy talk about how young children read intent, fairness and genuine smiles, why early mirroring between caregiver and child shapes personality structure, how a convincing adult can fool a child’s moral radar, motherhood and birth in horror, and whether a film about pica helps or exploits.

Covered in this episode:

• Jordan Peele and The People Under the Stairs
• Horror Facts with Cath
• Little kids are already judging you: the research
• Mirroring, attachment and personality structure
• Impetigore (2019), our buddy watch
• A Good Woman Is Hard to Find (2019)
• Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman
• Shadow in the Cloud (2020) and Chloë Grace Moretz
• Swallow (2019) and pica
• The Creeping Flesh (1973) and The Beast Must Die (1974)

Clinical themes: moral development in young children, reading intent and sincerity, attachment and mirroring, manipulation and grooming risk, pica and compulsion, maternal protection, birth and power in horror.

Corrections and updates: Jordan Peele co-wrote and produced Candyman (2021) and is producing The People Under the Stairs remake; the original is from 1991. In Children of the Corn, John Franklin played Cousin Itt in the 1991 Addams Family film, not the original series. A Good Woman Is Hard to Find is set in Northern Ireland. The Snowman is the seventh Harry Hole novel and is set in Norway. Swallow premiered at Tribeca in 2019, where Haley Bennett won Best Actress. Impetigore was Indonesia’s submission for the 93rd Academy Awards.

Related episodes:

• SHRINK CHAT: The Call, Promising Young Woman & Super Dark Times
• HORROR IS PSYCHOLOGY: Behind Our Manson, Bundy & Amanda Knox Episodes
• PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Horror, Joker, Hereditary & The Babadook

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

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