This flashback drops us into the hospital room where Lina was born, and it’s the first time the film lets us look at the father the way he really is. Before he leaves the room, he stretches and yawns. It’s not meant to be some big dramatic insult or a symbolic gesture or anything like that. It’s literally just there to humanise him a bit because the way he stands up and walks away is borderline mechanical. He feels like a guy who’s already halfway checked out from his own family. His wife has just given birth and he basically gets up and leaves without looking at her again. It’s simple, but it says everything.
The demon creeping out of the TV behind him is something only the audience is supposed to see. He doesn’t react to it and he never sees it. The mother sees it though, and this is the start of the demon using hallucinations to wear her down. It’s the same creature that later takes her over, and this is its first attempt at getting into her head. The demon moves closer and closer to frame, and it’s that slow push that builds a bit of tension while he walks off like nothing is happening.
This scene uses a three-person layout again: mother, father, baby. The baby in the foreground helps anchor the space and keeps everything readable. The Santa toy is on the left. That toy appears earlier in the girl’s bedroom sitting on the TV, and it shows up again here to ground the world. Burlap Friends is a fictional brand in the film, so without these “normal” objects like Santa it would feel a bit artificial. The Santa is also meant to act like a silent stand-in for the child who died before Lina was born. It’s a breadcrumb for anyone paying attention.
The father looks at the Burlap Friends poster on the wall and the eyes on the poster suddenly get stabbed by the hands inside it. This wasn’t in the early version of the shot. I added it because I needed a clear visual precursor to what happens to the baby later. It hints at the blinding without directly spoiling it. I had originally wanted the mother to glance at the scalpel next to her as a setup for her final action, but that was way too on the nose. Making the poster mutilate itself ended up being a cleaner way to make the same point.
The poster is basically propaganda. It’s meant to be upbeat and colourful, but it becomes sinister the second it starts moving on its own. It shows the viewer that the demon isn’t just a physical creature. It can manipulate images and objects to cause psychological damage and emotional breakdown.
When the father finally leaves the frame, the demon fills the gap and slowly inches closer to the mother. This is the tail-end of the buildup before the big shift happens. I still need to animate the transition shot where a shadow lunges toward us and a hand pats Lina’s head, but the intention is already baked into the scene. The pat is supposed to be affectionate in a disgusting and wrong way, almost like the demon is welcoming her into the world. It’s not gentle. It’s not parental. It’s possession disguised as a gesture of care.
This flashback takes place after the son has already died, and even though it’s not obvious in the shot itself, the subtext is there. It’s the family trying to fill a space that never gets filled. That’s the whole point of this moment.
Domestic Horror and the Depiction of Parental Detachment
I leaned into the idea of emotional absence here because horror often works best when the threat begins long before anything supernatural shows up. In studies of domestic horror, one of the most effective early signals of instability is parental disengagement. His stretch and yawn function exactly like that. It is not symbolic. It is not cinematic. It is mundane. The casualness makes it hit harder. It echoes the idea that the danger in this family was already present before the demon ever entered the picture. The possession later in the film becomes an amplification of the damage he was already doing by neglect.
Supernatural Intrusion Through Hallucination
The demon appearing behind him but invisible to him is a deliberate nod to psychological horror where the environment selectively reveals itself to different characters. I was thinking about the way certain films weaponise hallucinations not as random scares but as targeted manipulation. The mother seeing the demon while the father does not reinforces the idea that she is being broken down specifically. From a folklore perspective, demons often target the emotionally vulnerable first. This moment plants that dynamic in the audience’s mind without needing dialogue.
Triangular Composition and Family Dynamics
I used a three-person layout again because triangular framing is historically linked to stability and hierarchy, which makes its breakdown more impactful. The mother, father, baby arrangement gives the whole scene a visual balance that is immediately disrupted the moment the father leaves. Once he steps out of the triangle, the entire image becomes off balance, which mirrors the emotional imbalance of the family after the death of the first child. This is also why I kept the baby in the foreground. The triangular composition needed a stable anchor, and the baby provided that.
Symbolic Continuity and Object Recurrence
The Santa toy functions as a grounding object. Psychologically, recurring objects help the world feel coherent even when supernatural events escalate. I placed it in Lina’s bedroom earlier so that when it reappears here, it creates a quiet loop for anyone paying attention. It also carries the weight of the absent child indirectly. I did not want to show flashbacks of the son yet, so using a neutral stand-in allowed me to imply his presence without revealing it prematurely. This kind of object-driven storytelling is common in films where emotional subtext needs to stay below the surface.
Body Horror Embedded in Illustration
The poster stabbing its own eyes is inspired by traditions in body horror where harmless imagery becomes a vessel for violation. I originally wanted the scalpel to be the visual connector for the blinding, but pointing at it directly felt like a spoiler. Letting the poster mutilate itself provided a controlled echo of what would happen later. It also supported the idea that the demon operates through images. Illustration is a perfect medium for psychological corruption because drawings already sit between reality and abstraction. I used that quality to make the demon’s influence feel more pervasive.
Propaganda Aesthetics in Horror
I treated the poster like a piece of corporate propaganda for Burlap Friends. Horror often pulls tension from objects that present themselves as cheerful but carry a deeper wrongness. The poster embodies that contradiction. Its bright colours and friendly tone mask the violence hidden inside the brand. When it animates and harms itself, it exposes the ideological rot at the core of the Burlap Friends world. This supports the broader theme of innocence being weaponised, especially through objects associated with children.
Spatial Replacement and Supernatural Occupation
When the father exits frame and the demon fills the exact space he vacated, I was drawing from the idea of spatial replacement in possession-based horror. The empty space left by a character becomes a doorway. The demon entering that void reads as an invasion of the family unit. It mirrors later shots where the demon physically replaces the father. This early version is symbolic, setting up the visual logic of occupation long before the audience sees it in its violent form.
Corrupted Gestures of Care
The hand pat on Lina’s mum’s head is intentionally affectionate but perverse. In research on uncanny caregiving, corrupted parental gestures are some of the most effective triggers for discomfort. A gesture that should be nurturing becomes contaminated. It blurs the line between love and control, comfort and violation. I wanted that moment to sit in the viewer’s stomach as something fundamentally wrong, especially because it happens at the moment of her birth. It sets up the idea that possession for her begins at the threshold of life itself.
Subtext of Replacement and Grief
This flashback carries the weight of the dead son even though he never appears. The absence is the point. Families in grief often try to fill holes in ways that are unspoken and unacknowledged. I wanted that energy to permeate the scene. The mother, father, and newborn sit in a room that is supposed to be hopeful, but the emotional palette is cracked. The demon exploits exactly that space. This layered subtext turns the flashback from simple exposition into an emotional hinge for the entire narrative.