HAUNTE COUTURE HOUSE TREATMENT #38 (EVENT PART 13/15)
CODENAME: SEARCHING
LOCATION: SPRUNG TENT 1
HAUNTED HOUSE TREATMENT
HAUNTE COUTURE “UNOFFICIAL EVENT”
STARTED DECEMBER 14, 2023
HIGH CONCEPT
“Go to sleep.”
Jeff The Killer
“Spread the word.”
Smile Dog
“Please wake up.”
“Wake Up”
Back on the old Encyclopedia Dramatica back in 2008, the user “Sesseur” spontaneously created a story that they probably didn’t imagine being much of a big deal at the time of its creation. The tale, quite shoddy in retrospect if we’re being frank, is known to anybody who has even spent a casual length of time in the online horror community.
Two brothers move to a new town. They are threatened by three bullies. Young Jeff Lastname (Woods, Hodek, it varies) beats these bullies down, with his brother (Lui) taking the fall and getting arrested (what?). A later encounter with these same bullies at a party leads to young Jeffrey taking an alcohol and bleach cocktail to the face and becoming horribly burnt and disfigured, the main feature being his skin being completely bleached a blank white (and dyed his hair black I guess? Listen, bleach can’t even turn your skin white in the first place, it doesn’t make a lick of sense).
Jeffrey, now also being insane (which the doctors apparently believe is a painkiller side effect, good job), commits to being batshit by cutting his mouth and cheeks into a permanent smile and burning off his eyelids so that he may always see his hideous face. Jeff massacres his parents and brother (who returns to the story basically unphased), whom he tells to “Go To Sleep” because punchline!
Whatever fear and intrigue the image of Jeff The Killer brought upon first arrival was massacred via the story attached to it and major MAJOR overuse amongst the online horror community, especially via newcomers who would write new equally bad Jeff stories just to get a story out there and get attention for using a well-known internet horror baddie. Slender Man, The Rake, BEN, they’re all in the same therapy session for “overused by young creative writers”.
So, with all that going on, it took a lot longer than you’d think for someone to ask: “Hey, where did that genuinely strange-ass image come from?”. The original Encyclopedia Dramatica content has been wiped from the timeline. Theories gather. It’s an edited photo of a bullied girl who offed herself, it’s just a random edit of a camgirl, and in 2015, Sesseur came out with confidence and said that it was a self-created image with a latex mask and some makeup. All seems well and good with that explanation.
But Sesseur himself knows that is a lie. It comes out shortly thereafter that that exact image has existed as far back as three years before the original story on the Japanese internet. Sources from the Japanese internet seemingly claim that it’s a result of a middle-aged woman getting too close to a camera and causing a strange effect. If it’s true, it may be lost to time, so it’s unclear.
Sesseur, slowly but surely, begins to find himself haunted by the question “Where did the image come from?” and the answers he can never actually find. He begins to see things, including Jeff himself, but differently. The original Jeff The Killer eventually morphs into other beings, similar and well-known, a chain with one clear distinct feature: a grin.
This is a dive into some of the Internet’s most well-known, well-used, well-maligned in some cases, legends, and what ties them together, a connection that never should’ve been found and that starts with Jeff The Killer and ends with the creation of something new entirely…and Sesseur, dragging us along for the search, will not come out of it the same…
SHORT / MAP DESCRIPTION
The mystery of the image of Creepypasta “legend” Jeff The Killer will take you and your scream squad down a rabbit hole, where a twisted grin stalks us through well-known images and stories, growing wider and wider…
CONCEPT NOTES
So obviously, I’m mixing quite a few well-known concepts into this one. Obviously, Jeff The Killer is a major focus. The original inspiration for this maze was the intrigue behind the origin of the Jeff The Killer image, and the fact that the original writer of the story didn’t even know and even lied about it. That entire dynamic, to me, was really fascinating. I really wondered how that writer felt about that whole thing. Would it not be a touch concerning that you’d popularized one of the most infamous images in internet horror, but had no clue where it actually came from?
That is where the initial creation of this maze came in…originally, intended as a spiritual sequel to my old “Traumatosis – Stalking Wounds” maze but used Jeff The Killer and his creator as a basis, a meta take on an old creepypasta that otherwise would have a very bland presentation. Then, I got more inspired!
For those unaware, yes, the idea of all of the famous internet images being one entity mainly focused around one of the big images…is riffing pretty hard from the “Chainmail Chasers” YouTube channel, though that channel puts the focus on Smile Dog. This is an alternative take on that, though heading in a more physical, fleshed-out in terms of settings and visuals, concept (obviously – compare a YouTube series set on screens compared to a physical HHN maze). That’s expanded the concept.
And then, I made my final connection, and it came from the original codename I had for this maze when it was just a Jeff The Killer-based maze…” GRIN”. A lot of these old internet horror stories, Jeff, Smile Dog, The Smiling Man, many touched upon in Chainmail Chaser all share the same big ol spooky grin. So I decided to really touch upon that and make the main entity of sorts the grin itself, an infectious mouth that pastes itself onto images that need that extra touch and spreads its’ grinning teeth through the reactions the images get.
Through this, I’m obviously taking extra credit inspiration from “SMILE”, in regards to both the use of psychological and, not to spoil the maze, body horror as well.
I think the final result is quite fun! Enjoy!
SCENE 0: FACADE (EXT. LAPTOP)
TALENT: N/A
HAND PROPS: N/A
SCENIC: Large “laptop screen” facade, large “Jeff The Killer” writing page behind the “laptop screen”
PROPS / DECOR: N/A
GENERAL AUDIO: Narration from Sesseur, sounds of clicking keys
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: N/A
VIDEO: Video projected onto the “laptop screen” of someone clicking around the screen and taking a look through the files of several Creepypasts and their attached images
LIGHTING: Projection lighting of a keyboard on the pathway leading up to the facade with “keys” glowing as if they’re being pressed
SPFX: N/A
NOTES: N/A
SESSEUR
In regards to “internet fame”, I would say I got lucky…
As we walk the path to the entrance of Sprung Tent 1, we begin to hear the narration of one Sesseur, the original writer of a story we all know – “Jeff The Killer”. He’s giving us an overview of his life up to the original creation of the story, talking about the infamous image.
SESSEUR
I didn’t want to be the loser who took someone’s image for their story, so I tried to pass it off as my own, but that didn’t work either…
He details that while he’s not commented publicly on the matter of the original image since he lied and got exposed, the possibilities, the rumors that have been thrown out to the wind about it have slowly begun to haunt him to the point where he feels he has no choice but to make his own search for the image.
SESSEUR
When you really start to gather all of these old mid-2000s stories together, you realize that there are some distinct traits that you can’t ignore…
In each of these stories and their images, there is a common trait – the evil smile, the grin. Jeff The Killer, Smile Dog, The Smiling Man, BEN, even going into ones outside of the main “creepypasta pantheon”. Once you see a few of them, you see it everywhere, and Sesseur admits that not only is he seeing the grin everywhere, but it’s beginning to look like the exact same grin in all of these stories, even when it’s impossible.
Even worse…
SESSEUR
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I..saw Jeff, the other day. He looked exactly like I claimed he was, a latex mask, but there was something off. It was a mask, but it still didn’t feel human…
His creation (at least in terms of backstory), Jeff The Killer, has begun to appear in his everyday life. He fears that whatever is tying all these stories together, The Grin has gotten wind of his search and is now taking decisive action against him. In the vein of other infamous internet horror stories, he has begun to do audio recordings in case he goes missing.
After his story cuts off and restarts, we can now focus on what’s in front of us – quite literally, a giant laptop screen (ala the drive-in screen from Slaughter Sinema, just with that “border” around the edges to give it that look) with a keyboard appearing in projection on the ground in front of it, the sound of clicking keys and ones that glow telling us that this laptop is in use.
On the screen, there is a completely black background, the standard internet options, and a variety of the “classics” that Sesseur refers to in his narration placed in files around the screen, which the cursor slowly proceeds over to and clicks, briefly browsing their stories but mainly collecting images and “reported sightings” and compiling it into a new file – “The Grin”. There is a “jumpscare” element just from some of these infamous “shock” images appearing directly on the screen, though with Sesseur’s narration dominating, there is no actual sound from the large laptop. After a few images, a grin (like the one in the logo), suddenly appears in the laptop background, causing its’ user to frantically shut down the laptop…though it restarts in a few seconds to reset the cycle.
We walk forward and find ourselves able to push directly into the screen itself, right into the area of the “Jeff The Killer” file, as if we’re clicking it ourselves to open it. As we push through the screen, we’re not in the Tent just yet as we stare up at a large “page” that has opened up for us, the beginning of the original Jeff The Killer story.
STORY
After weeks of unexplained murders…
Things are as normal as they can be for this story, but right as it gets to the line “A young boy states that he survived one of the killer’s attacks and bravely tells his story”, the “text” on the “page” has curved down to form into something resembling a smile, also serving as a way to “point” downwards, where we see there is a “tear” in the page that we can enter, and we do so justly…
SCENE 1: GO TO SLEEP (INT. SESSEUR’S BEDROOM)
TALENT: Jeff The Killer
HAND PROPS: Knife
SCENIC: Bedroom w/ “classical” wallpaper (w/ hidden grins), writing nook alcove, open closet, open window in wall for Talent
PROPS / DECOR: Modern bed w/ metal backboard placed under an open window, Modern desk w/ laptop on it, chair w/ Sesseur figure sat down, printed-out excerpts of classic Creepypastas/internet horror stories and newspaper clippings pinned to the wall and scattered around the floor, large antique mirror, clothes hanging up in the closet
GENERAL AUDIO: Narration, Sounds of typing, crickets chirping
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Dialogue from Jeff The Killer
VIDEO: Computer screen playing a smaller version of the Facade video
LIGHTING: Dim moonlight, glow from the computer
SPFX: Mist coming in from open window, musty stench
NOTES: N/A
SESSEUR
The encounter was strange…
We walk into Sprung Tent 1 and down the initial pathway to enter a bedroom, none other than Sesseur’s own bedroom as he briefly talks more about his initial encounter with the Jeff The Killer lookalike.
The bedroom itself has that classic Damask wallpaper, red and white colored, though a close look at the designs shows something…some things hidden in them, subtle little smiles that you have to look to find, but they’re there. The Grin continues to follow us…and it seems that Sesseur is looking deep into anything that could source The Grin. Pinned onto the walls with pins running between them like an evidence board are not only excerpts from Creepypasts like Sesseur’s own Jeff The Killer, but Smile Dog, Mr. Widemouth, and others that contain that theme of smiling and/or grinning. Newspaper clippings describing strange real-life sightings of smiling and grinning people have also been included.
Disposed of on the floor are excepts from stories that aren’t seemingly as related to the overall connection, Slender Man among them as well as some other notables. The source of all of these excerpts (as well as the sound of typing that we’ve begun hearing) is from a small writing nook that’s been carved out of part of the wall where Sesseur himself (black hoodie and jeans, not too different from his creation) sits in a chair, his back turned to us and works diligently on a laptop…a closer look shows us that what’s occurring on the laptop is exactly what we saw outside the tent.
Looking around, we’re staring at ourselves in a large antique mirror…and we’re startled by the fact that we see a grin, faintly glowing behind us inside an open closet that we hadn’t noticed before we saw it in the mirror. We turn, but can’t actually look closer inside the closet from the angle we’re walking at. We attempt to turn as we pass by Sesseur’s bed, but there’s a mist coming from the open window above the bed getting in our faces, and even worse, we’re suddenly attacked by a figure from the window!
JEFF THE KILLER
Go to sleep!
It’s Jeff himself, a gleaming blood-stained knife in his hand, appearing exactly how he would in the photo…though something is off about his face, it almost looks like a latex mask being stretched over something a lot larger than it as if this isn’t actually Jeff The Killer as much as someone…or something masquerading as the infamous look. We back away from his knife as he grins at us and we move to make our way out of the bedroom…
SCENE 2: BAD DREAM (INT. BUSSTOP)
TALENT: Bully, Grifter
HAND PROPS: Baseball bat for Bully, Fake baby for Grifter
SCENIC: Brick walls w/ graffiti & grins spray-painted on, Swaying “surrealism” bus stop, alcove for Grifter
PROPS / DECOR: Two bully figures standing up, Sesseur figure splayed on ground, Twisted street signs, shattered glass, hanging dreamcatchers, warped bench, distorted lamppost, scattered school backpacks w/ supplies, baby carriage
GENERAL AUDIO: Sounds of laughter and beatdown
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Dialogue from Bully, Dialogue from Grifter
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Harsh flickering spotlights, General red hue
SPFX: Fog, air bursts, smell of spraypaint
NOTES: N/A
Escaping the bedroom, we find ourselves…outside? That’s strange, though we have a quick explanation in the form of some hanging dreamcatchers (with little grins on them) that we have to push to our side…seems as if we’ve stepped straight into a dream, but whose dream? The harsh smell of spray paint is not what we would expect from Sesseur admittedly.
We look and see that we’re located at a bus stop…albeit one taken straight out of surrealism art, as the bus stop seems to literally be swaying to one side. Everything in its’ immediate area is warped as well, a bench is warped, a lamppost is distorted, and some street signs are twisting in on themselves. We begin to hear the sounds of laughing and…what sounds like someone being punched?
There is a figure splayed on the floor covered in blood and wounds…Sesseur himself, it seems. A group of hooligans, strangely younger than Sesseur, stand above him, the culprits of this crime we’ve just witnessed. Their schoolyard clothing is tattered, and they all have hideous unrealistic grins on their face, along with wielding weapons…a chain in one’s hand, a skateboard in another’s, and their leader wields a baseball bat, which he suddenly steps forward from being on poor Sesseur to try to hit us with! He has some words to speak to…us? Or Sesseur?
BULLY
It seems we must do this the hard way!
Just as quickly as he approached us, the Bully returns to beating down Sesseur, who it seems may have been the true recipient of that message, but for what reason? Could it have something to do with The Grin, which now appears as graffiti on the brick walls around us? The small of paint and the flickering spotlights are almost overpowering, as we turn a corner to see a quick strange sight.
There is a random baby carriage just put ajar in front of an alcove, before suddenly a grinning skeletal zombie-like creature leers out from the darkness behind the carriage, holding a fake (yet grinning) baby to give us some words:
GRIFTER
Your race is one that is dying.
The creature opens its’ mouth over the fake baby for a moment, before silently returning to the darkness, leaving things ambiguous. We push through some more dreamcatchers, aiming to leave this strange dream…
SCENE 3: SPREAD THE WORD (INT. HALLWAYS – SESSEUR’S HOUSE)
TALENT: Smile Dog Puppet Operator, Mr. Widemouth Puppet User
HAND PROPS: Technically the puppets/systems of operation themselves I guess
SCENIC: Narrow halls in Sesseur’s house, Ripped & scratched Damask wallpaper with large grins imprinted into the wood, Cabinet set up for Mr. Widemouth’s puppet
PROPS / DECOR: Shifting portraits, non-shifting portraits w/ smashed glass, shredded dog toys
GENERAL AUDIO: Sesseur dialogue, Window smash, scratching sounds “inside” the walls
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Howl from Smile Dog, Hissing & knife unsheathing noise from Mr. Widemouth
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Flickering overhead lights, glowing eyes on puppets
SPFX: Cold breeze from broken window, shifting portraits
NOTES: Smile Dog is the AWIL-style bipedal puppet, whereas Widemouth is more akin to a hand puppet (Chucky-coded)
As we push through the dreamcatchers and seemingly back in reality, we’re immediately startled by the sound of a window smashing open somewhere down the hallway we’ve walked into. We’re not the only people that are startled, as right afterward we hear the voice of Sesseur again, alarmed by the noise:
SESSEUR
Who’s there?! I’m calling the cops!
As we begin to walk down the halls to check out the disturbance, we discover a series of scratches and rips all over the Damask-designed walls in this portion of the hallway. Behind the portions of the wall, we discover that the grins are literally carved into the wood itself, the “infection” is seeping deeper into the house itself.
We see a series of portraits on the wall, some of them have had their frames smashed in and tilted on the walls. Some of the portraits are perfectly pristine but the people within them seem to shift into large, frightening grins as we pass by them. There is also a series of dog toys on the ground, though they’ve all been ripped and shredded, left on the floor as if to send a message.
Finally, we find the broken window, a cold breeze beginning to swoosh in, and suddenly there’s a loud howl as a large husky dog (strangely muscley in places) is on its’ hindlegs and sticking its’ front half into our window and grinning at us, staring us down with glowing eyes. We back away from the strange dog, to keep heading down the hallway and likely make due on that “call the police” threat.
However, before we can escape, a cabinet in the walls opens us and reveals the source of the scratches, tears, and ripped toys – a small, malicious brown Furby-like creature known as Mr. Widemouth who wields a knife just like Jeff did, lets out a loud hiss at us and swings. However, looking closely, it almost looks as if something is holding onto the grinning Furby, influencing its actions.
Before we can ponder more on that, we’re inclined to flee before Widemouth gashes us, so we do just that, leaving the hallway…
SCENE 4: DOCTOR’S VISIT (INT. “DOCTOR’S OFFICE”)
TALENT: Grinning Doctor, “Funnymouth”, “Laughing Jack”
HAND PROPS: Clipboard for Grinning Doctor, Music Box for “Laughing Jack”
SCENIC: Doctor’s office + additional small hallway, plain white walls, barred doors in hallway
PROPS / DECOR: Examination table w/ Sesseur figure stat on it, Medical charts & diagrams, medical tools & instruments, Prescription pads & pens, Funhouse mirrors, Medical artwork, medical waste bin, empty pill bottles, broken clock
GENERAL AUDIO: Beeping medical equipment, distant chattering, doors opening and closing, whispering
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Dialogue sequence from Grinning Doctor, Gurgling from “Funnymouth”, Laughter from “Laughing Jack”
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Harsh flicking fluorescent lighting, sudden blackouts
SPFX: N/A
NOTES: N/A
And abruptly ending up…in a doctor’s office? We immediately look to our left and see Sesseur sitting on an examination table, with a doctor with his back turned to us talking to him, both seemingly static. The rest of the room is lively though, with beeps coming from all the medical equipment around us, attached to the walls.
SESSEUR
What the hell is this?!
DOCTOR
Your behavior is typical of patients who have taken very large amounts of painkillers.
Suddenly, the doctor turns around quickly, revealing that he isn’t a static figure, but an actual human being, a wide-grinned lab-coating-wearing fiend. He wields a clipboard in his hand that diagnoses Sesseur with “rampant hallucinations” and recommends permanent isolation.
DOCTOR
I think you should just take a few more!
There is a stack of prescription pads, pill bottles, and multiple pens, all of which have the familiar grin on them. Everything in this room feels subtly off, broken, or slanted. Are we back in the dream, or has something evil slipped into our reality? Not wanting to get our own twisted prescription, we out out of the office and head down a hallway that looks…decidedly more like “asylum” than a genuine hospital. There is strange surreal medical-based artwork (with more grins) on the walls that only serves to make things even more uncomfortable if we’re being frank.
There is a series of barred doors lining the sides, and a few of them can open right up at us, including one just to our left, where a patient in a torn and bloodstained hospital gown appears to us, with a horrific gurgle, because his jaw has been ripped open to the point where it’s just hanging off of the skin of the face basically, his tongue hangs down loose and flopping. He reaches out to us, though honestly, it’s not clear if he’s looking for help or to hurt us.
We keep proceeding down the halls, the flicking fluorescent lights occasionally completely blacking out for a few moments only adding to the stress of this situation. Suddenly, another one of the barred doors swings open, revealing a…patient? Who is completely wearing a black & white clown costume whilst holding a strange music box, smiling all the way, and laughing at us.
Deciding to get out of this cuckoo’s nest, we push our way forward, looking for whatever comes next…
SCENE 5: A GRINNING MAN (INT. FOREST PATH)
TALENT: The Grinning Man, Upside-Down Grinner, The Grin
HAND PROPS: N/A
SCENIC: Suburban forest path, twisted trees (w/ alcoves hidden behind them), house facades via forced perspective
PROPS / DECOR: discarded bicycle, overturned trash can, overgrown foliage, hanging grins placed strategically amongst the trees
GENERAL AUDIO: Distant & faint whispers and laughter, phantom footsteps
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Low hum from The Grinning Man, Distorted Laughter from Upside-Down Grinner, Whispered dialogue from The Grin
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Natural moonlight
SPFX: N/A
NOTES: N/A
Having just left the doctor’s office presumably, we’re now outside walking down a local suburban path. We’re surrounded by trees lining the path, twisted and gnarled, and through the holes that we get, we can see the fronts of houses in the distance, as if we’re in a forest on the edge of town. We feel alone, but know we aren’t… some footsteps sound as if they’re coming from behind us, and in the distance, whispers and laughing as if we’re a block away from a major celebration.
The whole experience winds up being rather eerie and gets eerier as we look close into the trees again and see a now obviously familiar sight – grins. But now, appearing most strangely yet, in a way that isn’t remotely realistic or coincidental. Literal floating grins are appearing in mid-air as if the teeth of the mouths are eyes watching our every move. Either this is, in fact, a massive case of hallucinations corrupting how people and things look…or something completely out of our realm.
There is a low hum, and suddenly, out from behind some of the trees, a…man seems to almost prance out. He is tall, lanky, and wearing an old suit. His eyes are wide open and he has a cartoonish smile. As with many of the other smiling fiends we’ve seen, he is familiar to anyone who knows some of the Internet’s well-known horror stories. This is the Smiling Man, or in this case, The Grinning Man. A single aspect of his appearance would not suggest malice, but all of it combined, along with the dead of night-setting, makes this particular gentleman very eerie.
We quickly keep walking down the forest, hoping that the footsteps we keep hearing and the grins we keep seeing aren’t actually him still watching us. No, it turns out we actually have other strange grinning men to worry about in this forest. A man, in tattered clothing, walks out in a handstand towards us, as if he’s walking on his feet, and begins to laugh at us with an insane grin showing his teeth even as we have to look down to see it…and he points one of his feet towards another portion of the forest…as if telling us there’s more to see.
We, with little other choice, follow his advice, and sight a discarded bicycle and overturned trash can with foliage growing over them, things that have ended up abandoned in this part of the forest…and in this portion, there is only one single smaller grin that’s lurking between the trees…which makes it all the more terrifying when that one single grin suddenly begins to move towards us, quicker than anything in our journey up to this point! It gets right up to us and whispers…
THE GRIN
You are never alone.
With that assuring reminder, we quickly flee for our lives, looking to escape the forest before more of these grins begin moving on their own…
SCENE 6: BLEACH & BURN (INT. LIVING ROOM – SESSEUR’S HOUSE)
TALENT: Empty Bully, Burned Sesseur, The Grin 2
HAND PROPS: N/A
SCENIC: Living room with a “u-turn” design which has you going around a wall at one point, walls are bending and warping, charred walls during the second portion, Mirrored alcove for Burned Sesseur
PROPS / DECOR: Empty partygoer mannequins, Sesseur mannequins, Destroyed furniture, balloons, party hats, party banners, streamers, broken television, distorted artwork, broken mirrors
GENERAL AUDIO: Distorted “party beats”, echoing laughter, Dialogue from Sesseur
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Fire starting noise from Empty Bully, Screaming from Burned Sesseur, Dialogue from The Grin
VIDEO: Projected flames
LIGHTING: Strobe lights
SPFX: Bleachy scent, Charry scent, smoke & haze, water spray
NOTES: N/A
For all the strangeness of the forest path, it was taking us the “right” way the entire time, and we ended up back in Sesseur’s house, so it seemed. But things are a lot livelier here than usual. In fact, a party seems to be going on right in the living room! Though this party seems heavily, heavily wrong. The beats of the music are all…off. The laughter coming from the patrons is strangely echoey and sinister. Not to mention, they’re making a mess of the house!
The television has been broken, mirrors have been smashed, there’s an overturned couch, they’ve been having their way with this place which you’d almost think they’ve been in for several hours, yet it feels like we should’ve been seeing this party when we were in the house earlier. The partygoers themselves are strange…their eyes and mouths are completely black voids, yet they’re smiling as if nothing’s wrong. It’s quite creepy.
One of the partygoers approaches us from the crowd, and it’s the same leader of the Bullies from before, now also having voids for his eyes and mouth, the attire now even more tattered. As he approaches us, he says nothing and makes no sound, but we hear the sound of someone seemingly starting a fire somewhere in the room, and yet we don’t hear any immediate screams. Though…we do hear Sesseur’s voice…
SESSEUR
Please…don’t do this…
A group of the partygoers have surrounded Sesseur, on his knees, and he’s been covered in something that smells like…and probably is, bleach. That noise we heard was the sound of someone lighting a match and setting Sesseur on fire, flames rising around us and onto us (through projections)! We turn the corner and immediately find that it’s the same living room scene from before, but now completely burned and charred, the smell of char invading our noses. We see party decorations now melting, a banner that’s been burned to a pile.
From a burned-out alcove to the left, Sesseur himself, now horrifically burned (not like Jeff The Killer, where his skin turned white), reaches out for us and screams horrifically whilst looking at his hands (essentially imagine the burning room with the kids from the first American Horror Story house in Orlando). We proceed further into the burning carcass of what was once a party when we see a strange collection of floating grins gathered in a corner…
And those grins step forward as one collective dark mass, the teeth of these mouths pushing out of the being in question, as it speaks to us (and Sesseur)…
THE GRIN
Go to sleep…
With that command, we plunge out of the burning room…
SCENE 7: A GRIMACING DREAM (INT. SESSEUR’S DREAMSCAPE)
TALENT: Enhanced Jeff, Enhanced Smile Dog Operator, The Grin 3
HAND PROPS: Knife for Enhanced Jeff
SCENIC: Surreal distorted burned walls, “broken” mirrors implanted in walls, distorted alcoves/pockets for talent
PROPS / DECOR: Glowing orbs hanging from ceiling and walls, burnt furniture, twisted metal, blackened debris
GENERAL AUDIO: Atmosphere music mixed with unintelligible voices
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Distorted laughter from Enhanced Jeff, Loud growl from Enhanced Smile Dog Operator, Dialogue from The Grin
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Strobe lights
SPFX: Smoke, Smile Dog Puppet ala the one used before
NOTES: N/A
Just like we did before after the first room of the journey, we enter into Sesseur’s dreams, but the look of the place has certainly gone down in quality. Now, reflecting Sesseur himself, the area is burnt up, the walls around us bending and distorting for a list of reasons – they’re melting as if they’re in a fire, but also twisted in surreal dreamlike ways, creating a strange visual look. Various broken mirrors are implanted into the walls, allowing us to take a look at ourselves in an imperfect lens, perhaps also reflecting what lies ahead for Sesseur as he has to recover from the burning he’s received.
Strange glowing orbs float down from the ceiling, some even attached to the walls as lights flash all around us and burning smoke shoots. Through the smoke and lights, we’re suddenly attacked by Jeff The Killer for the second time, but this time the killer’s received one hell of a facelift, corrupted by the broken portions of Sesseur’s mind and The Grin’s corruption. His face is so horrific that he doesn’t even look real at this point. He shines a knife at us, laughing in our ears, and we make haste to avoid him.
Further into this realm, we meet up with another old enemy of ours, The Smile Dog, who’s also gotten a horrific glow-up within this burnt dreamscape. The dog actually looks closer to its’ original realistic husky form, however, the smile attached to it extends off of its’ mouth and nearly stretches into the burning dream void around it. It lets off a loud growl, a sign that we need to get moving.
Before we can escape though, we find our path surrounded by burnt furniture and twisted metal, more stuff coming straight out of the hellish party we just escaped, and just like in the real-world party, The Grin is here…but not as a being of many grins, but one giant grin that moves out of the darkness and begins to speak to us, opening its’ mouth to whisper into our ears…
THE GRIN
Their smiles are mine to twist.
We avoid getting caught in the maw of The Grin and push past it to proceed further into the dream…
SCENE 8: THE GRIN (INT. THE GRINNING DOMAIN – SESSEUR’S MIND)
TALENT: Grinning Man 2, Grinning Sesseur, Clown Glider, The Grin Final Form
HAND PROPS: Grinning Knife for Grinning Man
SCENIC: Distorted perpetually decaying walls, distorted grinning door/archways
PROPS / DECOR: Series of televisions attached to back wall, floating orbs
GENERAL AUDIO: Dialogue from The Grin mixed with whispers and screams
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: High-pitch laughter from Grinning Man, Pained screams from Burned Sesseur, Laughter from Clown Glider
VIDEO: Footage of media-based Creepypastas on back wall
LIGHTING: Strobe lights, glowing portions of the walls
SPFX: Vibrations, rapidly shifting temperatures
NOTES: N/A
We enter further into the dreamscape, but now leaving the area that Sesseur still has some grasp of control in, and now into the area that The Grin has carved out for itself within his psyche. The walls around us are no longer burning, but are seemingly in a state of perpetual decay and distortion. There are arches above us, curling into toothy grins that we have no choice but to walk under. There are smaller arches around us to our sides set up in the exact same way.
THE GRIN
Smile! Smile for me!
The Grin seems to be relishing, having reached full power, at least in this particular mind. From one of the smaller archways appears The Grinning Man from back in the forest, same attire, not enhanced, but now wielding a “grinning knife” of sorts that he attempts to stab us with whilst laughing.
Trying to avoid him, we end up nearly running straight into Sesseur, getting a glimpse as to what’s happened to him within his own mind. In here, he looks like a charred corpse with hooks latched in his mouth forcing a grin onto him. He flails and screams at us, trying to get us to help him, but we’re powerless within the writer’s mind, which even then may not really be his anymore.
We pour out into a large open room, with a back wall filled with televisions showing various…very familiar images. A depressed mouse walks along a street, a weird “elf” statue stares through the screen with a strange grin, and security footage of a gas station suddenly cuts to a man smiling right up to the camera. Standing in front of all of these screens on a platform is The Grin, in a final form, a series of grins from different people all horrifically stitched together via the lip flesh binding them all open.
THE GRIN
I am everywhere. Always on and in your mind.
As our eyes are trained on the final variation of this insidious being, we’re unprepared for…a grinning “clown” (if that’s what it claims to be) head to “glide” at us (in reality – this is a blackout suit with a lit-up clown head to create an illusion) across the floor and begin laughing at us. We flee from the Clown Glider and the Grin’s leers, out one of the grinning archways…
SCENE 9: WAKE UP (INT. SESSEUR’S BEDROOM)
TALENT: Grinned Sesseur
HAND PROPS: Shard of broken glass for Grinned Sesseur
SCENIC: Walls with ripped/burnt Damask wallpaper, writing nook alcove, open closet w/ Talent in it, open window in wall
PROPS / DECOR: Grin mannequin placed outside of open window, Modern bed w/ metal backboard placed under open window, Modern desk w/ closed laptop on it, chair, large broken antique mirror
GENERAL AUDIO: Dialogue from The Grin, crickets chirping
POINT SOURCE AUDIO: Dialogue from Grinned Sesseur
VIDEO: N/A
LIGHTING: Dim moonlight
SPFX: Mist coming in from open window, musty stench
NOTES: N/A
And after a long moment, we find ourselves back where we began, the bedroom of one Sesseur. The vibes are…off though. The wallpaper that was intact in the beginning is now ripped, ala how it looked in the hallway that the Smile Dog and Widemouth invaded. Similarly, there are a series of grins now looming just behind the wallpaper, including some patches of wallpaper opening up to show that there’s a massive grin waiting behind it, only showing up in the ripped-open portions.
Some other subtle shifts in the room…the excerpts and photos of creepypastas that had been pasted around the room are all gone as if they were never there. The laptop on the desk is shut, as if the person using it has moved on, and the chair is not only put under the desk but there’s no one sitting in it. Sesseur seems to be gone, and maybe has even moved on after what occurred with the burning attack.
But we aren’t as safe as we may immediately feel, as a look towards the window shows a horrific truth – The Grin, still in their final form, is waiting just outside the open window where Jeff was initially, staring, grinning, and seemingly…content to wait. But for what? We take a glimpse at the large antique mirror that once showed a glimpse into the closet where a grin waited, though the mirror is now broken…and once again, though we have to turn our heads now to see it, there is a grin in the closet…though one that seems to be…moving?
We had to pass by the closet, hesitant, but we should’ve run as the closet suddenly bursts open unlike before as the final form of Sesseur, after his burns sent him into a coma that allowed The Grin to fully take him, now wears a charred black hoodie over charred and scarred skin, with a large grin on his face, no longer forced by hooks, but seemingly natural. He wields a bloodied shard of broken glass, taken from the mirror which he likely smashed in a rage at his new appearance. He steps forward and speaks only two words to us…
SESSEUR
Wake up!
We don’t know what exactly we’re being told to wake up from, but we have no choice but to listen to his words as we escape out of his bedroom, the exact way we came in, exiting the Sprung Tent in one fell swoop. Just like that, we’re awake and alive, free from The Grin.
Or are we?
Haunte Couture 