Karyn Kusama to Direct Mouthwashing Film for Sony

Sony Pictures has acquired the film rights to Mouthwashing, the 2024 psychological horror game from the Finnish studio Wrong Organ, and Karyn Kusama is attached to direct. The game's publisher, Critical Reflex, confirmed the project in the announcement on Oct. 29, naming Sony's Screen Gems label as producer. No production start or release window has been given.

Reports from Engadget and World of Reel, both citing The Hollywood Reporter, say the script will come from Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, who wrote Kusama's The Invitation (2015) and Destroyer (2018). Scott Derrickson, director of Sinister and The Black Phone, is producing. Kusama also directed Girlfight and Jennifer's Body and has worked mostly in television since Destroyer, including as an executive producer on Yellowjackets.

Mouthwashing follows the five-person crew of the freighter Tulpar after it crashes and strands them in deep space. It is played in first person, with low-polygon characters in the style of the original PlayStation, and it tells its story out of order, cutting between the days before and after the crash. As food runs out, the game turns into a study of responsibility, denial and the abuse of power among people who cannot leave.

The deal lands at a busy moment for the game. Mouthwashing arrived on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox Game Pass the same day, and Screen Gems released Zach Cregger's Resident Evil adaptation earlier this fall. Wrong Organ is meanwhile building its next horror game, Carcass Clad, a three-player tank with no onscreen interface. The original game remains on Steam.

For more reading see "When You Go Into Space, You Go Into Your Own Dark," Killscreen's conversation with Mouthwashing art and narrative lead Johanna Kasurinen alongside the makers of Aniara and Eclipsium, and the podcast episode The Dread Built Into Ordinary Rooms.