The Mafu Cage

Ellen Carpenter, a successful but emotionally repressed astronomer, lives with her sister Cissy in a dilapidated house in the Hollywood Hills. Their late father Max, an anthropologist who worked in Africa, left behind a home filled with artifacts and a fragile family dynamic. Cissy is mentally unstable and spends most of her time caring for her pet monkeys, the mafus, whose lives and behavior are chaotic under her care.

Max's anthropological legacy fills the house with African artifacts and a mafu cage in the living room. Cissy's violent outbursts threaten the animals, making the mafus' lives precarious. Ellen tries to maintain normalcy amid the household's growing oddities.

Cissy becomes furious when Ellen refuses to buy another mafu and shows a dangerous dependency on the animals. She threatens suicide if Ellen won't obtain a king colobus monkey. Ellen reluctantly agrees to appease her sister.

Zom, a zoologist godfather, visits but cannot provide a king colobus; instead he brings an orangutan that captivates Cissy. The new primate shifts the household dynamic and intensifies Ellen's sense of danger within the unstable home.

Ellen begins a romance with David Eastman, a coworker at the Griffith Observatory, though she remains cautious about letting him into their private life. The relationship offers a glimpse of escape and normalcy that Ellen longs for, even as she fears the sisters' volatile world.

When Cissy discovers Ellen's relationship with David, she spirals into a psychological breakdown. In a rage, she beats the orangutan to death with a chain, demonstrating the depths of her instability and willingness to destroy what Ellen loves.

Ellen departs for a work trip to Arizona, leaving Cissy alone for several days. The absence intensifies the house's already dangerous undercurrents as Cissy remains unchecked.

David arrives hoping to find Ellen, but is greeted by Cissy. She shows him the African artifacts and explains how their father built the mafu cage to stay close to his work. They drink and dance in the house, and Cissy chains David to shackles on the wall, locking him inside.

Cissy paints her face red and dons tribal regalia to enact rituals studied by her father. Using an ornate wooden club, she bludgeons David to death inside the cage and then buries his body in the garden. The act shows her increasing identification with her father's (and society's) anthropological gaze.

Ellen returns home and discovers a portrait of a man resembling David, unsettling her. She finds blood-stained clothing in the laundry hamper, confirming that David has been murdered, and she locks herself in the bathroom to hide from Cissy.

Cissy experiences a nervous breakdown and traps Ellen inside the mafu cage, where Ellen refuses to eat and refuses to give in to her sister. The house grows tense as Ellen's strength wanes and Cissy struggles to control the situation.

Ellen dies in the mafu cage, and Cissy arranges a burial-like scene by dressing Ellen in a burial garment. She then pads herself inside the mafu cage, locks the door from the inside, and shackles herself to the wall, sealing herself off with Ellen's body nearby.

With Ellen gone, Cissy remains trapped inside the mafu cage, shackled to the wall as the house sinks into a grim, silent aftermath. The tragedy ends with her enclosed in the same space that defined their haunted home.