Sony sets film adaptation of horror game 'Mouthwashing,' with Karyn Kusama to direct

Sony Pictures has set a film adaptation of "Mouthwashing," the acclaimed 2024 psychological horror video game, with "Jennifer's Body" and "The Invitation" director Karyn Kusama attached to direct. The deal, reported Thursday by Deadline, is set up at Screen Gems, Sony's genre label, which acquired film rights from the game's developer, Wrong Organ, and its publisher, Critical Reflex.

Confirmation came directly from the people who made the game. Wrong Organ posted on social platform X that the long-rumored project was real, and Critical Reflex followed with its own message verifying the deal.

"The rumors are true. A Mouthwashing movie adaption is currently in the works at Sony," Wrong Organ wrote, calling Kusama a "legend."

Writers and producers already attached

Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, who wrote Kusama's 2015 film "The Invitation" and her 2018 film "Destroyer," are adapting the screenplay, according to reporting from iHorror and GamerHeadlines. Producing are filmmaker Scott Derrickson, his frequent writing partner C. Robert Cargill, and Vince Cheng, through their Crooked Highway banner, which has an existing first-look arrangement with Screen Gems. No cast, release date or plot specifics for the film have been disclosed.

"Mouthwashing" follows five crew members of the space freighter Tulpar after it crash-lands, stranding them with dwindling supplies and a captain, Curly, who survives the wreck too badly injured to explain what happened. The low-poly, first-person game drew notice for its unreliable narration and bleak tone after Wrong Organ released it on Steam in September 2024, where it sold several hundred thousand copies within months, earned an "Overwhelmingly Positive" user rating, and won the best-narrative and players'-choice honors at that year's Horror Game Awards. It expanded to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch earlier this year and arrived on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Game Pass on Wednesday, the same week the film news broke.

Part of a wider trend

The deal continues a run of game-to-screen adaptations at Screen Gems, which released a film version of the video game "Until Dawn" last year, and fits a broader wave of studios optioning acclaimed indie horror titles for film. Sony's film division has leaned further into horror more broadly this year, including the box-office run of its "Resident Evil" reboot. Kusama built her reputation on genre work with a literary bent, from the Sundance-winning drama "Girlfight" to "Jennifer's Body," which was reassessed as a cult favorite years after its release, and more recently directed the pilot episode of Showtime's "Yellowjackets," for which she received an Emmy nomination.

Derrickson, who directed "Sinister" and "Doctor Strange," and Cargill, his longtime writing partner, have a standing first-look deal with Screen Gems for genre projects, giving the "Mouthwashing" adaptation an in-house advocate at the studio as it moves toward production.

With no cast or production start date yet announced, "Mouthwashing" remains in early development. Sony and Screen Gems have not issued their own public statement beyond the trade reporting, and further details, including casting, are expected to emerge as the project moves toward a greenlight. For now, the clearest confirmation of the deal's substance comes from the people who made the original game rather than the studio buying it — itself a sign of how closely indie developers are now watching major studios' appetite for adapting their work.