Z’s Reviews > The Staircase in the Woods > Status Update

H’s inner monologue is dark af after may nightmarish/creepy/murderous rooms he thinks are he’s a cheater, not rly present father, attempted suicide, old alcohol/drug problems, house is def getting to him he punches mirror and takes glass to his throat before L can nut punch him to stop

She talks him down and they decide to hate the house back. Start breaking stuff and they end yo between the walls

Then: Nick hoping to take some heat off the group said he bought some bad drugs and Matty tripped tf out and ran off, went to juvie, but they were still ostracized from the community

O/N try to fake out the house by passng thru the door and coming right back without closing it to see if rooms will change. The dead man in bed moves from his attic to their living room

They decide to go together and when they enter bedroom w sick man resembling Owen’s father he slams the door shut reflexively, but ultimately separating L/H and O/N cuz when they open it again it’s an Xmas tree living room.

L/H are in kitchen of woman who poisoned her son (Lore saw a doc of this) and in the cabinets in blood it says home is where the heart is in Matty’s handwriting

Owen briefly sees his knife, Lore sees her book w hate tweets inside instead; she thinks this isn’t a haunted house but a game

They start fighting and when she goes to pee she sees a mirror w help written on it and starts thinking she should do this on her own, hateful thoughts of the others the door even starts to close. Like the house wants you to be alone

There’s a finger in the cake. Hamish wants to stay guarding the door to girls room he’s scared (which is unlike his hs devil may care self) and she resembled one of his kids.

Next house is a murder house that Hamish sold when he was in real estate

Nick this whole time was sending the group emails, sightings, Reddit threads and only O responded

They see another door that leads to a 70s style dining room w moldy cake but they decide to gather their wits and use the girls computer. Owen sees a photo of a bloody knife on it, Lore reads her diary (she killed herself w knife cuz her crush didn’t like her back), and she crawls out from under the bed. They run and have to grab Owen cuz he was talking to the girl about the knife, about wanting to be loved too

Lore charges to jump off, Nick went next then Hamish (surprised he didn’t argue since he has kids he can’t go missing lol) Owen crying and reluctant went last. (It’s giving IT going back to Derry vibes)

The enter a hallway w a few doors and message on the wallpaper that reads “this place hates you” they hear a phone ringing behind a door of a girls bedroom and it’s Matty mumbing, like sleep-talking

Lore’s on acid atp so her recounting is unreliable at best, Owen is insanely jealous and doesn’t stop Matty from jumping. Matty and the stairs both disappear

Now: No campsite, no cancer. Nick invokes th Covenant to make things right. They didn’t go try to find Matty they broke up and broke apart. He found the staircase again even tho it’s a different location

M and L were messing around (to Owen’s displeasure) and he wanted to make it official despite going to college in a year, she decided to tell him yes that night but brought acid to do together and he denied it, he had a future he wasn’t going to risk

They invoke Covenant for them means we got your back, stand up to Hamish’s bully, write Nick’s paper so he won’t fail, drive Lore when her mom wouldn’t

Group of friends who drifted apart over 11 years, had a tragedy occur when they went camping and Matty went up a staircase in the woods and never came back

Nick guilts them all together since he is dying from cancer to go camping… jk the staircase is back and he bamboozled them to fix their mistakes

Owen: nervous, unsuccessful, works at book store, nail biter, scene kid, OCD, crush on Lore in hs