They’re Outside 2020

Presented as a documentary, this film follows an unaired episode of the YouTube show Psychology-Inside/Out, centered on Max Spencer, a celebrated psychologist who is eager to diagnose and treat a range of mental illnesses on camera. After filming concludes, he and his girlfriend, Nicole, who also served as the cameraperson, vanish without a trace, leaving the project unfinished and the mystery of their disappearance unresolved.

For the episode, Sarah, a woman living near Hastings, is portrayed as battling severe agoraphobia sparked by the death of her daughter in a car accident. [Max Spencer] claims he can not only help Sarah confront her fears but also coax her outside her familiar space within ten days, a promise that adds pressure to the already tense, filmed experiment. Throughout the sessions, Sarah clings to the local legend of Green Eyes, a supposed practitioner of magic who would spirit people away to his home, after which they would vanish from the world. Max remains skeptical, even as inexplicable events begin to disrupt the documentary’s careful veneer.

As the episode unfolds, the truth behind Sarah’s past starts to unravel. She admits that her daughter’s death was not as she initially claimed; instead, she says her daughter went missing in the forest and was taken by Green Eyes, a revelation that shakes the foundation of Max’s measured approach. Despite this unsettling disclosure, Sarah ultimately leaves the house with Max after being lured by a vision of her daughter, a vision that Green Eyes allegedly conjures to bend her resolve.

The pair ventures into an endless woods that seems to loop on itself, until they arrive at Green Eyes’s hut. Inside, the space resembles a dim basement, where a covered body rests beside a bowl of fruit on a simple table. As the atmosphere thickens, Max begins to hear voices urging him to kill Sarah, and he carries out the act after stepping out of the hut. He then rambles about Sarah being a hopeless case, insisting he will still try to help others, even as the narrative threads tighten around him. A chilling moment follows as Max locks eyes with glowing green eyes and barricades himself back inside the hut’s basement, the camera lingering on his panic before he finally looks into the lens to sign off his YouTube show, leaving the final frame to the eerie stillness of the woods.