Olive, The Castle,
And Satan Herself

Finding her way back.

After experiencing postpartum psychosis, a young mother struggles to reconnect with her baby. A job at a decaying, haunted sanatorium offers an unexpected sense of confidence—and raises unsettling questions about what is helping her heal.

Short synopsis

Francie is trying to find her way back to her baby, Olive, after experiencing postpartum psychosis. The man who wants to marry her and his overbearing mother surround her with their own ideas of help. As she searches for a sense of normalcy, Francie takes a job at a decaying old sanatorium. The strange, unsettling place seems to give her the confidence to try a little harder. Whether that confidence can be trusted is another question.

Anthony Mullis

Anthony Mullis is an Indiana filmmaker and the writer and director of Olive, The Castle, And Satan Herself, his second feature film. His first feature, Buldoser, took Painted Moon from a screenplay to a completed independent feature.

With Olive, Mullis returns to questions of trauma, identity, and the ways people understand—and misunderstand—one another. The film follows characters whose intentions and actions resist easy labels.

Director’s perspective

For Mullis, the story begins with what comes after trauma: how people move forward without letting devastating experiences become their entire identity. Horror gives that uncertainty a physical setting in the sanatorium, where Francie’s fears and hopes become harder to separate.

The film approaches its characters with compassion while exploring how much of a person’s struggle can remain invisible to those closest to them.