A story about grief, pumpkin heads, and human decomposition.
A boy is accidentally hit by a car driven by his father, his head being crushed in the process. Mad with grief and denial, the mother puts a jack-o-lantern on his corpse, forcing the family to play along and pretend he's still alive. Things go downhill from there.Pumpkin Eater is a psychological horror visual novel created by thugzilla on September 29th, 2021. You can play it here.
Not to be confused with Penelope Mortimer's 1962 novel The Pumpkin Eater, or its 1964 film adaptation.
This series contains the following tropes:
- The '50s: The era in which the story takes place, judging by the family's clothing and hairstyles.
- Accidental Murder: What happened to the son when the Father accidentally ran over him with a car.
- Asshole Victim:
- The Father. Despite feeling guilt over keeping the Boy's corpse around and hurting the Girl, he still proceeds with conspiring with the Mother out of fear of losing his reputation. Even the narration states that nobody mourns his demise when he commits suicide in prison.
- The Mother enters this trope when she blames the Girl for the Boy's death, ties her up to prevent her from telling anyone what's happening, and refuses to help her when she starts having panic attacks.
- All of the Other Reindeer: The Girl's friends start avoiding her at school because the corpse's stench has been rubbing off on her. She doesn't get treated well in the orphanage either.
- Angsty Surviving Twin: The Girl, though she and the Boy weren't twins.
- Apologetic Attacker: The Father does feel bad for playing along with the Mother's delusions, even when she forces him to hurt the Girl.
- Beyond Redemption: The Girl silently endures what her mother puts her through because she hopes she'll accept the Boy's death and return back to normal. Killing a random boy to use his body as a spare for the Boy is what finally convinces the Girl that her mother can't be helped.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: It would be an understatement that everything goes to hell after the Boy's death.
- Bittersweet Ending: With so much emphasis on the "bitter" part that it's only marginally not a Downer Ending. The Mother and Father are arrested for their crimes, but the latter commits suicide in prison. The Boy's body can finally be laid to rest (what's left of him, anyway), and the Girl is sent to an orphanage, left traumatized by the horrors she saw.
- Bratty Half-Pint: The Boy was this when he was alive.
- Body Horror: We see the Boy's corpse rotting with each passing day, from his body changing color to open sores forming to his limbs falling off.
- Children Are Innocent: Averted. The Girl is completely aware that her brother is dead and assimilates it better than her grief-stricken mother.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: The Girl starts referring to her brother's corpse as an "it", aware that he's long gone. She uses "him" again after the Boy's spirit encourages her to escape from the house.
- It's All About Me: The Boy's death brings out the worst in the Mother, making her selfish and manipulative. It's best seen when she casually disposes of the Boy's decaying corpse to replace it with the freshly murdered corpse of a random child and pretend it's the Boy.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After the Mother has killed a random boy to replace the Boy's decaying body, the Girl hears her brother encouraging her to run away and bring their parents to justice. The game leaves ambiguous whether the Boy's spirit was actually communicating with her, or it's her imagination pushing her to escape.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: The entire premise of the story.
- No Name Given: For most of the game, the family have no names, just their titles. It's even worse in the Boy's case; we never see his face back when he was alive. However, at the end it's revealed the Girl's name is Gloria.
- Only Sane Man: Played for Drama. The Girl is the only member of the family who never entertains the delusion that her brother is still alive, and she suffers because of it.
- Offing the Offspring: Downplayed in that the Boy's death was an accident, but he was still killed by his own parents.
- Of Corpse He's Alive: The Mother is driven mad by grief after her son's death and forces the family to play along and pretend he's still alive.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Boy and the Girl, respectively. The Boy was naïve, impulsive and reckless (which resulted in his death) while the Girl is calm, rational and thoughtful (which helps her endure the madness in her house).
- Sanity Slippage: The Mother starts going off the deep end after the death of her son. Not only does she pretend that the boy is still alive and puts makeup on him when he starts to show signs of putrefaction, but she also gets violent with the Father and the Girl when they don't want to keep the charade. It culminates with her killing a random boy to replace her son's decaying body and trying to murder the Girl because "her son told her to do it".
- Slave to PR: The Father cares more about his reputation than about his family. He refuses to tell anyone what happened to his son, not wanting to be judged for accidentally killing him. He also goes along with the Mother's delusions to keep up appearances."Though he was a man of few words, the father loved his wife. But more importantly, he loved his image."
- There Are No Therapists: Justified, since the story is apparently set in the '50s.
- The Unfavorite: Back when the Boy was alive, it was clear he was favored over the Girl. This gets worse after his death, with his mother prioritizing keeping the corpse intact over her daughter's sanity.
- Villainous Breakdown: Happens to the Mother towards the end of the story when she murders a random boy to take his body to replace her dead son's decaying body with and starts hallucinating that her dead son is telling her to murder her daughter, which she attempted to do.
- Would Hurt a Child: As her sanity slips with each day, the Mother won't hesitate to hurt the Girl if she refuses to play with her delusions. And let's not get into the "accidentally run over your child" thing....
- Your Head Asplode: How the Boy met his end.
