THE MAFU CAGE

Ellen Carpenter is a successful but emotionally repressed astronomer in Los Angeles who resides with her sister, Cissy in a dilapidating house in the Hollywood Hills; the sisters inherited the home from their late father Max, a successful anthropologist who worked extensively in Africa. Cissy is mentally imbalanced, childlike, and unable to carry on a functional life on her own, spending most of her time caring for her pet monkeys—which she refers to as "mafus"—which she keeps in a large cage in the living room. None of the animals last long in Cissy's possession, however, due to her violent outbursts, during which she kills them.

Cissy is angered when Ellen refuses to acquire another mafu for her, but continues her incestuous fixation on Ellen no less. Cissy threatens suicide if Ellen will not purchase her a king colobus monkey, to which Ellen acquiesces. When their godfather, Zom, a zoologist, is unable to provide a colobus, he instead brings an orangutan, which enthralls Cissy. Meanwhile, Ellen is romanced by David Eastman, a coworker at the Griffith Observatory, but she is hesitant to allow him into her private life due to her and her sister's unusual circumstances. After Cissy learns of David, she spirals into a psychological breakdown, vying for sister's attention, and brutally beats her new orangutan to death with a chain.

Ellen subsequently takes a work trip to Arizona, leaving Cissy alone for several days. One day, David arrives at the house hoping to find Ellen, but is met by Cissy instead. She invites him inside, showing him the various African artifacts collected by her father. Cissy explains to David how their father built the mafu cage inside the home so he could continue his work at home while still being with his daughters. Cissy and David have drinks together and dance to tribal music in the house, eventually ending up in the mafu cage. Cissy chains David to shackles on the wall, which he assumes is a joke, but she proceeds to lock him inside.

Cissy proceeds to study David as an anthropological subject. Later that night, she paints her face red and dresses in tribal regalia to enact rituals studied by her father amongst African tribes; using an ornate wooden club, Cissy bludgeons David to death, and subsequently buries his corpse in the garden. Ellen returns home and notices a portrait Cissy made of a man that resembles David, which disturbs her. Her worries that Cissy might have harmed David are substantiated when she finds blood-soaked clothing in the laundry hamper. Realizing Cissy murdered David, Ellen locks herself in the bathroom while Cissy has a violent nervous breakdown.

Hours later, Ellen emerges from the bathroom only to be trapped by Cissy, who subsequently shackles Ellen in the mafu cage. A defeated Ellen refuses to eat, defying Cissy, and threatens that Cissy will be locked in an institution once authorities find Ellen's body. Cissy sketches an ornate mural on the walls of the mafu cage as Ellen grows progressively weak. Ellen eventually dies, leaving Cissy distraught. After placing Ellen in a burial garb, Cissy padlocks herself inside the mafu cage, and shackles herself to the wall.

Cissy murders Ellen's suitor David and buries him. Ellen discovers the truth, is trapped by Cissy in the mafu cage, and refuses to cooperate, threatening Cissy with institutionalization as she wastes away.

The ending underscores the destructive consequences of unchecked obsession and trauma. Cissy's psychological unraveling leads to fatal violence and the ultimate destruction of her bond with Ellen. As Ellen becomes both victim and witness to her sister's madness, the film closes on a note of inescapable tragedy, with the mafu cage serving as the final, suffocating symbol of their shared doom.