This movie was really interesting. As much as I love horror, I am a big scaredy cat. I was at the edge of my seat through the first half of this movie (before I stepped out for two minutes to piss) and I am very thankful there were a minimal amount of jumpscares throughout this movie. The horror in this movie is very effective at what it does. It is a slow build up and escalation throughout the film. When I heard people were complaining about the pacing, I was absolutely taken aback, as it was one of the first things I praised when the credits rolled. The reveals and horrors all work very well because of the amount of time we get to sit and wait, right alongside our main character Simon. The constant repetition with the visuals of the film in this beginning part also worked very well alongside us sitting and waiting, and contributing to the tension building. Specifically the reveal that the camera is an x-ray machine worked really well for me, because Simon didn't realize what that meant, while I, and hopefully the rest of the audience, did. It meant that the skeleton he found likely wasn't a skeleton. And I am a huge sucker for angler fish imagery, it's genuinely so incredibly well done within this film. There are a couple moments, especially towards the end of the movie that the sound design was suffering a little bit, and I was struggling. When we also heard that other voice through the radio, the voice from the creature, and there was a different accent, that also caused me some issues. However, the soundtrack is something that really struck me. I really enjoyed it and it helped sustain momentum throughout the movie really well. There were a few moments that did confuse me though, and maybe that's because I'm someone who came into the movie with zero knowledge of the video game, the film, or Markiplier as a person. When Simon was under the deck, repairing the blinking light or whatever it was, he heard voices, and he froze and seemed afraid. And then that fear left him and he ascended the ladder and there was no one there. I'm unsure if I was meant to recognize those voices as people from Simon's past or people who were a part of the angler fish creature or if I perhaps made up this moment from the film entirely. When I mentioned the scene to my ex-girlfriend, who I was attending the movie with, she absolutely did not know what moment I was referencing. So who knows? A lot of the lore stuff with the peculiar tree and the rebel group Simon used to be a part of and the symbolism of the ginkgo leaf was a miss for me, but how his guilt was dealt with was spectacular. I really was also less affected by the insistence that he was meant to complete this mission and save the world or whatever. The body horror really cannot be praised enough, from the sheer amount of blood that was sweating through the walls of the submarine to the scene of Simon at the surface to Simon's body blistering and warping and betraying him at the very end. The costume and character design of this movie is incredible, as well as the set. The attention to detail was as it should be for a movie that is almost entirely a bottle movie. There are, of course, two scenes outside of the submarine. Simon's memory of that tree of life or whatever and him breaching the surface of the ocean. If I was making this movie, I would've cut the tree of life scene for the impact that the only moment that was not spent inside the submarine was the scene of Simon at the surface, because that was a scene that stuck with me far more and it could've been more effective in this way. Overall there is so much about this movie to praise, beginning with the budget and ending with the care and passion put into this piece of work. I loved it.
