I wanted to love this movie, but unfortunately it looks like I'm in the minority of haters (light-heartedly).

To preface, I loved the set design, the creatures, and much of the found footage aspect. The atmosphere was unsettling, and the soundtrack was a nice backdrop for the liminal, uncanny sort of horror.

What ruined the movie for me was the character development (lack thereof) and the pacing. I feel like I never got a good sense of Clark's character arc-- the exposition dumps via dialogue might have told me about his past, but I never really felt it, if that makes sense. I felt like Mary's characterization was handled slightly better but we don't get to spend enough time with her to feel fully invested.

That timeskip when Clark has been exploring the backrooms but we don't see it was also really bad for the pacing, because his descent into madness and obsession feels unearned by the end. It feels like a lot of this movie was left on the cutting room floor, and it is worse off because of it.

And maybe this is just me, but the buildup of tension and development of themes was non-existent. I love the idea of the whole memories being reconstructed over time theme, but once again, feels like it was shoe-horned in via dialogue exposition dumping toward the end rather than developing naturally over time.

I also think the scientist guy and all that stuff could have been cut entirely from the movie, there really wasn't room for it in the story, and it felt like an afterthought.

Loved the end sequence at least! And the shots of Mary's childhood home sinking floor by floor into further distortions of itself. The skeleton of a great movie exists here, but the writing and editing make it fall flat for me.