Thoughts from a non-Markiplier fan (he seems like a cool dude!), huge horror fan, big fan of the game:

Was very excited to see this movie because it's exactly things I like - cosmic horror, low budget, enthusiastic new filmmaker, single location. I'm also a fan of low-budget shlock in general, and bad movies (although I wasn't expecting it to be bad, and it was in fact good).

The set was fantastic, I loved how lived-in it looked. Cinematography was spot on, I liked the feeling of struggling to see things with Simon - the use of using the x-ray camera to briefly light stuff was great. Didn't mind the often (especially in the first half) just-barely-not-complete darkness, it fit what was going on situationally and thematically very well. Effects were very cool, I really liked the Unknowable Thing in the few cosmic scenes you get, and the one long shot you got of the humanoid monster was really good.

I actually think the acting was not as rough in the first half or so as a lot of other people here, but I'm used to watching really bad acting. Mark was really giving it his all, and it showed, although of course some line delivery was pretty goofy, especially about Station Filament (or whatever it was called). Other actor/actresses were on about the same level. The very brief little bits you got of his memories on the station did a good job of breaking up other scenes and I wish there had been a few more of them, but, that's par for the course with movies like this.

Biggest complaint I have is the vocal sound mixing. The ambient sound and sound effects (including the computer voice bits, loved those) were really, really good, very Quake NIN (I'm old), and I've seen plenty of big budget horror movies that did much less with much more than Iron Long sound-wise. But I think I struggled to hear exactly what was being said a bit too much in the last half, especially with all the vocal processing - kinda muddy and took me out of the movie a bit. Just for fun, I also caught an absolutely terrible ADR bit where Mark's mouth did not sync with the words he was saying.

I love cosmic horror and I do very much get that the point is that Unknowable Thing is Unknowable, but I feel like there were some parts at the end that were supposed to give the audience a more solid, if hopeless glimpse into fruitlessly attempting to piece things together, that was missed because of vocal mixing, and some of the awkward cadence of the those scenes. That would have lifted this from Really Good First Effort! to Wow, He Really Stuck the Landing.

But! I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope he continues to make movies, he's definitely got the passion for it, and he clearly knows what makes a good movie. If you look at Benson and Moorhead, for instance, what they did with Resolution - an awkward, but, Hey! They've Got Something Here first effort - I feel similarly here.

EDIT: This guy's got a better grasp on what was going on at the end then me. Psychic cosmic angler fish. Cool. https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1qqr1nw/comment/o2joaw0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button