Ep. 018: Until Dawn (2025) Netflix Horror: Video Game Edition
Welcome to Microsodes 2.0 | Until Dawn (2025) Spoiler-Free Movie Review
Movie Reviews...but fun.
Microsodes 2.0 continues! We’re still bringing you spoiler-free movie reviews with more laughs, less structure, and way more personality (you’ll be able to tell)!
This time, we’re discussing the latest movie we streamed: Until Dawn (2025). With disappearances, a horror-ific haunted house, and many jump scares, we’re here to share with we thought and whether or not it’s worth your time.
You’ll also hear Bobby’s lovely singing voice and a few unexpected tangents about crosstops, the Godzilla soundtrack, what video games Game Stop doesn’t carry, and the eternal question: are Ashley’s trailer rewrites longer than the movie?
Whether you're a fan of the Until Dawn video game or just here for the laughs, we’re so glad you’ve joined us (no controller required).
Note: Don’t forget to email us at microsodespodcast@gmail.com or leave a comment to let us know what you thought.
Transcript:
This podcast does not contain spoilers.
Last episode, I told you guys we lived in an abandoned blockbuster. Now you know what I'm talking about.
Yes, we live in a Blockbuster. They don't have video games. Got to go to GameStop, which doesn't carry video games anymore.
That's also a lie.
It is.
Blockbuster had a ton of video games.
Oh, I know.
Okay.
Welcome to Microsodes. Welcome to another Microsode. My name is Bobby, and I'm here with...
Ashley.
That's my wife.
And we're here to provide you guys with a little bit of comedic relief with some reviews about a movie. What movie are you watching today, Ashley?
Today, we will be discussing the movie Until Dawn.
Whoa.
Very unexpected. I mean, I don't know why, but...
It could be.
It could be.
I didn't expect it. I didn't either. All right.
So if you're new here, this is two people with different perspectives. I saw a lot of movies growing up. Ashley saw...
Not a lot of movies growing up.
I just started regularly watching movies in 2017 when we met. That's our origin story. We could be heroes.
If only for one day.
If only for a day.
Is that from a song?
Yes.
What song?
I'm pretty sure it's from the Godzilla soundtrack, the one from the 1990s with Matthew Broderick.
Interesting.
We could be heroes. No, no, I can't. That's not it.
It sounds familiar, though.
OK, you're going to look it up. I'm very anxious for the answer.
What you guys have to know is that I'm an old man, so I type out entire sentences in the search browser. It annoys everyone that I know, but then I usually find the information I'm looking for. It's actually by The Wallflowers.
The Wallflowers.
Yeah.
It was a song written by The Wallflowers, and it's called Heroes.
It released in 1998 and was part of one of the biggest soundtracks of all time in the Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick, because they also had Brainstill by Green Day that opened up that movie and people like lost their minds.
So.
Do you remember the song Brainstill?
No.
OK. What if I started it? Do you think you could get it?
We'll see.
Bada bada bada.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK.
You ready?
Yes.
Bada bada bada. I'm having trouble trying to sleep. I'm counting sheep but running out.
As time ticks by. But still I try. No rest for crosstops in my mind.
On my own, here we go.
What are crosstops?
I don't know. That's just the lyrics of the song.
Okay, I'm going to look this up. You've been on your computer, I'm allowed to.
I don't have a computer.
Oh, you're on your... You have a computer.
I mean, I guess a handheld computer. Thanks to all those people out in the 80s, I have a handheld computer. I was on my phone, thank you very much.
What did I say?
Crosstops?
Yes.
Okay, let's see.
Crosstops, oh.
Crosstops is a term with multiple meanings.
It's slang for amphetamines.
Okay. So he was just saying, I'm not on amphetamine right now.
Yeah.
And the second refers to a punk rock band from the Bay Area, Crosstops. No, the area is the Bay Area. The band is called Crosstops.
I don't think that that's what they're referencing.
I agree.
And three, there's a potential for confusion. Says it's important to remember that the term Crosstops carries a significant association with drug abuse.
OK, so it was one in three basically put together. One was methamphetamine.
It was just amphetamines.
Oh, just like one of my other favorite songs.
Oh, yes, from Three Doors Down.
No.
Oh, sh**.
So now we've gone off on a gigantic tangent, maybe even a Godzilla like tangent.
Oh, that was a pretty good one.
Thank you.
So if you forgot, we are discussing the movie Until Dawn today.
Did we even say Until Dawn?
Yes. Oh, we did. I said it once.
OK.
All right. So Until Dawn, based on a video game, that's one of the first ones that you've seen based on a video game. Is that correct?
It's the second.
Well, maybe the first movie. But the first thing I saw based on a video game that I can remember was The Last of Us.
Oh, right. That was a TV show.
Right.
But you haven't played The Last of Us and you haven't played this as well, correct?
Oh, correct. The last video game I played was Frogger. And before that, it was Crash Bandicoot.
So that tells you what video games I've played.
Last episode, I told you guys we lived in an abandoned blockbuster. Now you know what I'm talking about.
Yes. Do they have? No.
See, we live in an abandoned blockbuster. They don't have video games there. You got to go to Game Stop, which doesn't carry video games anymore.
That's also a lie.
It is.
Blockbuster had a ton of video games.
Oh, s***.
I know.
Okay.
Well, they just redid all those ones.
So maybe it's time to...
They did?
Yeah, they re-digitized them and made the graphics a little bit better.
Oh, no. I hope they're not like the Bitmojis. Those new ones are awful.
And I'm sure our audience will agree if they know anything about Bitmojis. I'm so sorry. This has nothing to do with movies.
But just side note, they suck now.
The Bitmojis? Are you talking about the people, the way they look?
Yeah, they're scary. They were cute and now they're scary.
See, this is the reason why I tell you all the time when we're talking about movies. It's the reason why I don't like CGI. They're constantly trying to improve on perfection.
Yeah. And it looks really weird.
It does.
All right, just like you said, we're gonna be talking about Until Dawn today. A movie that was based on a 2015 video game made by PlayStation and Sony, which is the two big distributors of this movie.
Nice, nice.
So I'm gonna jump into the movie details if that's okay with you.
Please do.
Awesome. So the name of this movie is Until Dawn. Its release date was April 25th of 2025.
There's a lot of genres and what we've been hearing back from people is that you want me to try to limit them down. So I'm only going to give you three moving forward.
You know, until you started doing the movie details, I didn't realize movies had more than like two. I wasn't aware of this before.
Well, they put them into different things, I think, in case somebody's searching those keywords.
Oh, OK.
But I agree with you. I thought it was comedy, horror, drama, family, some magic, I don't know. Whatever it might be.
Right.
Romance.
Romance is another good one. But for this, there are probably, I would say, about 10 to 12 categories that it fits in. So I just went with the top three that I thought that this movie kind of...
Based on your own judgment?
Yeah.
I think so.
I like it.
So the genres are psychological horror, supernatural horror, and drama.
Okay.
The rating of this movie is R. It has a runtime of one hour and 43 minutes. The director is a gentleman by the name of David F.
Sandberg. Also made, if you guys are familiar with the Conjuring Universe, he made Annabelle Creation. And you can watch it on Netflix for free.
But that's the only platform you can watch it for free on. These other platforms I'm going to start talking to you about, it's all $5.99. So, Fandango at Home, Google Play Movies, Apple TV and Amazon Prime, you have to pay $5.99 for it.
Interesting.
By the end of this, we'll tell you if it's worth the $5.99, if you don't have Netflix.
Yeah.
I mean, we might.
Oh, you're saying like we will tell them if it's worth it or not?
Sure.
Yeah, I don't want to tell people what to do with their hard-earned money.
I agree.
Just wait for it to come out on the platform that you own.
Unless you don't own platforms. So thank you for those movie details. I will discuss what I thought of the trailer after this.
So, now it's time for Ashley's Take on the Trailer. I named it because I thought it would be fun. We don't have to, but this is my introduction.
Ashley's Take on the Trailer?
I like that.
Or Ashley's Trailer Take.
I always thought it was gonna be like Ashley's Corner.
Oh, wasn't there a show called that, like, someone's corner and they had little, like, plush dolls or whatever, inanimate objects, dolls of some, inanimate toys?
Listen, I grew up in a Captain Planet in Gubby Bear's house, so I don't know what you're talking about, lady.
Okay, I apologize. I'm getting back to the topic at hand, which is Until Dawn. So I did something a little different at this moment in time.
I have seen the movie, because I figured it would be easier to record all of this at one time. So I have watched the movie. However, because I'm formatting it into my own written trailer, I wrote it before I watched the movie.
So now I'm just reading it. I didn't make any edits after the movie. Is that okay?
Are you talking to me?
Yeah.
Sure.
Okay.
So after watching the Until Dawn trailer, I wrote a trailer of my own from the director of Lights Out and Annabelle Creation.
Starring...
Oh.
Just keep going the way you're going.
Starring the girl who was murdered on prom night in the US version of the TV series Ghosts. Get ready for the new film Until Dawn. When her sister goes missing.
This is long. When her sister goes... I'm so sorry.
I'm looking at you and you're like, why is this so long? No, I mean, that was just the first sentence.
So I know. I mean, you went on a soliloquy before.
I did. I apologize.
I know you went on this whole thing about how you're changing everything. I'm like, okay, cool.
Well, I thought if I excited, I thought if I told you before the podcast, you might be like, nah, that's not a good idea. So now I'm asking for what is it?
I'm asking for forgiveness instead of permission.
Instead of permission.
I mean, this is a two-way street here, lady. Just want to make sure the way you hear it makes you feel good.
So there you go.
Okay.
All right.
When her sister goes missing, a girl and her band of friends start their search with a visit to a strange town shrouded in mystery. A town where people know what's going on, but they don't talk about it. A town.
I'm so sorry.
No, you see.
No, no, no.
I think the big thing for me is you have to tell people that you wrote this. I did write it. I know, but it sounds like ChatGPT.
That's why I'm showcasing my skills.
I know, but people are going to think you just pulled that right off the internet.
Well, ChatGPT writes like me.
Well, then maybe that's what you should say.
Yeah, I'm the one that's writing all these things online that ChatGPT is copying.
I'm the OW. I'm the OW, the original writer. I'm the OW, the original.
No.
You're the OWM. You're the original writing machine.
Yes, the OM. OM.
That's right. She's the original writing machine. So back up like she's never been seen.
She can hit you with letters. She can hit you with bars. She's going to make you think so many things that you thought you saw stars.
So grab yourself a beer. Grab yourself a pop. Grab yourself a broom.
Grab yourself a mop. Sweep out the theater after the show. But tonight is the night to let Ashley glow.
Hit it.
That was so cool. I'm not done.
Okay, so you're giving your review. What are you doing right now? You're giving your synopsis.
So I watched the trailer and before we watched the movie, I wrote my own trailer.
This is another original from Ashley's trailers. Okay, to everyone out there, I have to warn you, it is quite long. Okay, I will be in.
What?
Sounds like you're about to start conducting an orchestra. I will begin.
Okay. From the director of Lights Out, an Annabelle creation, starring the girl who was murdered on Prom Night in the US version of the TV series Ghosts, get ready for the new film Until Dawn.
Whoa. Okay, I like where you're going so far.
Okay. When her sister goes missing, a girl and her band of friends start their search with a visit to a strange town shrouded in mystery. A town where people know what's going on, but they don't talk about it.
Hey, I know what's going on, but I'm not going to talk about it.
A town where it rains on only one side of the street.
A town where outsiders seem to go missing. They encounter a house. I know this is long.
So long.
Did you do the whole movie?
No, I just watched the trailer and took notes while I was watching it. I'm like, oh, this is going to be great. It's very fun for me to write these, like, creative.
How did you know that the people that were there went missing that weren't part of the town?
Because she said that her sister.
They just said a lot of people go missing there.
Yeah, a lot of people go missing.
But are they all not from the town?
Oh, I think we saw, I think in the trailer, you see, like, the wall that says missing posters.
Oh, no, it's because the guy at the convenience store told her.
Yeah, he said a lot of people go missing. Right. But he didn't say a lot of locals go missing or a lot of outsiders go missing.
I guess I just assumed that they were...
You know what?
I'm going to stop asking stupid questions because this is a dumb thing for me to even interrupt you on. Go for it.
They encounter a house that feeds off fear and blood, a house with a troubled backstory that won't let its tenants leave. Where? Every night.
Something new is going to kill them, and they have to put together the clues before night 13. They must survive until dawn. Otherwise, they will be forever.
No. Otherwise, they will forever be victims of the house and its mysterious town. End of Ashley's take.
Okay.
Did you like it?
I think that you just said the whole movie, so that's the reason why I'm very...
How did you know 13 nights?
Because in the trailer, she was looking at some guest book and it said, Oh, no one ever stays past 13 nights. They literally said that in the trailer.
So all of this is from the trailer?
Yes.
Because I'm going to read the synopsis, and it doesn't sound anything like that. So I just want to make sure.
Well, my observation of the trailer was pretty good. You know what?
Evidently. Evidently so.
This has been Ashley's take on Microsodes. What about Bobby's synopsis?
Wow. Well, yours was much more in depth than what they have on IMDB. A group of friends trapped in a time loop where mysterious foes chase and kill them in gruesome ways must survive until dawn to escape it.
End of synopsis.
Oh, see, I didn't know anything about a time loop. I thought they were staying 13 nights. I don't know.
You didn't think that there was anything about a time loop where they kept saying that they get killed every night?
I guess I just figured they were there for 13 nights.
Oh, I guess I didn't think about it. I'm not sure. I didn't think about that.
Okay.
Fair enough. All right.
What a synopsis it was. Now we will be getting on to Movie Facts after this.
And we're back, and we're back, and we're back. Because every time something moved, it was always reset.
Nice.
All right. So, is it okay with you if I go first?
Please do.
Well, I'm glad I'm going first, because I got one that is going to blow your horns off.
Until Dawn was a video game released in 2015, and it begins with eight friends, not five, gathering at a remote mountain lodge on the anniversary of the disappearance of two friends.
So, I mean, if you do the math, eight minus two, that's six, so they went to five, and one person's missing. So, everybody's good.
I liked your analysis.
Thank you. As they are tormented by a mysterious killer and other supernatural threats, they must work together or betray each other to survive Until Dawn.
And that's what the video game synopsis kind of is?
Correct. That's what they said about the entire video game. So, I was just excited that they used the video game as a pretty good platform and almost like a great foundation for this movie.
That was very interesting because I didn't know anything about the video game at all.
Neither do I because I don't have a PlayStation.
I have an Xbox. But it was kind of cool getting to see a little bit of the walkthrough and what people were saying about the movie versus the video game.
I agree.
So, my first movie fact was that the screenplay was written by Blair Butler and Gary Doberman. Gary Doberman... The screenplay...
The screenplay was written by Blair Butler and Gary Doberman.
Like the dog?
I'm not sure. It could be Doberman. Oh.
Sorry, sir.
But his name sounded familiar.
So I looked him up. He is best known for writing films in the Conjuring universe.
Whoa.
Annabelle. Annabelle creation. Annabelle comes home.
Whoa.
Which is your favorite Annabelle?
I don't know. Do you know what your favorite is?
Mine is Annabelle creation, for sure.
Nice. I liked that one too, but I don't know which one. I can't remember.
We'll have to watch them again.
OK.
And The Nun. But it wasn't those movies because I was like, no, I wasn't looking these up. Like, I remember his name recently.
So then another credit is he directed and wrote the screenplay for the movie Salem's Lot, which was our first episode.
What?
Right.
OK.
So I thought that was kind of cool.
You're my dog.
Bruh.
That was weird that dogs just like barked outside after you said that.
Well, he's also his name is Gary Doberman.
Or Doberman. Yes. What's your next movie fact?
Your last one?
Was that it?
That was it.
Oh, OK. I've got two that are smushed in together. Is it cool if I say I'm really quick?
Yes.
Awesome.
OK. So when you guys are watching this movie. Or if you'd like to watch this movie.
What are the missing people posters that you can see even in the preview is actually that of the director David F. Sandberg.
Wow.
So that I thought that was kind of a nice like Easter egg to throw in there.
Yeah.
Additionally, if you choose to watch the movie, there's a song that is whistled throughout. It's actually an old Swedish nursery rhyme. Yeah, I did the deep dive.
It's called.
What?
I did the deep dive.
Oh, okay. I couldn't hear you.
Yeah, I did the research.
I like it.
It's actually Tula, Hem, Och, Tula, Val, which roughly translates into English, Rocking Home and Rocking Valley. Now, what does that mean?
It's just basically saying that they did a great job of shared ownership back in the day, and it was kind of a nursery rhyme about how people should work together. However, the reason why he was whistling that is because the guy who plays Dr.
Hill, the movie's kind of loosely based after, his name is Peter Storrmeyer. He and the director, David Sandberg, both were born and raised in Sweden.
Nice.
There you go.
I like that. That's very interesting, because when we watched it, I remember thinking, Oh, I wonder if the song he's humming is like from the video game, like the Halo song.
Oh, right.
So I'm glad you brought that, because that's very interesting.
No, that's I think never mind.
Because that Halo.
No, I don't know what I think. I might have been doing Ariel's voice.
You just sing that all the time as a kid, all the time. The song that has no words. That's what I sing.
I can hit all the notes, just not if they're words.
Boom.
So my last movie fact is that Until Dawn was filmed in Budapest, Hungary.
Really?
Yeah.
I thought it might have been a green screen or like on a back lot somewhere.
Right.
When we first started the movie, I saw the house and I was like, that kind of looks like the Annabelle Creation House. But then thinking about it now, I can tell that it's not. And that one was filmed on a lot in Burbank, California.
And this one was in Budapest, Hungary. And the reason, so I looked it up, the reason people are filming in Budapest are because it's cost-effective, it's less expensive than filming in the US, and they have tax incentives.
Oh, wow.
Additionally, there's a versatility of locations because of their architecture and just different geographical regions that look really cool. So they can use, they don't have to travel as far to each location as they would if they were filming here.
Oh, right. So you don't need to take a plane from like Los Angeles to, you know, Miami, and then up to anywhere in New York. It's a lot closer.
Right.
And people are filming there a lot more. So they have a good supply of resources and crew. Since it's, since Budapest has grown a strong film production infrastructure.
Since Budapest has recently grown a strong film production infrastructure. Sorry, I don't know why that was so difficult for me to say.
You're good.
Okay, that's it.
Well, you know, if you're telling this story about a different country, then you gotta start off with a story for our review.
Perfect. I started last time, I'll let you start today.
Oh, one serve and a volley back, okay. Now, just remember everyone, this is Microsodes 2.0, so no scategories. We'll give you a final score, a recommendation to watch it or not.
But here is our opening category in stories. Now, I've really enjoyed the story because I think it was a totally original idea.
I think there was a lot of different things that were happening, which were good, but that also kind of was a detriment to the story as well. There's a lot of open plot holes that never got solved.
I don't know if that's specifically the writing or something else like that, but there's a lot of things that just happened during the movie.
OK.
That I didn't really get, and they never went back to. So I thought the story, it almost reminded me of something like Panic Room.
OK.
Where they're trying to solve something to get out of something.
Oh, like Escape Room.
Oh, excuse me. Yes. Sorry.
Escape Room. So it almost reminded me of Escape Room. So I like the story because I thought it was kind of original.
There's been a bunch of movies that are out there. That you rewind Happy Death Day, Escape Room, movies like that. But I thought that they did a pretty good job to have an original spin on it.
Yeah. The only thing that I was having a difficult time with is there's a lot of. Open plot holes that still aren't closed for me in the story.
There's a lot of things that happened that I didn't know that kind of remind me of Stranger Things. Are they in the real world? Are they in the upside down?
I'm not sure.
Okay. Okay.
So we'll have to find out. But that's I thought they did a really good job with the story.
I would have to agree with you. Although there were parts of the story that were reminiscent of other movies we've seen, it still felt original to me. Yeah.
And just like kind of what you said. And I guess a lot of the things that I wrote in the story, because it was so unique, it's weird that I wrote down that it reminded me of so many different TV shows and movies, because the story wasn't the same.
You're right.
But they but it had aspects from components for sure. Yes, components, whether it was visually or something that happened, the location or an action.
I can totally see that.
So there were four things that it specifically reminded me of, and you've seen them, too. OK, so the first one is the Black Mirror episode play test.
Oh, right.
Where he did the horror video game test or whatever.
That's a fantastic one. If you guys haven't seen it, please check that episode out specifically. It might turn you on to Black Mirror.
It's season three, episode two.
Yeah, I can totally see that.
Right.
I also wrote down three other movies that it reminded me of.
OK.
And let me know, because we've seen them together.
So let me know what you think. The first one was Vacancy, and that was the horror thriller with Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson from 2007, and they were at a hotel.
Yes.
Or a motel or a holiday in. I'm kidding. OK, so you remember Vacancy?
I do.
OK.
And then the Inheritance, not the one that we watched on the plane on Netflix, the one on Hulu that we discussed in Microsodes a few episodes back.
Oh, yeah, I could see that.
I think it was it wasn't. I mean, I wrote story, and I don't know if it was story or visuals, but there was something about it. Maybe I could say direction, but there's something about it that reminded me of these movies.
So, Vacancy, The Inheritance and then The Watchers. Oh, yeah, with the glass. That's all I'm going to say.
Yeah, I could see that.
I could see I could see certain components from that to put it all together in that story. Absolutely. I think you nailed it.
And even though it reminded me of these three or these, I guess, three movies and one TV show, it's still the story was still very unique.
It was very unique.
And there's also people out there, please write in on in the comments section. There's probably a lot of other movies that are out there, too, that kind of go into the same thing, like A Silent Hill, A Resident Evil, things like that, too.
I never heard of Silent Hill. Is that a video game?
It was a video game. They also made it into a movie.
Oh, OK.
And the same thing with Resident Evil.
I've heard of that. And that's with that girl that's in all of those sci-fi movies.
Yeah, I don't know what her, off the top of my head, I can't remember what her name is, but I'm sure somebody right now is probably screaming it out like, I can't believe he doesn't know that name. Sorry, guys.
Mila Jojo.
Oh, OK.
Mila Djokovic?
Djokovic. Maybe that's it. And then I thought the first main death scene, I'm not going to say anything else, but it was really unexpected.
So it was kind of a jump scare, but not in like a saw gory type of way. The way they shot the scene was just enough of a jump scare, but not not to be too scary. Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
But I like the unexpectedness of it.
I completely agree.
I'm going to jump to that in a like later on. We're going to come back to that.
And you might scare me too.
I don't think so.
Pun intended. Oh, because you said jump. Yeah, I just here and I thought jump scare.
Or we could jump around, jump up, jump up and get down.
Or we could act it out, which leads us right into our next thing, which is acting. So. I thought overall throughout the movie.
I didn't really know what to expect with something like this. I think it's pretty campy horror stuff that you see, like, I don't know, like a happy death day and happy death day to things like that. So it's a little bit campy.
Overall, I thought that they did a really good job. They brought a lot of tension to the scenes. But I think the one caveat for me is there was a young lady who played Megan.
I don't know what happened, and maybe it was because there wasn't enough character development. I did not like her acting style. I did not like her story.
I didn't like any of it at all. And I think it was kind of a big distraction actually from what was it going on. She's more of a, I don't know, more of a hindrance than anything else in my mind.
Well, I would have to agree.
Well, you don't have to.
You could.
I keep thinking we're. So I, in my notes, I did not name specific actors, but from my perspective, I thought that 60 percent of the main actors felt genuinely connected to their characters throughout the entire movie.
So that's three out of the five or three out of five.
However, I'm reading my bullet points because it's easier for me.
Sure. So does that mean that you gave acting a 3.0 out of five? I'm just kidding, because that's our old stuff.
Oh, right.
Yeah. I'm like, oh, I definitely didn't do scores for this. So, oh, because of 60 percent.
OK, I'm so sorry. It took me a while.
Because I said three out of five.
Yeah, everyone's like, why didn't she react?
Sorry. That was me. I was thinking.
Sorry.
Sorry.
So then I wrote, one actor's performance was not believable to me at first, especially during the less serious scenes. However, they're acting vastly improved when things got more serious. Then I have one more bullet point and then I'm done.
I'm so sorry. I know this is a back and forth, but I have to say them all together.
Fourth. Well, you're supposed to say back. There you go.
Do you have anything to say to that?
I should let you talk.
I know. I don't know what you want me to say. I know that you said things got things were bad at the beginning.
Then they got better when things got serious.
Yes.
And then you said you had one more bullet point.
So that was one of the two. What the two? One of the two.
What are the two bullet points?
No.
Okay, so I guess it's a math problem.
Remember the last time when I said... Oh, one of the two bad actors. I got it.
Okay.
So it's 60 percent.
Right, right. Three are good. Two are bad.
And one.
Two people walk in a house. If one goes missing. I'm kidding.
I don't know. It just sounds like a little...
Run the fuck out.
Exactly. OK, so one of those two did not seem... Their performance did not seem very believable to me, especially during scenes that were less serious.
OK.
However, it vastly improved when things did get serious.
OK.
The other one.
The other character, the last of the two bad ones, I mean, not bad, but, you know, kind of. The last character, yes, to me, felt inauthentic from beginning to end. Wow.
No matter how much I wanted to believe them, their delivery felt off the entire time. Just not like grounded.
You didn't feel it. The math wasn't math.
OK, who was it?
You're leaving this hanging on the edge of our seats.
It was Megan.
It was the first one.
Max.
No, you said Megan first.
No, you said Megan.
I know. But you never said Max.
I didn't. No, I know, because I wasn't going to say either either person's name. You just made me say it.
I can I can bleep this out.
Oh, because you didn't want to say their names at all.
No, I wasn't going to.
Oh, well, then you just said Megan.
I know, because you asked me.
Yeah, but you never said anything about Max.
I know, because I already passed that bullet point. You didn't ask me about that one.
No, but the first one wasn't that reference to Megan, because I'm the one who said it. You're like, I wasn't going to say names, but like, yeah, I totally agree with you and blah, blah, blah, and this, that and the other.
And then you said you were going to say another person's thing.
Yeah, I said so the three main actors.
OK, go back, go back and listen to. We'll move on into writing and dialogue. Okay, so for writing and dialogue, I think that they did a, overall they did a pretty good job.
The problem for me is that there was way too many, and I wrote this down, there's way too many horror movie cliches in it, right? Like, so, don't go down the stairs. Don't not turn on the light.
Oh, the lights are out. Let's go further. It's like, okay, that's like that kind of stuff.
And then in the dialogue, they kept trying to have these weird moments where they're trying to make it just a little bit lighter, but they were inserting like weird jokes.
As an example, they're trying to find more information, and a kid puts in a VCR tape. Oh, right. And it's something inappropriate that he shouldn't have been watching.
And they didn't show anything, but it was like a joke in the middle of something like that. And I was like, yeah, that was a little bit strange for me. So they just had a lot of ill time jokes in there.
And the dialogue was a little bit strange every now and again. The storyline got confused.
I don't know if that has to do specifically with the direction or they didn't know how to take a video game, because one of the things that the guy who created the video game said was if you were going to take the actual video game and make it a
Oh, right.
So, they had to take all that and compress it into, you know, the amount of time that it ran for, which I think is an hour and 43 minutes.
But it just, there was a lot of writing and dialogue that didn't move the story along, but there was some good soliloquies, so I, it was kind of like middle of the road for me.
Okay.
I can see where you're coming from. I kind of disagreed with you.
Okay.
Because first, I'll say, at the beginning, when Nina...
One of the, one of the positive 60%, that's one of the ones we can name.
Yeah, Nina, she was, she was a good one.
But when she was talking about the backstory, it's crazy because it felt completely different than the screenplay from Salem's Lot, because Salem's Lot, when they said the backstory, it was like, oh, this person is from here and that person is from
there. Where this one, it just felt, oh, well, yeah, because last week XYZ happened and, and then someone would ask a question. And it's like she told a backstory, but it felt more natural where Salem's Lot didn't feel natural at all.
And it's so interesting because he wrote the screenplay for both.
Well, that's the reason why I think it had more to do with acting. Like maybe the acting was a little bit better in this than it was in Salem's Lot.
Okay, I didn't see it that way, but that makes sense.
It could be.
I also felt like a lot of the lines were smart. Like, I don't exactly know. There was something that someone's...
I'm making this up because I cannot remember the actual scene, and I don't want to misquote anything, so this is completely made up. But it was something along the lines of, Oh, I can't call her.
And then someone would say, Well, don't you have a phone? They'd say, Yeah, it's right here.
Well, what about the battery?
Oh, it's empty or something. It's like they asked real questions where a lot of other movies, they're like, Oh, I can't call her.
Oh man, that sucks.
This one was really like, No, like, did you problem solve the issue? Right. That's not the actual example.
I can't think of what stood out.
Yeah, it's a great example because the characters were trying to move the story along as well.
Yeah, but they did have a lot of long periods of silence, but I think it really worked for the movie. Right. It wasn't like those movies where they don't have enough dialogue to fill space.
I feel like they had just the right amount of dialogue.
Yeah, personally, a real easy way to see if the if a movie has too much dialogue, right, is instead or they don't have enough and they want to fill it with something else is you'll get a bunch of scenery shots or they walk really slowly.
Like, if you see, I don't know, any kind of movie, someone's getting out of bed, right? They stand, they might like open their eyes, and then you already see them opening their front door or opening their bedroom door to like go to the bathroom.
Right.
And if you have one, if you are watching a movie that doesn't have enough dialogue, you're going to see that person open their eyes, move their head, think about getting up, then sit up slowly. It's like no one needs to see someone sitting up slowly.
Right.
It's like now I know you don't have enough dialogue.
Right.
But it's that or the scenery shots.
Yeah, that's it kind of seemed like that's where they went with Salem's Lot.
Yeah.
There wasn't enough there.
Yes.
This is developed off of a short story. So this one seemed like they had a lot of content that they were trying to compress into one thing, which I thought was really cool.
I think Gary Dauberman was is better in that regard when he it's I think he might work better when he has more information than less.
There you go.
Which I mean, I guess anyone would.
Well, I guess so. They kind of I think the more that you have, the more that you can whittle down almost like what you were talking about earlier when you were saying you were a very accomplished copywriter.
A lot of a lot of what ended up happening with the people who made the decisions is they wanted a bunch of options. So the more information you gave them, the better. And so maybe that makes helps people make better decisions.
That's true.
I mean, they would ask me for three options and I'd give them 13. Each for each line. Well, I know, I know, it's too much.
It's I I do too much.
Did you did you pick that out because that's how many days these people were in there?
Subconsciously, I probably did.
Okay. Well, maybe they wore 13 different outfits.
That could be.
I don't know. But that leaves us right into visuals and direction.
Nice. I'm ready.
So with visuals and direction in this movie, I had to take a little bit of a weird turn.
I did too.
I when Ashley and I were watching this movie, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, please leave notes in the comments. But the filming of it was so hyper realistic, it almost made me feel like I was on a movie set instead of like watching a movie.
So it was a little bit strange in that way, but it counterbalanced itself with being gory, but not overly gory like Saw, getting back to what we were talking about earlier.
And then it kind of flipped back to, I have no idea what's going on with these people's clothes. So they have cell phones from now, because they're obviously recording things, and that's in the trailer, so I'm not ruining anything.
But they're all dressed from like, I know what you did last summer from the 90s. So I guess, am I like confused about what time period this is supposed to be in, or is all that's old is becoming new again? What happened?
Okay, I'll read my bullet point that I made on clothing.
Okay.
It says, wait, where did I write this?
Oh, the costumes were odd. And I don't, they didn't look like they were from anything between the 90s and today. None of them.
Like, I know that you have to use layers in movies.
Right, because somebody's gonna get cut up or something else like that, right?
I mean, I just meant because it's visually more interesting than watching someone in a t-shirt.
I see.
So if you watch a movie, you'll see people with like a collared shirt under a sweat, under a sweater. Like, how many people, like, how many people in real life do you see wearing that much?
Or they're wearing a tank top with a shirt over it, or it's like there's always something layered, so it looks more visually interesting.
Okay.
So I understand why they had layers, but specifically Nina's outfit, it was like a tank top and this weird cardigan that was small. It was like a cropped cardigan, but it buttoned underneath her chest. It was so weird.
Yeah, that's the reason why I said visually, it went back and forth for me, because I was glad that they weren't doing something as horrendous or as gruesome as some of the stuff that happens in Saw.
I was glad for that. But I also wrote in there that I thought they could have saved themselves a little bit of time. This is, nah, I can't, I don't think I can say it.
It's going to be a spoiler. Shoot. Well, I'll say it now, so it can be on our Patreon.
But remember when they like found their phone and the guy started looking through all the things? I was like, that's so much better than them having to live this over and over and over and over again.
I thought it would be cool if they would just been able to do that.
I thought that too.
Like after the second day. And then additionally, one of the things that I wrote in here, because I didn't it was one of the undone storylines, was whatever happened with that old lady? What the houses or whatever she's like poisoning this girl.
And then she goes and kills the guy. And then what we never see or hear from her again. That's the reason why I thought it was weird.
I'm like there's just undone storylines left and right.
I guess I see that when I was watching it, I thought when everything's reset every night, I'm kind of like, oh good, I don't have to think about that plotline anymore. So they all end.
Yeah, but the thing was, is like, why did that house ever appear? Who is the demonic force that brought her into that house? Who is that old woman?
Did it ever come back? Every morning when they woke up, did they ever see it again?
Yeah.
No, they never saw it again.
Yeah, they did. Because after that, they looked out the window and then there were all of those houses in underneath.
That was on the last night.
Yeah.
No, no, no, that was the one downstairs. You're talking about when they went downstairs?
And then the next day they came out and there was a house and the houses underneath.
That was the 13th day. They never showed what happened in between everything else. Well, I mean, they showed it on the phone.
Yes, you're right.
But anyway, who cares?
So yeah, there was a... I agree with you. For some reason, I don't know what happened with the wardrobe, but it was kind of distracting.
It was good, bad, good. So I would be kind of middling with it and like right in the middle. And I thought if you were a director, maybe you would have said something to wardrobe or somebody on the set to try to make it look a little bit different.
I agree.
It looked odd, and it didn't look like it was from today or even the 90s.
Yeah.
It was just very odd.
Felt like they were going to have jelly phones.
Yeah.
And then halfway through the movie, I was like, do they not have phones?
Well, they were never able to get...
And I don't know if they left them into... Yeah, they weren't able to get service.
Oh, and that's why they just put their phones away. I mean, I guess, but that guy had his phone... Anyway.
That's it.
I'm done.
Oh, so I said the practical effects really stood out, especially in the close up murder scenes.
Oh, yeah.
I noticed that the practical effects were believable enough for you to understand what's going on, but not too hyper realistic that they were too scary to watch, like Saw.
Yeah.
And I don't know if this is a spoiler, but I thought it was pretty cool. Not only did they use a lot of face prosthetics, like the one with the worm interface, which is also on the trailer.
Right.
Like that, they did a really great job with that. The effects team did a really great job with the monster makeup or whatever they did on the killer makeup.
Right.
I don't know if this is a spoiler, but this was very cool to me. One character loses their leg from the knee down, and they actually used an amputee body double, and that's why it looked so realistic.
Really?
Yes.
That is awesome.
Isn't that cool?
That's another movie fact that you just kind of tossed in there. I love that.
Yeah, I thought that was really cool.
I'm not telling you who it was, and you know that they die a billion times, so it doesn't matter, right? It's not a spoiler.
I don't think so because, I mean, listen, any way that you can possibly think that someone's going to die is probably going to end up happening in this movie, so no, I don't think so at all, but that is awesome.
I thought that was so cool.
I also did add some things for direction today.
I really like that they used zoom ins, specifically that it was very different than long legs, where long legs, it's like they showed it, and then they immediately showed this, like, this movie was zooming in very slowly, but at the right point.
Yeah, they, the director definitely knew, like, how to captivate an audience.
I agree, and I think the transitions and the shot angles were very engaging. The zoom ins and the silence made us, as the audience, feel like we were part of the movie, and you even said it felt like we were on a movie set.
Yeah, the hyper realism with the camera shots, I was like, wow, this is really, really incredible. They did an excellent job.
Yes, and I think it made us feel like we were there because of silence. It was the negative space you needed in the sound.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I'm sorry.
I just kind of reminded me of Quiet Place in some of those, because it was you wouldn't hear anything. And so it gives you that little sense of dread. Yes, you can't see what's coming and you can't hear it.
Yes.
So you're right.
They did a great job of building up that suspense.
So I really like that.
Awesome.
And I did make another note. For the most part, the death scenes were very unexpected. There were a lot of jump scares, but to me, they weren't as scary because they weren't gory enough to feel that real.
Right.
And that's why it even though it was very like bloody and there was a lot of killing going on, obviously, sure, it didn't feel uncomfortable enough for me to feel like empathize with that pain.
Yeah, I get you.
So that's what I liked about that.
Like sometimes people see like somebody breaking their leg or something and it looks real.
It's like true. And they're like, oh no, it's too real.
Sometimes it's too real. I feel like this one, they intentionally made it real enough, like they were good effects.
Right.
But not enough for us to like feel them dying. And I think that was like an artistic choice.
Yeah, they did a good job of balancing that out for sure.
Yeah, because if someone has to watch the movie or watch them die for however many nights over and over again, like, you don't want the audience to feel that uncomfortable.
Right.
So I think they did a really great job that way.
Nice. Well, so, what do you think overall?
Overall, I'd give it a 3.9 out of 5.
Okay.
I said the story was unique, the practical effects were strong, the visuals were engaging, and I liked the way they used the silence to make the audience feel like immersed in the story.
Right.
However, I did not like some of the acting, and some of the effects looked a bit unreal. They had organs at one point, and they did not look like organs. I don't know if that was purposeful.
Kind of a little bit distracting.
Yeah.
Overall, I'd give it a 3.9.
Nice. I came up with a 3.75. And so we're pretty close on that.
I said that I thought the story was really original. There were a lot of different areas in which you could feel like that tension.
And I like to feel that sometimes when I'm watching a movie because so many different times, you're just kind of like hanging out. And maybe you could be on your phone not paying attention, but that you're like glued to it.
Yeah.
I thought those things were incredible. And then I additionally thought that this would be a great date night movie.
Okay.
Like a horror movie or something fun to go and see for people.
I could say that. I could see that.
But I would definitely not recommend it for any children.
No.
Or if you are going to let your child watch this, just make sure you're in the room with them because there isn't a lot of sexual things that are going on, but there's a lot of gore.
Yeah. I mean, we don't have kids, but I don't think I would allow my kid under, I don't know, 16 to watch this.
Yeah, it's rated R.
Yeah. I guess you have to be, what, 17, 18?
Yeah, but I mean, right now, it's on Netflix. So how are you going to stop them?
Well, parents might have kids' controls on their specific one.
So just make sure you're paying attention in this one.
I agree.
That's probably too much of a PSA.
Overall, I would recommend it to people who like horror movies, but you're right, I don't think I would have my kids see it. It's definitely rated R for gore, I would imagine.
Yeah, it's it's rated R. And I said this last time to Ashley because I thought it was always funny when I was growing up. It's a hard R because it really has a lot going on.
Like Good Will Hunting, I believe, was rated R, but I don't think it was like this.
Right.
You know what I mean? So just make sure that you're paying attention to what you guys are turning on. But I would definitely recommend people see it once.
It might be even something you watch a couple of times because there's cool Easter eggs that you can pick up. Maybe you could figure some other things out that we didn't see. But definitely at least once.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's my review of Until Dawn. What about you?
Want to have the last word? So, yeah, that's my review of Until Dawn. What about you?
Do you want to add the last word?
I found a couple of reviews. Am I allowed to read them?
I also found the reviews.
You did?
I did. Well, just one.
I have three.
OK, I have two five star and one one star. I have to at least read the one one star.
I hope that the one one star isn't mine. But yes, go ahead, go for it.
OK, we get it. How many stars?
Well, I only have one one star.
I have three.
I have one one star and two five stars.
Well, why don't you go first then?
OK, what should I start with? One or five?
Start with a five. And start with a five. Hit the one.
I'll hit the one. You end with a five. So everybody's happy at the end.
Perfect.
OK. Oh, gosh, this is very long. I'm just I'm just going to.
Oh, I took other ones. OK. OK, so this is a five star review for the movie Until Dawn, and this was written a week ago, and today it's the last week of July.
OK.
2025, almost 2005.
OK. Me and my girlfriend watched it last night with low expectations, given the 5.8 IMDB rating. But we love horror movies, so we decided to watch it anyway.
Around 30 minutes in, we looked at each other and we're like, this is a good start, and honestly, it kept getting better. It's a really fun watch, definitely better than the 5.8 rating.
I think most people are complaining about how it wasn't similar to the game, which I know nothing about. As a standalone horror slasher movie, I think they did a great job. The pacing was really good.
It's shot really well. There's plenty of suspense and jump scares, and I enjoyed the whole storyline slash premise. It was creepy and cool.
End of 5-star review.
Wow. Really well done. I can't see that much wrong with what was said.
I really liked that one.
Yeah. I think they did a really great job.
Absolutely. So now you're going to read your 1-star one, and then I'll read my 1-star one, and then you can end on a 5-star.
Oh, that's a good idea. Well, okay. That's probably smart.
End on something good.
For a movie that we're recommending people watch.
Okay. Right. Yeah, because we do recommend this.
We're not lying to you. I mean, we would be honest if we didn't like it. And I stand by that 3.9 out of 5.
I stand by my 3.75.
Okay.
So this is a 1-star review written a month ago.
Okay.
Oh, yay. Yet another movie where the straight white males are the idiots who are helpless and led by smarter lead women. This movie is more proof that Pollyweird can't come up with original quality content anymore.
Ninety-nine percent of entertainment, movies, shows, video games, that's coming out these days are absolute, unoriginal, generic garbage cash grabs that all the brainless sheep, brain emoji, braise and praise on.
All the best entertainment in every aspect came out in the past. It's like entertainment and people aren't evolving, but are devolving. This movie had nothing to do with the game.
The masses are going to end up like the future masses in the movie Idiocracy. Four people found this helpful. I took it upon myself to go see what other movies this person has rated.
Okay.
Dexter Resurrection.
I don't know.
That's a TV show.
Okay. They rated it. What do you think?
It's going to be fast.
One.
Yes. Bring her back.
I don't know what any of that means.
One. Daddy's Dead. No, no, no, no, no.
Daddy's Head.
Never heard of it.
One. Captain America, Brave New World.
One.
One. South of Midnight.
Never heard of it.
One. The Damned. One.
Doom, the Dark Ages. One. Azrael.
One. The Six Triple Eight. One.
The Residents. One.
Okay. You don't have to do any more.
This is the last one. Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Two.
I was hoping that one of them would be five. So this person is just not happy.
I mean, there's no way that that person is watching real movies. I mean, that is what they're watching. I don't wonder why they're giving everything a one.
It sounds terrible.
Is someone paying them to write one star reviews for competition?
I mean, competition for Asriel something rather. What was that?
Yeah, I don't know. As Asrael reviewed three months ago, reviewed three months ago, reviewed four months ago.
Doom, the something around the Dark Ages.
I mean, who the hell is what is Doom? The Dark Ages.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't even know what that is. Like, I've seen a lot of movies in my day.
And obviously, there's some stinkers out there that I've seen. But this is like stuff that you get, like if you're going to buy out of the bargain bin at a closing blockbuster, which we live in. It's got two dollars on it.
All sales are final. And you pick up a bunch of movies and that's what you get. Why else would you?
I mean, who's watching that?
Exactly. Well, even if you're watching it, all of them were worth one star. All of them had issues.
Then stop watching movies if you hate them so much.
Right. Go back to start watching Casablanca.
Exactly.
Maybe that's when movies were good.
Yeah.
You watch some like it hot.
Go back to when Lon Chaney did makeup and acting.
Oh, yeah. He was the original Frankenstein. Right.
There you go. Well, I'm glad that we're ending it on a five star, but mine is also one star because we recommended it. So I went opposite.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Now, this review that I picked, you're going to know exactly why I picked it. So everybody who's out there that heard what I said about the clothing, you're going to understand why I'm saying this right now.
OK.
This movie is whack. One star review. This movie is whack.
The characters aren't the same and they only got the killer right. This is hot garbage, honestly. Half star for me.
End of review.
Half star.
If I could, I'd give it half a star.
I'd give it zero stars.
Right.
That's pretty much it. End of review. So let's end it on a high note.
OK.
I can't remember. I pulled these two because I skimmed them. I'm like, oh, those look good.
But I couldn't remember which one I liked better or if I liked one better. So I hope this one was better than the first one, even though the first one was pretty good.
Hopefully isn't like the second one, where evidently it's the plight of the proletariat against the struggles of the sheep evidently for that guy.
Oh, the sheep. Yeah, the sheep people. I should have read it the way it was.
It says, no, don't don't even bother, because I'm sure it's probably completely misspelled and probably everybody's screaming in it.
Yeah.
Defiantly.
Well, you want to know, you know.
Yeah. So this one is five stars. But as I'm reading it.
Well, I guess five, five is good. Five is 90 percent, right? I mean, five is 100 percent.
But like, if you're scoring it out of 10, that's 50 percent. No, no, I'm so sorry. My next, I'm so sorry.
My next, I was thinking like. Based on how what they say later, because they don't give it a 10 out of 10, they gave it another review.
What are you doing off IMDB?
I don't.
Maybe.
OK.
Why is that bad? It's out of five.
OK, well, because you said it was out of 10.
No, I'm saying like they gave their own score below in the text, a different score.
It's not just not do a real one that doesn't do that.
Well, I have to do this only when I have the other one's very long and it's pretty good. This one's pretty good.
OK, OK.
OK, five star two months ago. I loved the game many years ago, saw it on local cinema showtimes, and had very low expectations since I had seen no advertisement or any news that a film was even being made.
Booked it last minute for me and my partner and we both agreed. This is an amazing movie and we're usually very critical. This film gives you everything and somehow you still want more.
Absolutely brilliant. Highly recommend to any horror fans. Eight and a half out of ten.
And honestly, it might be pushing nine out of ten. Hopefully, we can get a sequel or prequel. And of five stars.
Okay.
So it's good that they gave them.
It's confusing, though, because they gave it a five star, but it's eight and a half out of ten.
And then it was a nine star.
Yeah.
But it's a five star review.
So if my if my three point nine got calculated into a ten star rating ratio or whatever, what would it be?
It's seven point eight.
Three point nine is seven. Really?
I just multiplied it by two.
Oh, Mark. Sorry.
It's OK. OK.
And noticing or reading the reviews, I noticed a lot of people were like, this is nothing like the game. The game is way better. And it's like that's what everyone says when a movie is based on anything that's not also a movie.
Right.
Because well, here's the other thing with that. And I just want to take a quick moment because there's a person that I work with and that person consistently talks about the movies versus the books. And I get where that person is coming from.
And I think that the larger thing to think about is in your mind, it's always going to look different than what it looks like in somebody else's mind.
So when you read Harry Potter, I mean, you get some illustrations, but you don't know what the other characters are going to look like. Right. Or Ready Player One was one of the ones that they had like a little bit of issue with.
It's like, well, all of that is in your mind. It doesn't do anything. Like you're just building this whole world in your mind.
So when you see it from through somebody else's eyes, you're like, well, that's not right.
Exactly. So it's just like people who have read the book or like read a book that is that a movie is based on.
Right. You read a book, you play the video game, even through the video game, you're seeing it through somebody else's eyes. At least with the video game, you know a little bit about the characters.
You can. It's more tangible. But in a book, it's all on you.
Right.
You're the one that has to think it all up.
And so you're constantly going to be disappointed because the movie can never get everything that you want to be right.
Agreed.
That's my little tangent about books and video games being turned into movies.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that's it.
Another Microsode in the can. No, no, I don't want to say that in the boot.
In the trunk. I was going to say in the books.
Yeah.
But then I started not saying that.
All right. Another Microsode 2.0 in the books. I hope it was.
I hope it was funny.
I think it's going to be great.
I hope so.
We didn't get really off track too much. I mean, we went on a lot of tangents, but I hope they were funny tangents.
I like this new format. What do you think?
I like it. I think I think. It's definitely a learning curve.
I have to get my mind out of that structure.
It is a little bit difficult to change, especially since we're the ones who came up with the original idea. It's difficult to kind of maneuver, but we really appreciate everybody's input and feedback.
Where can they reach out to us if they want to continue to give us that?
Microsodespodcast at gmail.com.
Awesome. Where can they listen to us at?
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and I think that's it.
Well, I think that sounds like a bunch of different platforms, just like we give in the movie details.
Oh, also, we have a short you might enjoy on our YouTube. And it is from the Fountain of Youth episode, where we discussed Bobby's example of a trailer that tells you too much.
And spoiler alert, it's too much.
Yeah, exactly. You'll have to watch it and then tell us what you think.
And we'll try to do a few more of those, because that was a lot of fun, too.
Exactly.
Awesome. Well, thank you guys very much for tuning in.
And we'll talk to you next time on...
Microsodes.
