Until Dawn review / Ghost plays peekaboo in broad daylight!

What if death wasn't the end, but just another reset? And what if each time you came back, you carried the scars of your previous demise?

Laura and Esme return for Season 2 of Chicas Cucuy with a pulse-pounding review of "Until Dawn," a mind-bending horror film where survival means mastering the rules of a deadly time loop. When a group of friends venture to Glore Valley searching for a missing sister, they find themselves trapped in an abandoned welcome center where death is merely a reset button.

The podcast delves into what makes this PlayStation game adaptation so uniquely terrifying - unlike other time loop horror films, "Until Dawn" constantly shifts its threats. One cycle might feature a masked killer, another a witch-like figure, contaminated water, or glimpses of wendigo monsters. Each death leaves physical scars on the survivors, suggesting they're transforming with each reset. "It reminded me of an escape room," Laura notes, "because it becomes a puzzle after a while. They start trying to get smarter every round."

Through their animated discussion, the hosts explore the film's psychological elements, creative death sequences, and connections to its video game roots. They theorize about trigger points for the time loop, the mysterious Dr. Hill's role in the nightmare, and whether the movie serves as a prequel to the popular game. "I screamed twice in the theater and that usually doesn't happen," Laura admits, highlighting the film's effective jump scares despite its more cerebral approach to horror.

The episode concludes with a chilling real-life ghost story from a listener who spotted an elderly woman peeking through the curtains of a house that was actually vacant - the homeowner had recently passed away. It's a perfect reminder that sometimes the most unsettling encounters happen in broad daylight, when we least expect them.

Ready to join us for a new season of horror reviews and spine-tingling tales? Subscribe now and tune in if you dare!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Chicas Cucuy Podcast
• 1:21 Until Dawn Movie Introduction
• 6:22 Discovering the Game Connection
• 12:13 Entering Glore Valley's Welcome Center
• 21:45 First Death Cycle Begins
• 32:06 Learning the Rules Through Death
• 42:53 Underground Secrets and Dr. Hill
• 51:55 Breaking the Cycle and Escaping
• 1:00:00 Real-Life Ghost Story Segment

Transcript

Laura: 0:29

The Hello listeners. I'm Laura and I'm Esme, and we are Chicas Cucuy. Thank you for tuning in to our podcast.

Esme: 0:38

This is a podcast dedicated to horror movies and real life cucuy. We take a deep dive into the horror film world and bring you the latest and greatest and sometimes the not so great. We will give you our cinematic reviews and insights to what makes them so terrifyingly good. And please beware of spoilers.

Laura: 0:53

We want you to be happy hearing us, not mad at us for telling you what happens, and after each session we'll feature a real life scary story.

Esme: 1:00

If you have one to share, we'd love to hear about it and, hey, it may even end up in one of our episodes. Tune in if you dare. Hi, everyone did you miss us because we missed you. Hi, it's like talking to an old friend that you haven't talked to in a long time. Very much apologetic for our absence in your life. We're happy to be back.

Esme: 1:30

We are so glad that you guys are still listening to us, and welcome to season two, everybody!

Laura: 1:38

we have a lineup of movies we can't wait to watch and review with all of you, so we hope you're in for the ride, and I'm sure you know, because we're living in the same world. There's a lot of new movies are going to be released later on this year too, and they're all very spooky and scary

Esme: 1:52

and I love summertime for that, because that's when they start dropping these like scary stories and prepping us for halloween.

Esme: 1:57

How many months to halloween?

Laura: 2:00

uh let me see, wait, wait, I can't count. June, july, august, september. Yeah, june, july, august, september. I would say four, because once it's October 1st, it's Halloween month it's basically Halloween. Yeah, that's true, but yeah technically it's another whole month before Halloween. But that's when all like the mazes open, the universe studios knots everything gets scary Haunted maze. Yeah, I can't wait for that, I know, and today was thundering and lightning where we are, so it made me feel like we were in October already. It made me feel so spooky too.

Esme: 2:28

I loved it, I loved it.

Esme: 2:29

I was like, yeah, that's telling us we're approaching. So we want to just say that we are super, super appreciative of the listeners that have been hanging in there with us because, you know, when we started this, it's just for our love of horror movies and it's been growing organically and the listeners that follow us obviously are horror lovers as well. So we just want to say a big thank you for everybody that has stuck around and is still continuously listening to us and downloading our episodes, and hopefully you will continue with us this season coming up as well. thank

Laura: 3:03

you so much to everyone around the world.

Esme: 3:05

Yes and we'll give a shout out soon. Today we got a movie to review. It's called Until Dawn. Basically, the movie is like this. This is the overview One year after her sister disappeared, clover and her friends head to the remote valley where she vanished to search for answers, exploring an abandoned visitor center. They soon encountered a masked killer who murdered them one by one, and her friends head to the remote valley where she vanished to search for answers, exploring an abandoned visitor center. They soon encountered a masked killer who murdered them one by one. However, when they mysteriously wake up in the beginning of the same night, they're forced to relive terror over and over again. I think that's basically like the overview of, maybe like the beginning only um, yes, they are terrorized and their day does start over and over again. Is that a new concept, laura?

Laura: 3:48

no, it reminds me of happy death day.

Esme: 3:49

And then also there's like old movies from like back in the days and I always hear this movie and to this day I haven't watched it, but that's basically the same thing which is groundhog day. It's an old movie and people always like talk about how it starts the day over and over and over. But it's not a scary movie and I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't seen it because it's like okay, then why the hell are you even mentioning it? But I'm mentioning it because I've heard it mentioned so many times.

Esme: 4:13

When it comes to those movies, and because it's been mentioned, I'm trying to think of why was it mentioned? Obviously they were describing yet another movie that does that, and I'm trying to think of titles, but my mind is drawing a blank. I'm sure you guys can listeners. So it does start over and over again and, yes, the people in it, the characters, do get terrorized over and over again and it is kind of like one of those movies that, although it's horror, it's more like um, how do you, how would you say it, laura,

Laura: 4:39

it was really fun

Esme: 4:40

entertaining. So it's like this is the kind of movie that's like it's entertaining because you could kind of guess. You know there are little twists and turns that they put on there, like you know the concept, like, right going into it, you already know okay, this is gonna keep happening. It's not something that's gonna be a surprise. The surprises are the way that they die, because each time it's different.

Laura: 5:00

It's not always the same, it's always like a different type of theme it reminded me of an escape room in a way, because it's like a puzzle after a while, because they start trying to get smarter every round.

Esme: 5:12

Okay, and before we continue, I'm going to apologize ahead of time Because, as you know, summer's coming. I mean, we're still spring, it's not summer yet, but we're getting to the point that there's like hot days. Today was one of them, yesterday was another. As much as I wish we had a soundproof room to record this, ignore all the noises that you hear people.

Laura: 5:32

Yeah, we're gonna try our best to edit.

Esme: 5:33

Yes, because we have all the windows open. I think we mentioned before, but we live fairly close to the lax airport, so we get a lot of airplane traffic here and we're so used to it we don't even hear them anymore. But I know you guys do, so I have to like edit them out anyways. Back to the movie. So the one thing that I learned just by um, things I was hearing, or whatever, was that this was based on a video game and I kind of knew that ahead of time.

Laura: 5:55

But I did notice that sony was given. There was like a lot of time spent on the playstation intro yeah, and the playstation, they said like twice I didn't know.

Esme: 6:04

They produce scary movies or movies so I had heard something about it but I was like, okay, I kind of dismissed it. Now, anybody that's like a gamer that's listening to us, you're probably gonna hate us because you're like, oh, you guys don't know anything. No, I've never played the game. I didn't even know that existed, did you?

Laura: 6:19

no, no, no, I didn't. I'm telling you. I just seen the playstation and was like so they're doing movies now? Like that doesn't make sense. Yeah, so no, I don't know.

Esme: 6:27

Yeah, so, but I also found out and this is also just by like hearing things that pop out, because you know how your phones are, like I mentioned before they hear you talk about something and then they start like telling you stuff. So I would get all these like little like notifications of things and people that were complaining. The um wendigo that was in it, like they didn't you know they changed him and whatever, which I guess is like one of the main monsters in the game. But some people were saying that, no, that they did like the way it looked. That looked more darker and not as bright and unscary as how the game looks. I, for one, have not seen how he looks in the game, I haven't even looked it up or anything but the thing that people didn't like about it was that they were saying that it has nothing to do with the game and then that the characters are slightly different.

Esme: 7:12

The only ones is like the, I guess

Laura: 7:14

the psychiatrist

Esme: 7:16

yeah, psychiatrist, based on what the people were saying, these people that actually play the game, to me it sounds like it's more of a like choose your own adventure. So like if you go into the game and you start playing, it doesn't reset, like, for example, like you know how, if a game that we play, like, let's say, you lose or you die or whatever, you can still start over again from scratch, and like start all over and redo things. But in this game, supposedly whatever choices or things you've already done, it saves them. So when you start off again fresh, those decisions affect the future of the, however you play.

Laura: 7:52

That makes sense because in the movie I did notice that after they were killed, when they would come back each round, they still had the injury of how they were killed Black eyes or like they had bruises or some type of physical damage but it matched to how they were killed black eyes or like they had bruises or, um, some type of physical damage but it matched to how they just died.

Esme: 8:08

so that that's why they were kind of like deteriorating each time yeah so I think that that was maybe like a nod toward that concept. But the people were saying like, oh well, like a movie defeats the whole point of it, like the game, because in the movie you can't choose own adventure. But I was like well, obviously, but I guess they were like no, like you remember, in black mirror there was that one episode or season that was just like one long film, mini film called bandersnatch, I do know, and on bandersnatch you couldn't pick your ending and but it was like obviously, like netflix or you know, did something that you were able yeah, with your remote.

Esme: 8:45

Yes.

Laura: 8:46

The Xbox or something? Yeah With your console.

Esme: 8:48

Like you're able to like pick what direction to take it. And it reminds me of the books in the 80s that were literally called Choose your Own Adventure books. I used to love them. I would read them as a kid, in elementary school, and, yeah, you would read the story and at the end it says, okay, if you decide to go down the basement, uh, go to page 89. Or if you decide to help your friend and see what the noise is outside, go to page, you know, 50 or whatever. You know that's cool. And then from those decisions then it would turn into some other like then you, at the end of that, those chapters, you had another choice to go, so whatever. So it was basically that and the fun part was like going and then at the end like, oh you, you go to the page 89, oh, you died, you got killed by doing this. So it was very cool, because back then I don't think like video games had that functionality yet, but you know, at some point it grew into that. But there were books that were like that too.

Esme: 9:40

So I understand these gamers that are maybe like so accustomed to like playing this game maybe it was a favorite game and like they're mad that the movie doesn't fall into that. So I understand why they're talking crap about it. But, like again, we're not gamers, so we've never played it, so we're strictly looking at this from a, like, movie point of view. Right, but I did want to touch on that because it was based on the game, so I kind of wanted to talk about that like a tidbit also. I came to my own conclusion because of what was said also, like the little forum people were talking about it, I did see that they were like, oh, it wasn't until the end, when they go into the mines, that it kind of made sense.

Esme: 10:17

So I feel like, even though they were talking crap about the movie, this is almost like it sets the stage for the game because, like one of the, like the main girl, she goes in there and once she finds that man, I know I'm getting ahead of it. Like I'm not trying to go to the end of the movie yet, but there's a part that I feel like that's where, like, maybe the game could actually start. So like all this that happened with the people is the backstory of how this place comes in. Remember that another car rolls up. So it's like it's not the end of the story movie we watched, but at the end it has like a little open loop. Yes, I'm jumping to the end of this. When? And they were able to leave that place like another property had the same thing.

Laura: 10:51

Huh, definitely not the same property, because there was snow.

Esme: 10:55

So it just made me think like, oh so this guy like had this set up another houses you know what it was weird in that forum that I was reading about it, someone was complaining how, like the outside of the house where they were at, like the welcome center, that it looked too like night it didn't even look that scary. I mean, I know that at night it looked scary and then when the other components came in it changed the way it looked. Even the inside looked scary but in the beginning, when it was all bright and friendly, looking like it didn't look bad. But someone posted a picture, like a little picture, of how ever this cabin looks like in the game, and in the game there's snow. So again, now that you said that, it kind of underlines what I said earlier, that I think it was setting the stage.

Laura: 11:34

The welcome center was in a cabin but

Esme: 11:36

no, it wasn't

Laura: 11:37

the end clip was a cabin

Esme: 11:38

yeah, so that end cabin was basically connecting it to the actual, where it continues and that's where the game is, you know, because other people come in so those would be like the players.

Laura: 11:47

What do you call it?

Esme: 11:48

it's like a prequel kind of prequel yeah, I think people yeah, I think people were mad because they're like, oh well, usually there's video games based on a movie that exists, but they're like how we went backwards. You know there was already a game why they need to create a movie. Maybe watching this movie causes people to be interested in the game and they'll probably like go play it. They even know it existed. So now that we've talked about that, let's get into the movie. So, like I mentioned, I think one of the things that I like the best was that it was like one of those movies that if you're gonna go and want to be like oh my god, I want it to be so scary, like see something like, it's not like that kind of movie.

Laura: 12:22

Well, I screamed twice in the movie theater and that usually doesn't happen.

Esme: 12:25

No, but that's what I'm saying.

Esme: 12:26

Like it's not the kind of movie it's not the kind of movie that you're like like you're gonna have nightmares about, not like that, but it's the kind of movie that has jump scares, so you are gonna be startled. It's like I mean, it was still exciting to me, okay. So the main girl, ella rubin, was clover. She was like the backstory was basically that her and her sister.

Laura: 12:44

Well, her sister went missing.

Esme: 12:46

That's, yes, the thing and they had lost their parents or something right like they had, like some, some trauma some trauma that happened, yeah, some family trauma.

Esme: 12:53

So she was kind of like saying like, oh, you're just leaving me and this and that, right, and the sister's like why don't you come? But she's like, nah, she didn't go with her. But she basically was saying like well, we have to carry on with our lives. You know like we can't like dwell on this. Yeah, so they kind of left, like she was kind of like sad and they didn't leave in a good like in a good way yeah, no, it was kind of sad.

Esme: 13:12

So then I guess, like a year later, right, she goes to the same place, because her sister never came back and I guess she had photos or like so it looks like her missing sister before she went missing, sent her a final video or something.

Laura: 13:25

In the background they showed this liquor store, slash gas station, so that's how she was able to retrace the steps up to that point of like where she was last. It started off really exciting because we're seeing this chase and this obvious like killer that's I don't know like about to do something bad, but you can't really tell, like if it's a zombie. Well, at least I did. I couldn't tell if it was a zombie or human, but it looked like a creature. Um, but whatever, the point is that there's a girl already in distress like the movie's full-on started already.

Laura: 13:52

Yeah, um, so that's how we know that. That's something you know happened prior to this whole like backstory of like, okay, there's a girl looking for a sister. That's what I kind of liked about it. I like that it showed us that she already had died, like it wasn't a mystery of like, oh, let's see if she's still alive. I like the fact that I already knew she was dead the whole time but also you know what, though, I didn't 100 know that she was dead.

Esme: 14:11

You know why? Because at first I thought she was dead when I saw that whole little intro. Because you see the creature like crawling, like she's trying to get out from, like the earth, and like he's crawling trying to get her. But then when she sees that killer with a mask on that kills her, she's like no, she's like begging him. No see, we're like, okay, she died. But then when the movies kept on going and started and we saw clover, which is her sister, once she gets into the part about like trying to find her, and all that, and when we see that they die and come back, it made me think like there was a possibility her sister wouldn't be alive I thought she wouldn't, because they already showed the book with her signing and it looked like she had already reached her limit.

Laura: 14:47

So that was why I thought she had already died, because it looked like she had already went through it way too much and her last words were I don't want to die again. So I'm like I don't know this girl's out. Yeah, because her signature was like already sloppy and we'll get into that book right now.

Esme: 15:00

So the group that goes with her are a couple of her friends, one of them which was like her ex yeah, he was like a weirdo, like just tagging along.

Laura: 15:07

Which one was it? This guy? There's michael on there. No, it is real name, but like oh, yeah, yeah max.

Esme: 15:12

And then there was a guy able with a girl named nina they were like a couple and then their friend megan. All of them ended up going.

Laura: 15:19

Apparently they thought it was a road trip or something, right well only the new guy only the new boyfriend was like oh, I didn't know, this was gonna be like some form of like therapy, not even that like hunting for her, you know, like retracing her steps, yeah, which I honestly would have felt kind of weird too.

Esme: 15:33

If no one told me that part, I would have been like that doesn't be fun yeah, like a vibe kill trip because it is a vibe kill, like you start feeling like down gloomy, like oh shit, like someone's, like missing you know, yeah, and then like, not only that, like that person that's there is probably going to be going through it, like retracing the steps or reliving the fact that she can't find her sister, right. So okay, I guess we forgive him no, even like um for me.

Laura: 15:54

I understood him.

Esme: 15:55

I don't even feel like that should be explained honestly, I related to him a lot and there's a lot of selfish things that I feel like I literally was gonna say that his character was kind of like those people that like don't give a shit about nobody else's feelings, um about themselves, like the whole time.

Laura: 16:10

He was just like man, like forget these people, let's just leave you know I think he was just a survivalist and I think maybe I'm that because I would have been like, at the end of the day, like I'm out looking, I'm out trying to stay alive. At this point, if no one else around me's gonna be alive with me, then that's on them.

Esme: 16:25

So I related to him a lot, that's so funny, laura, oh my god.

Laura: 16:29

Okay. So I was like yes, you go able all right, okay. So anyways, they're driving right and they get to the place where the last known video of her location, like she traced it to this place right and then at that point we learned that megan, which is one of the friends that's with the squad, she has like this, like other sense, or like she's into like weird shit.

Laura: 16:50

Yeah, she's like a sixth sense that she tries because she wanted to do like a ritual or like do like some form of like circle and have everyone like tune in to energy and stuff. But uh, whatever, it was all bogus in that moment, like nothing worked, whatever. That was very telling for me. I'm like, okay, so this girl's into that, or she obviously could pick up on energy, if she's not crazy um.

Esme: 17:11

So she seemed kind of crazy to me.

Laura: 17:13

I was like not believing her first, like this girl yeah, I didn't believe her right away either, but, um, it shows a lot about each of their characters and their personalities, like that one, that one opening scene, when they're in front of the gas station. It shows a lot about all of them. And clover, which is the little sister of the missing person um, she's the one that ends up going to the gas station and she meets the clerk there and he somehow knew where people go missing a lot and he said something weird. He says that a lot of people go missing um, close near there, not not exactly there, but nearby. So he directs her to that way and doesn't he?

Laura: 17:46

that was freaky because I don't think I would feel like any optimistic if someone told me that like oh, a lot of people go missing around here, like what do you mean?

Esme: 17:53

and he said up the hill or up the way? Did he say up the?

Laura: 17:55

hill, I don't know, but he said the name of the village or whatever the hell. Oh, glore valley, glore valley. Okay, that's, I want you in my blood line.

Esme: 18:03

okay, so the name of this town that he sends him to is called glory valley and it's a mining town, which is a very important thing because supposedly that's how everything started, yeah, like the little wormhole of a town starts or whatever. So, anyways, the guy seems very eerie and later we find out that this clerk which is involved, this old man, he's part of the problem, he's also like sending these people over there sends them to a trap and they all get into the little SUV and they start driving toward that place. They're kind of like oh, we don't even know where we're going, like the other guy, the one that you relate to. What's his name? Back Abel.

Laura: 18:44

So he starts, kind of like wait're driving in this thunderstorm rain like it was really bad so, like some of them, want to turn back right it's because she had already said that she wanted to turn back, but then she changed her mind.

Laura: 18:55

So we see the part where he's like we've already like done a bunch of vueltas just because of you. So it looked like she was having like second thoughts, but then she don't want to go back. He was tired of it. I would be too. I would be pretty annoyed, like yeah, of being in a really bad weather.

Esme: 19:09

Someone who's indecisive so they're going through this foresty looking area and then there it's storm and it's dark and then all of a sudden they see like a light up ahead, right, and they see like a house. Do they notice that it's a chain until they drive in it, or right before they get in?

Laura: 19:23

it. Um, there's like a circle like in the sky where it's not so.

Esme: 19:29

They notice it and they all think it's weird before they drive in no like, as you're going into the welcome center parking lot there it abruptly stops, like it's like kind of like a curtain, like you know, when it's raining really hard and you're indoors and outdoors like that's the difference.

Laura: 19:42

It reminded me of hunger games, when they have like the simulated weather and all that, I felt like someone was controlling it.

Esme: 19:49

Yeah it does feel like that, and this is the part that reminded me of that show that I was talking about from from mgm. It's a really good sci-fi show and it's creepy and it has creatures in it too that kill you at night and stuff. So it's like a really interesting, like it's good, but, um, it reminded me of that because this town from well, it's not called from, but like but there's this town that all these strangers end up in and they get there on accident. And again, I'm gonna name another show. That's really cool. That's kind of like that called wayward pines.

Esme: 20:17

Wayward pines is also a sci-fi. It has a totally different thing, but they all end up in places like driving somehow, and they just appear and then they can't get out. So wayward pines is like that. I mean, I want to give it away in case you guys haven't seen it, but it's like you wake up and you don't know that time has passed and then you're stuck in a place because at the end that's the only place that exists, but the people in there don't know that yet.

Esme: 20:36

In from there's a very specific thing that people see right before they get trapped into that town, and it's a fallen tree. It's like they're driving and there's a tree that's in the middle of the road blocking it and they're forced to like make a u-turn because they can't go through it. They like drive and they're like, wait, where's the town I just came from? And there's only one road. And you suddenly appear in this road with the same diner, the same motel, the same houses, and you're like what? And they try to leave it and you come back to the same place. So they see this fallen tree or whatever. And it very much reminded me of this because I'm like, okay, in my head I thought, as soon as they cross that weird circle where there's no rain, there's, you can see the rain pouring, a storm behind them, but in that little spot there's like sunlight and it looks all cheerful and like pretty. It's like, okay, that's weird. Did you feel like they're not gonna come back?

Esme: 21:21

I felt they crossed that that portal already and they can't come back. I thought that in my head. I'm like because I already know these people are trapped somewhere in a house I was wondering.

Laura: 21:29

I was wondering at what point they were unable to go back. I thought it was probably even the road, like the rain. I thought that too, because I'm like maybe that's why they kept going back. But then like they'll change their mind because they weren't really sure where they were going, no more, but yeah anyway so I was thinking there.

Esme: 21:43

I mean, who knows if the rain is part of it or not? Possibility. There's a lot of questions that I think don't get answered in this movie, but I think they do it on purpose to keep us kind of like guessing. There's certain things right.

Laura: 21:53

One of those things is what you said right now I also have another theory, but we have to discuss it when that detail gets brought up. Okay, because I think, like the theories that we've said so far, I think that this one knocks them all down the theory that first popped in my head I think is like one that stands out is obviously that little section.

Laura: 22:09

I feel like once you cross into that section, I felt like okay, well, you're there, like you can't just leave but maybe they could have left because they didn't even go inside like, let's say, they wouldn't have gone inside the the welcome center honestly, if I was in that position, I don't think I would have crossed into that dry area, because I would have felt like this is abnormal yeah, me too.

Esme: 22:25

I think I would have been scared. I don't think I would go in there we gotta go, we're mexican yeah, we a chicken or smart? No, we're smart. They get there, they park. They're like oh, a welcome center. Glory valley sounds like glory hole. The sister knows that that's the place that that man, that the clerk, had told her. So she's like okay, well, we might as well stay here because it's not pouring down rain. We could get out of the car. They're like let's go inside. And it's like vacant.

Esme: 22:55

It looks very abandoned I mean vacant of people but I mean, there's things there's things, but like they start noticing that the things are in there, haven't been touched in, god knows how long? And spiderweb yeah it's dusty but it's more like a. You could tell like the time, like they even had, like their phone was like a rotary phone and like they saw the calendar I don't know if it said what year oh yeah, I was really. I'll do this like october it's like a year, like was it like in the 80s or something.

Esme: 23:21

Yeah, that little calendar was really yeah, like it was old, it was like nothing that happened recent.

Laura: 23:26

We can't remember, but you guys pay attention.

Esme: 23:28

Yeah, and they were even saying like damn, I don't think anybody's been in here since this time, but there was furniture, there were things.

Laura: 23:35

And the thing that seems the most out of place, considering how everything is old looking, vintage, it looks pretty plain. There's not a lot of color, a color, a lot of like. There's no posters, pictures. It looks very like boring in that way, but out of nowhere there's like this skull with like a hourglass yes but that looks almost ancient.

Laura: 23:54

Like it looks like it has a like ritualistic feel designed to it so it just looks very out of place. Like it looks like you would see that in, maybe like a witchcraft house or like maybe like an indigenous tribe would have that maybe not indigenous, because they had, like the sand, what's it called the hourglass the hourglass, yeah, the hourglass, the hourglass.

Esme: 24:14

It makes it almost like not indigenous, but what it was placed on.

Laura: 24:18

It looked like it had a straw or wood, wood and like feathers.

Esme: 24:23

It definitely looked like it did stand out and then. So they started kind of looking around and you know like they each went to a different room. Uh, one of the guys, I think abel, is the one that walked into this other room where he saw all the wanted posters I mean wanted missing posters, oh yeah, but at first, like he had to like, uncover some of the papers, yeah, he started being nosy they were like uncovering, like newspaper articles and stuff yeah, that were clipped to the, to the like a cork board or something.

Esme: 24:48

So he was like he started taking some off that was weird and missing posters, and then he saw a missing poster, then he saw another one. They're all these people, but the people look more current than like whatever you know year.

Laura: 25:00

The thing said and there was no contact info, so it looked like very pointless to have their pictures printed it just said missing in a photo of a person. So that looked that was weird on its own and it's like and it was a lot of people and my co-worker told me that that was another easter egg because apparently the pictures of the missing people they are people from the actual game or something. He said. Oh, so if you play the game I guess you would have noticed, okay, which?

Esme: 25:24

I did not. Yeah, and there were people that became part of that galore valley place. Like they get sucked into it. And then we find that out.

Laura: 25:30

So this is a detail that I was gonna bring up that, for me, makes me feel like at this moment in time, this is when they fucked up. It was, at this moment, like the meme. So there's like a guest book in there. The guest book is signed by nina and she did it like just for fun. It's kind of like when you let your intrusive thoughts win right, like it's like why did you do that girl? Like ain't nobody telling you to sign it. Yeah, it's like you just did it because you could, and I think we all experienced that in our lifetimes. Like why did you do that?

Laura: 25:57

I don't know you just wrote your name, so she did that stupid thing kind of like when you're at michael's, that moment that the curse or the time clock started, whatever triggered. Yeah, because, as we already kind of mentioned, there's like rounds to this and once every new life starts, it's in that moment that it begins. When she signs, so I feel like she cursed them all by signing, but that's my idea, that's my theory, okay, but there's another thing.

Esme: 26:25

You know we're talking about the rain and all that stuff, uh-huh, because you know how everybody was doing something different at the same exact time. You know how the main girl, clover, and then mac. They went outside and clover went to go. Look, I guess I don't know what, why she went outside, but she went outside because she saw her sister in the dark.

Laura: 26:42

It was so ugly like in the no.

Esme: 26:44

No, yeah yeah, but before. So she went outside for whatever reason. I forgot, I can't remember why she went outside.

Laura: 26:49

She's exploring like what's around there. You guys pay attention because there's a reason for everything, but we just, they're just not that important. That's why we don't remember them, but they're, they're probably important, like we just didn't catch them, okay.

Esme: 26:59

So. So she goes outside and then max goes behind her and then she starts peeking toward the forest, like where the wall of rain is there again. She goes to that edge. Then I feel like I remember that she heard her name, she was trying to look through it, but she didn't go in it. She put her hand in it first. The point is that she saw the sister, because I thought she was going to be able to.

Esme: 27:16

I think I noticed it because I thought she was going to be able to get in. Oh, like a forest or something. Yeah, I trapped and can't go through it. But I'm like, well, she can't go through it. But then that's when, like the sister appeared, her silhouette or her, how it looked like her. So clover called after her.

Laura: 27:31

She was like it looked weird because it's like sis, where are you in the pouring rain? And like she had that girl in there. That girl had bangs, so she looked already weird, like with her hair wet and her face and she kind of was in a weird posture. So whatever she goes to chase her, but she never found her and it looks like she kind of got lost in there.

Esme: 27:48

Huh, like she couldn't, yeah find her way back and then, when she went in there, did what's his name? Go in there after her?

Laura: 27:54

no, or he just grabbed her. He grabbed her out eventually, because he was also wondering where did she go? He didn't know.

Esme: 28:00

She walked into the rain and then max went after her and that part where he pulled her out is important too, because at first it's like did that trigger it? No, was Nina writing her name on that little thing trigger it? No, was it that guy been looking at the wanted I mean wanted, I keep saying wanted posters? Had the missing people posters? Because that's where everybody ended up exactly Like they all were, like touching something that was like off the road.

Laura: 28:24

They were all doing something at the same time, but for me it's nina. What was megan doing? Where was she at? I'm not sure but, she, she didn't do anything.

Esme: 28:32

I don't think that triggered anything like we did see that all of a sudden, when whatever was triggered that little rotating thing that you were talking about with the, with the um, the tribal witchcraft thing yeah, the tribal witchcraft thing it turned and the hour glass to start at first nothing happened like, but then the lights turned on like there was no electricity, and all of a sudden there was electricity, like so all kinds of stuff because they were even looking for water before that and nothing. And then all of a sudden it was like the place was functioning so fast forwarding to where things get really fun.

Laura: 29:01

This is gonna be their first. What's the best way to put it? This is gonna be the beginning of their first end, because they're gonna die a lot of times after this point. But the first time was the most traumatic for the audience members aka me, because I thought, wow, that was quick, like what's the movie.

Esme: 29:16

They're all dying, they all died.

Laura: 29:17

So their car seems to get hijacked right like someone's literally takes their car, puts the high beams on I don't know what dumb ass would leave their keys in um in the car, in the car. Unless correct me if I'm wrong and if we just both don't remember, then you pay I don't remember I think someone did something to the door.

Laura: 29:35

It makes it seem like someone went in, grabbed the keys, but I don't know if that was a different round, I don't know. But the point is that someone was able to get into that car and that's their only form of transportation. So the owner of the car, abel, and his girlfriend, are tripping and they're like we're not gonna take our eyes off of the car because you know we gotta see what the next move is. But with that, how does that? What's that girl? Yeah, the mask. The michael myers on steroids? Yeah, how does he come?

Esme: 29:59

into the house. Doesn't that guy able? Doesn't he hear a noise and he goes walking down the hallway and he goes oh, I'm gonna go check out over here oh yeah, so megan was the first one to go down.

Laura: 30:09

Yes, then april, everyone goes down within like the first three minutes of him coming into the picture and he just has like a, like a traditional actor, like I don't know. But even if he didn't have a murder weapon, he himself he looks like, he's like monster it's like a pig. He's like those x no but even himself, like he has a lot of force yeah, and when they try to hit on he doesn't even budge.

Esme: 30:29

Like he's like one of those. Like yeah, like, like you said, michael myers, like you try to hit on, nothing happens steroids though, yeah, and he has like a clown mask, like that kind of just covers the front of your face uh, and then it looks like he's wearing like a mechanic's suit yeah, and then max was the one who very quickly shows that he has balls, because he did try to like catch him off guard and hit him but then he like smashed his skull and like literally he was undefeatable, like the final boss vibes.

Esme: 30:55

And then, when the girl comes esta um nina to look for him because you can't find him. She sees him on the floor or something right like I couldn't have.

Laura: 31:02

It's because everyone is like brutally murdered and we're not even going to go into like the different scenes of how they look, because it's just so much so you'll enjoy that part in the movie, like seeing how they get taken out. But then that's what makes it cool, because right after that scene it's like they're back, but then like they're all shook. So it's it's clear that they remember what just happened, but they're like how are we here again?

Esme: 31:25

yeah, the thing is, even they died at different moments, they all come back at the exact same time and that's like the last thing they remember is like being killed, you know. So they, when they get up, they're like and they look at themselves like that guy that got stabbed in the chest, he's done with his chest, things like that. Like they are like okay, it just freaking happened. How am I here again?

Laura: 31:41

yeah, and then nina's like right there signing her name, right yeah, that's why I feel like it was her that initiated all that. But yeah, I mean, we don't know. So then in the next life, in the next round, I'm gonna just say rounds, it's easier because it's like a game and it literally is a game, right. So in the next round, that's when we see that they're kind of like piggybacking off of what they already governed from the first round. So they're like oh, you got to check this out. So they all go into that like room where the missing people are and then they're just tripping out together.

Laura: 32:06

Yeah, because they didn't even have a chance to like cross reference, like their, what their findings are and stuff, and then keep in mind, clover and max are outside, like their initial like beginning is when they're outside, coming back from that rainfall thing, so they go inside or whatever. So in the second round, that's when we realize that megan sees sierra for something. She does have that like other sense and I'm a toddler, you got me feeling I'm gonna leave it is recording your love, your love, yeah, yeah, okay. So megan, megan, yeah, she starts getting possessed, yeah, in the couch, and then the lights go dark. So that's also for the audience and, you know, for you guys.

Laura: 32:44

I watch it. You're gonna see like, oh, so, like nothing's the same, nothing's exactly the same, because I thought it was gonna be like happy death day where you get murdered. That's not the same exact way, but like by the same person, like the threat is the same. So you have to figure out, like how to beat them, prevent it or how to prevent it. But in this case it's like it's a whole, it's coming at you from different angles and the threats are different so the lights went out, and that's different.

Laura: 33:05

It's like everything was functioning with electricity beforehand. But whatever, megan's over there in the missing people room tripping out, but something possessed her, it looked like what possessed her?

Esme: 33:13

Yeah, she was like floating in the air.

Laura: 33:14

It looked like what possessed her, though, were like all those souls that were trapped, so they were trying to all speak through her at the same time.

Esme: 33:23

Every time she pointed at one of the missing posters because she was like in a possessed state floating in the air, and she would say like oh my god, how am I gonna get out of here? And she'll point at somebody else and then she'll speak in like almost like their voice, but they were giving good tips.

Laura: 33:33

They were saying like, don't let him in.

Esme: 33:35

The, the clown guy like well at the end, before she fell down, after being possessed, she said whatever you do, don't let him in.

Esme: 33:42

Don't let him in and like that yeah, yeah, yeah and then was that the time where it was like the witch thing that happened outside. That's how clover died, yeah, the second time. Okay, so after that don't we hear like someone banging on the door? You hear like banging on the door like really, really hard, and it's melanie supposedly. Yeah, because she's hitting the door. And then I guess, like abel goes and looks at the window, he's like there's no one there, or like somebody says it, maybe it's not him.

Laura: 34:04

Well, clover opens the door like a dummy and they're telling her don't do it Because they looked and they could see that no one was there.

Esme: 34:10

But she's like oh, but I can hear you know, so Afuer says she went to go open it.

Guest: 34:13

And of course it was nobody.

Laura: 34:15

So they closed the door.

Esme: 34:16

Yeah, like Nela said, there was so many things going on and so many lies that they had to come back to. I do remember in this part, Clover getting dragged. Oh yeah, that did happen for sure.

Esme: 34:27

So, she's getting dragged into across the street and across the street, all of a sudden, this house, that was not there. That's the trippiest part. Yeah, it wasn't there before and they even said, okay, that wasn't there. You know, that's new or something like that. And it's some scary ass looking house and there's like writing on the outside of it. On the outside of it, but it looks like decrepit, like it's like like abandoned or something, but the door opens and whatever it is that's dragging her and throwing her over. There is like dragging her into that dark doorway. It's like really, really scary and no one else wants to go and get her, except max. Well, we have to go get her and he doesn't want, nobody else wants to go and they're like making fun of him, like what you think she's gonna get with you, didn't get back with you just because you go, and he's thinking like that's so stupid, I'll go kill myself, so she'll get back with me, right?

Laura: 35:07

yeah, but he goes. He was a real one, though I didn't notice that.

Esme: 35:10

I'm like this guy looks like the biggest wimp, but he's not yeah, like he's actually like trying to do something. So anyway, she gets dragged in there and she passes out and then, like, when she wakes up, everything's like scary. In there there's like these half like bus mannequins. Oh yeah, that all have. You know how? That other person in the first time that they got killed, one that was killing everybody, how he had his mask these have a bunch of little other clown masks, so there's like different faces, but they're all the same but it looks creepy in there.

Esme: 35:36

And then there's like a lady with like an oxygen tank watching tv like oh, they could just see like her silhouette. Watching tv, like, like old, um, freaking, like the tv boxes from back in the days, the the lady the witch with the freaking um oxygen tank.

Laura: 35:50

She looks like super withered and evil looking and then she starts approaching clover with like weird information, like about how, like you're gonna be trapped here with like the rest of us. She just keeps getting closer and closer to her, like while laughing it was ugly, yeah, it was like creepy, yeah. So then that lady that we're speaking of, she ends up getting really close to Clover and like knocking her down, because Clover's trying to escape and she's trying to unlock the door, but it's like sealed, locked, and I think like the windows are like there's like walls, like they're covered, like she's locked in, so there's like really nowhere for her to go.

Laura: 36:19

And then the lady ends up like just like attacking her and like decays right in front of her eyes you see, like the skull, she turns into dust, but that soul that was in that woman goes into clover and she immediately has, like her eyes, like black. So then we see that she's possessed and then freaking max is over there after her, you know, being a good friend saving her, but he doesn't know that she's in this state. So that's how he gets taken out. And it's a bunch of like I'm telling you different scenarios. Unfortunately, we would be here like forever if we go deep, if we dissect each one. Yeah, we go deep with each one, but you'll be entertained from beginning to end with all of the ways that they creatively get killed.

Esme: 36:56

And then again we start seeing that whenever they do start again that they, like Lara mentioned in the beginning, that they have the scars or black areas where they were either stabbed or they were like cut up or whatever one of the guys, april, he starts getting these weird things on his back. Was that till like later, doesn't?

Laura: 37:12

till later. But um, it looks like, since you already brought it up, we might as well just touch base. And with every round that passes, I think they're like decaying or like getting more beat up, and it's turning into something, because for example, that guy april, like he starts getting on his spine.

Esme: 37:27

And how do we know that's a Wendigo thing, didn't we see one at some point? But they also use that word in the movie. Yeah, but we saw one of those creatures at some point, which is we know that he's turning into one of those. Another thing that we found out is that they can't drink the water. That was like in the third time that they were getting killed.

Laura: 37:48

And clever, because I think that was my immediate thought the second time. Like I can't believe it took them that long. I was like they should just all go into one space and like don't move, don't do anything. But they even can't do that. Right, because me, when I saw that scene when they drank the water, which you could elaborate on I already knew in my head that's a no-no, like I would not do something new, like if I haven't done this already, like I would not experiment now because yeah, because they were all like in the bathroom.

Esme: 38:07

Right, they were in the bathroom and they were just like close the door and all of that. I guess they're like safety numbers.

Guest: 38:13

We're all staying together.

Esme: 38:13

They boarded it up too I guess one of them was like oh my god, I'm thirsty, or whatever. And then one of the girls had tried previously to drink water and she's like, oh yeah, there's no water there's no water here. And then, like when he turned it on, the water came out and she was like, hey, what the hell? So he gets like a cup that was there, fills it up and he goes do you guys want some?

Esme: 38:29

and he drinks some and then he passes it around to everybody else, so yeah, so like he drinks the water and he gives it to somebody else and so on and so on. Next thing, you know, he starts getting sick and like gagging no one's even noticing, and then he explodes and all his body. They're like, oh my god, what happened? Everybody was screaming and we, we were like jump, scared into it. So then they all started getting scared because everybody that drank from the water knew that they were. They were gonna start like like a mine, you know, like um, they started spitting out, yeah, so eventually they all died.

Esme: 38:57

I think they all drank water right and then one of them, I think, someone got in their mouth and then they made them explode, like they didn't even drink anymore.

Laura: 39:02

And then megan, she drank only a little bit, so only her leg loaded, yeah. And then she was like suffering, yeah she was trying to drag herself like.

Laura: 39:10

So then this is when these idiots started resorting to suicide to like, if they already see they're not gonna make it, they're like, let's just take me out of my misery. But then that led to them wanting to have this truce of like the moment one person dies and we have to kind of like just all quit so we could start fresh again, reset, so we could all survive together, because they were given a clue by that crazy guy that it is possible to survive the night. But obviously they don't want no one left behind and that's when abel starts like oh, no, no, thank you, like we're alive, yeah, and I

Esme: 39:37

agree with him like so they were saying the truth, because that way they could all leave together. But they were also like, I think like abel was like whoa, that's not you guys, if you die, like he wanted to just like keep his chance for himself, you know.

Laura: 39:47

So then the girl doesn't like his girlfriend like get mad at him or something, so she kills him yeah, she's down on purpose and then like that one guy comes, the clown guy, and then she said him first yeah, there's a little humor there.

Esme: 39:59

That's during the part that they also kind of like figure out like, okay, how many times are we gonna keep coming back? The girl nina, didn't she also find her sister's signature on?

Laura: 40:06

there. Oh yeah, they started discovering, like the past, people who've been there and they have about like how many, like 12 or 7, 10 do they sign uh-huh, 13, oh, 13, and the signatures are like perfect at the start, but as they get to 13 they're like little, like chicken scratch.

Esme: 40:20

Yeah, it started getting worse and worse. So they realized they're like you know what people only make it up to 13 and then like they don't come back but they don't know why.

Esme: 40:26

I think one of the other clues are given by that man, that they become part of the game or something, or somebody says that, the witch said it and clover repeated it to everyone and then, like we saw things that okay, like another question that I was saying, like you know how things that got unanswered was how you know, remember that one of the times of max, when he came back, like he noticed his fingers were turning like into claws.

Guest: 40:47

And he was trying to hide them.

Esme: 40:48

So there were certain things that were happening to them physically, but some of them didn't want to say because they were already basically being part of the game, like, or they were being, like, sucked into whatever they were going to become, yeah.

Laura: 40:58

I don't remember though.

Esme: 40:59

Yeah, because it was a part that they kind of fast-forwarded all this stuff and they were not gonna do every single one with us because they did so many. I mean, I think it was stupid that they were recording, because no, who's gonna record all that? That's what I'm saying. It was stupid. And if it was gonna reset, really your phone's gonna save all that, you know? Yeah, um, because it seemed like a lot of them started like not remembering stuff, right, like it happened so many times. So the guy able started recording, but yeah, one like who knows, would it actually doesn't everything reset, so wouldn't the phone reset too? Or b doesn't get electricity. Why is his phone not dead after so many freaking days?

Laura: 41:38

see, um, I feel like if you're on survival mode, you're not gonna be like here. Let me push record now, because some of the things that they were recording were like very crucial moments that I'm like no one's gonna have their freaking yeah but what I did like about it is that they saw we got little tidbits of things.

Esme: 41:52

I got, like you know, the part where, like they saw that face appear in the middle of like nowhere and then it started flying at them like that. Like that part was scary. I forgot about that. It was one of the phone segment, and another phone segment, I think, is where we saw the wendigo, like we saw the, that creature that he was turning into, oh yeah.

Laura: 42:07

But the way to go concept was brought to us by dr Hill. He kind of like had a clover, remember? Yes, yeah, like a one-on-one with her.

Esme: 42:14

But well, he brought it up. But like we saw it right after. That is when the guy's like something on my back when I sit down, it bothers me. And he had those things sticking out from his back, like his spine was like kind of like protruding these little things, like he was churning into that but I like how.

Laura: 42:26

When he asked, like what is it?

Esme: 42:28

they're like nothing that was my favorite part. They're like nothing, nothing, are you sure?

Laura: 42:33

so let's jump ahead. So, as we were mentioning, they were having this recap of like all the lives they've had so far and they're already reaching the end of the threshold. So dr hill ends up telling clover that one-on-one that we were just mentioning. He tells her like it's possible to survive the game, and then she's convinced that if she talks to him directly that she can get some answers. So he makes this deal to speak with her, but only if she's alone. And then he did throw a tip in there that he's. He's around, like he's there.

Esme: 43:00

So she's like I'm gonna go explore and find him and didn't he also say your sister's there, I might even let you see her. So that was like a big part of her like, yeah, being compelled to go find him by herself.

Laura: 43:11

Yeah, yeah that's true, and half of the gang was on to it. They were like, yeah, don't do that, that's not a good idea.

Laura: 43:15

But then the other half was like we have no other choice, but also just know he could be lying to you. And that's when we first see anyone go through those doors that show us that half of the town is underground. It's so weird. But then we we learn and I guess that's part of the backstory with the game that there was like this big explosion and a lot of people were killed and stuff, but that whole town, or like all those houses are, are there. They're just underground. So when they arrive to the welcome center, it looks like there's nothing. It looks like just terrain.

Esme: 43:44

Things have been swallowed so there's like tunnels and stuff under, so that's where she walks into yeah, because when they first go down because remember, when they go downstairs, in the very beginning one of them, one of the guys, had said like why would anybody put windows underground? Yeah, but it's because later they find out that it was that and those doors that they're like, oh it's gonna be dirt, and they opened it. It was actually one of the long mine caves and you know what?

Laura: 44:04

I'm just realizing that I mixed up the rounds. I'm telling you that's part of the beauty of it. There's so many rounds and you kind of get confused at what happened at what point. But all of them are true. But she actually didn't go underground just yet. She actually went out the front door into the woods because he said I'm in the woods, or she assumed that he was in the woods.

Esme: 44:21

Yeah, and that's a map or something right that's when she finds her sister as a wendigo, like super ugly and demonic yeah, she looks like scary, like a creature, creature, but she's wearing her same dress or something, so she knows she looks so ugly and she's attacking her, and the way that she got caught with her caught with like a bear trap on her leg it was at some point there's like glass ceiling that one person either fell through an accident and another time. That's how, like when they were hiding in there. That's how, like, one of the bad guys got in too.

Laura: 44:47

Yeah, I feel like, again, we would take a long time describing each one he does, but they're all really creative and really we hope you watch it in the movie theater because that's when you'll have the best. Yes, in the dark and with good sound.

Esme: 44:58

But there's a lot.

Laura: 44:59

It's just so many. It's because think of it like a game, which it is. It's like the same map, the same layout. It's just like you have to find the right formula.

Esme: 45:06

You have to find the right way to go through it and again, like they're reaching like their final night, where they think that that might be the final one before we will start turning into stuff. And I think, um, like after that whole incident that she saw her sister, she was able to escape and I think max is the one that helped her escape again. That's when at some point, they go into the place and they're like oh, we've been doing this all wrong. Look around you, there's weapons. Remember they were inside? They start getting weapons and then they go through those doors that's when you thought that.

Esme: 45:30

That's when the game felt like I felt like, oh, this is probably where the game actually starts, like in real life. But no, it's not, because later we find out about the whole cabin and the snow and stuff and this is not it but this would be like a perfect way to have like a whole backstory to a game showing us all this stuff that happens and then, okay, start now, go get your weapon and go in there, right they?

Esme: 45:46

go in there there are creatures in there. There's like random creatures that pop out, lots of jump scares, but fun ones. At some point, clover gets to a place where, one of the times when they reset, the only one that was missing was megan, and megan was like. She saw her trapped in some little cell with like one of those things. Yeah, she was strapped to a chair and the Wendigo had like a chain and was trying to get at her.

Laura: 46:09

Yeah, and that setting was induced by the psychiatrist that was saying that he was performing tests on victims of the accident as well as newcomers that somehow still get infected by the energy, and like, supposedly, that's how bad the trauma was there, that it affected new, the new people that didn't even know about it. Okay, like to me, I'm confused at that because supposedly he says that she's like his most interesting patient, so it makes me feel like she's the core of it all, like if she started it in a way, because says that she has a power to like feel it more and more. Like it's her own insecurities, her own thoughts that are not this a reality. But it's like, technically, nina's the one that signed and that's what I was really like bang on, like I really thought that she started everything, so I just feel like huh, like clover was like they were expecting clover then, or like because they could have easily not even gone to that welcome center.

Laura: 46:55

So it's like how is all of that tailored to them?

Esme: 46:57

like yeah, it was weird. It was weird and also it was weird because because obviously there was a bunch of people before them that got trapped there. So I mean, but my, my question still stays like how is this all happening? Because I'm very I mean because I also like a lot of sci-fi. So I watch sci-fi and it has to make sense, even though it's like super outlandish and it can't happen in real life. But it has to make sense like okay, like this the legend is this if this happens, this happens, you know everything has like a connection. But this, like, I'm thinking okay, let's say, in this world this is happening.

Laura: 47:24

What magic power does he have to create this world or to control it and like the fact that he could opt out of it, and like because he was obviously at the gas station at one point in the day by day. He's a gas and by night.

Esme: 47:34

He's a he gotta make money somehow.

Laura: 47:37

These are, these are not paying customers yeah, that really didn't make sense to me, sorry no, yeah.

Esme: 47:42

so I like obviously it was like he had like, so he was like the mastermind of all this. But I'm thinking, but how does he control it? What's powering it? He's seeing the trauma, but it's like, okay, the trauma is not gonna power like people being trapped in there or like him being able to go in and out or create creatures to me. I'm like, okay, like how, how is it that you're in control and it doesn't affect you? None of those questions got answered for me. You know, I don't know if it's just something we have to just with things that we have to accept blindly, like I want to know why or what's the cause, even if it seems weird, like I want to know what the cause is or how is it happening, but we never got those answers. Another thing is like I do like the fact that she used the whole thing of like okay, one person has to survive in order to start over or something. This is important, I don't want to skim through it.

Laura: 48:30

But like she person, I know where his office is. She rolled up on him. It was unexpected for him to see her there, right like she rolled up when she was trying to help her friend. Oh yeah, that's when she went underground. I know that she had to go to get megan on the last round. Megan did not appear with them.

Esme: 48:36

That's another that yes because because we got an order, but that's that's where she went at that point, to go get her because she was nowhere to be and that was a flaw that I did want to mention, because it was like they did not start off or reset in the same exact place. Megan reset somehow underground with that wendigo, yes, and again, was that just part of like a mistake that they just like, ah, who cares, no one's gonna notice? Or is that like no, that man, um psychiatrist hill? Did he cause that to happen on purpose to lure clover down there? We don't know that like that's something, that a lot of things have to be left to speculation on this movie. Yeah, you know.

Laura: 49:09

But maybe it was intentional. I just didn't feel like.

Esme: 49:12

If it was intentional, it was not obvious intentional. It was something that we had to really really think about, like because it looks like a mistake.

Laura: 49:23

My theory with the movie, when we notice these answers, how are we going to have answers Like menos nosotros. So it's kind of just like we're going with the flow.

Esme: 49:30

Yeah, like we're part of them. Yeah, like we're learning through each round as them. Yeah.

Laura: 49:34

It literally reminded me of an escape room, like a puzzle. Like you know, I hate those yeah.

Esme: 49:38

I feel dumb as hell, like I feel like I'm smart in, yeah, but anyways, so like in order to help her friend, she has to hurry up and kill this guy. And it definitely sounds like a summer dream the birds, the neighbors with the music playing basketball outside. I bet you the basketball's the way you get. Do you guys hear basketball outside? I can't help it. I can't edit that out sorry.

Laura: 49:57

Anyways. So at the end of the day, clover ends up finding the Dr Hill and she's very clever, and you know, regardless of all these laws and we don't know what, what anymore yeah, we don't know what makes sense. The fact of the matter is that his death is too easy and very predictable. So I don't know if that's also like a good thing or a bad thing. It's up to you how you see it. Maybe the hardest part was to locate. But when she located him it's like okay, you're just a human being. So she ended up doing that water trick with him, like so she put it right next to a leak very strategically, so it got contaminated and when he drank it he exploded. But my thing is like so there's a whole like. It kind of reminded me of Coraline too and the fact that, like the Beldam the witch fighter thing, she created this world like for Coraline. So I'm like so now that she's gone, I'm assuming the world ceases to exist. So that's my question.

Esme: 50:44

I think she strategized that part because of what he had said previously, that in order to reset, one person has to die.

Laura: 50:51

Oh yeah, that's a good detail. I completely forgot, so it would have been him. It was him.

Esme: 50:55

Because it wasn't specific on who had to die. So even though he was going to come back and reset, it would give them a chance to reset too, but all of them together, so so he didn't die forever, so he didn't die forever.

Laura: 51:05

That makes sense too, because the ending shows like how we touched base on earlier the cabin in the snow. So, he probably just takes over that one now.

Esme: 51:13

Yeah, because it almost seems like they knocked down that, like they destroyed that maze, that one, huh. Yeah, like they defeated that gore, valley Gore.

Laura: 51:21

I think it's gore. It should be gore, valley it should be gore.

Esme: 51:24

So like it looks like they took that place down because of all that, like they were able to do that she was able to save her friend like in the nick of time, like right before anything. So they and they survived.

Laura: 51:32

And then you can see that the little oh yeah that's another thing I brought it up in the other podcast that I'm like damn, it feels like daylight cannot come soon enough. It's just like it's almost there, like it's at the brink of being there, and I had a for sure, like an adrenaline rush seeing the hourglass, like there was like a little bit of sand yeah, and I was like, oh my god, hurry up.

Esme: 51:51

And it's like all those seconds, somewhat.

Laura: 51:53

Something could still go wrong and someone could die, and then that's it. Yeah, but everyone survived.

Esme: 51:57

Good, good job yeah, so then that's when they were able to finally get out and they were all together. They were able to get out and drive out actually, but we missed a part. There was a part that I wanted to talk about. Like that, they try to drive out one of the times and didn't they drive into the rain. They saw this big giant, like monster, like a giant, like a giant or something.

Laura: 52:15

Yeah, I really wish they would have elaborated and shot more of that scene because I wanted to see, like, what exactly they were gonna face yeah, it was just like a hint to like don't even dare try to escape because there's like a big, there's other problems. It was like a Godzilla type thing, like a huge like out of this world.

Esme: 52:30

That's what I'm saying there's a lot of stuff that kind of like how I said, like you know how, when they were turning into things where they never turned, we didn't know what they were gonna turn into, but we never saw it like turn into anything they never addressed it again.

Laura: 52:42

and her final stage?

Esme: 52:42

Well, I don't know because you know how they okay, there was a wit and then there was like some were wendigos, there was a giant, some were just like clown killers. I mean, it was almost like it reminded me of like um, also remember, um, cabin in the Woods. Do you remember that movie, cabin in the Woods? I don't think I ever watched it. You don't have to watch it. Okay, this is an old movie. Basically, it's like some, some people going to some cabin in the woods and like they don't realize that they're being watched, and this is something that like is being like, I guess, watched like by a whole lot of other. Um, like squid game, kind of like squid game like like.

Esme: 53:12

The elite are watching somebody's watching it and so somebody's creating, like the problems that they're having. So like they could they go to this basement? They have all these like items and whatever they get, they even bet on it like, oh, this person's gonna like grab this and it's gonna turn into this Like there's like a seashell and if they get it like it's like a merman, like killer merman come, or like if somebody touches like a Kind of like Hunger Games.

Esme: 53:34

Yeah, like a hybrid of all of that. They cause things to happen. Sometimes there's psycho killers, no-transcript. But this is like a very old, old movie and I think it's kind of underrated. Some people like make fun of it and stuff, but I think a lot of ideas that came later owe it to that movie. The ideas that came came with were like good, you know, oh, and this one kind of has like that little thing that you know someone's controlling it. There's different type of scenarios. All in all, I think that in this case, like this district was defeated, but there's always like that other, because, like in the ending, what did you notice when they finally were able to see the sun and drive out?

Esme: 54:21

and all that because in dr hill's office he has the cameras so after they drove away they were able to get in the car and drive out and go home and stuff.

Laura: 54:29

There was no more storm and it was cool because they came out of the grave. It seems like they were like crawling out of the dirt and it was just like the beginning of the movie where melanie came out and looked like she survived but then they caught her.

Esme: 54:40

So yeah, because it was still night, like her time, like it was still like running, it wasn't day.

Laura: 54:44

Yeah, I wonder if I would have survived all of that. I feel like I would.

Esme: 54:47

I mean they did they, they died a gang of times, yeah, so like, how many times would you have to like die to finally survive?

Guest: 54:53

that's what, that's what it is.

Esme: 54:54

That's what it does remind you as a game, because it's like you keep dying, you keep trying to pass this level psychologically for me.

Laura: 55:00

I kept thinking about it. I was like I would be scared, even though I already died and I already experienced it. I would be so scared to die again and that would for sure impact my decisions and I think I would probably become weaker because of that, like I don't want to go through that again, even if I end up getting because it killed your spirit, being killed over.

Laura: 55:17

I think my spirit would have been killed with this movie, so I hope I never go to the woods and find glor valley or something like that I swear like I've been thinking about airbnbs differently, anything that has like a camera, like maybe someone else, maybe like using me as a pun.

Esme: 55:31

I think about that I think nowadays I don't want to live like a horror because now that there's all like this technology, I think people that are going to use it to do weird things with people yeah, the last scene is what we've been mentioning a few times already throughout the podcast.

Laura: 55:45

We see the cabin in the snow and it looks like an SUV pulls up and then it just cuts there. So I'm assuming for the people that play the game, this is where it all starts and this is where they maybe become familiar with, you know, like the visuals. So again, I have that question. Well, you kind of answered it. Now you said that you think Dr Hill stays alive. Yeah, but dr hill stays alive. Yeah, but I thought he was done. So I'm just like what, what does that mean? Like they continue somewhere else, I thought like oh, there's another property that's cursed. I'm like what happened there. But I guess in the context of the game it matches like how you said, like this is another district, or like another another maze, like okay, so it's extended to other places but, um, overall, I give this movie, uh, 10 out of 10.

Laura: 56:23

I hope I don't sound like a broken record because I keep giving them maybe too high of a rating, but it's because I really enjoy some of the movies to the point that I feel confident giving them a 10. And this is another one because it was really entertaining. I screamed two times in the theater and that's what makes it cool Like, okay, I'm not that type of meme, but it really did catch me off guard sometimes.

Laura: 56:47

So, that the fact that it has a little bit of like sci-fi, horror for sure, but then also like thriller. It's like a little mix of everything and a little bit of comedy in a way. Yeah, so it's like humorous parts for sure so that whole like melting pot together, I would feel like it caters to a modern, young audience. So definitely go watch it and maybe, if you've played the game, or if you haven't, maybe you'll be inspired to keep playing or to find out what the hype is about.

Esme: 57:06

I feel like if anytime there's like a game that exists or there's like, let's say, it comes from a book and you're like a fan of it, it's like you have to watch whether you're gonna like it or not. Forum that I was telling you about, like half the people were saying none of these characters are in there or, like you know, most of the characters aren't in there or whatever, but it's because obviously this is like a different district.

Esme: 57:23

It was like based off of the game, but it was like a, either a prequel or like that ties into whatever game exists for sure. How would you rate it? It's hard for me to rate them.

Esme: 57:31

I give it a eight, okay, eight or nine, it's definitely watch like something you have to go watch because it's either like I like, I don't, I don't know, like it's hard for me to rate because it's either like yes, go watch it, I recommend it, or I don't like. When it comes to like a scale of one through ten, that's like too many numbers for me. You know what I'm saying. But, like you said, I mean I feel like the reason I give it like a still a good score is because I like the jump scares. I like that. A lot of people could relate to it, like young people as well as older people. It has something for everyone.

Laura: 58:02

Where there are some movies like only specific people will like it, or you know, yeah yeah, and I think you're not too far off, because, look, so the rating of the game is a point, it's over eight, point something. So it's over eight the game.

Laura: 58:13

But for the movie you know who cares really about round tomatoes and all that, but I'm gonna just say it the rating is six out of ten, so that's pretty low, but when I look at the comment, they're positive, and someone said this um went to the movie knowing it wouldn't be like the game based on the trailer. It has a lot of elements, though, and I kind of see it was a prequel to the game. So that's basically what our whole podcast was about.

Laura: 58:34

We yeah so we're not too far off. And then, um, someone put the movie was amazing 10 out of 10. And then another person put that they really enjoyed the film with their boyfriend and they had a lot of jump scares and it was all well executed. So, oh, I didn't know this part. It says you can tell it's produced by the same person who produced the annabelle film series and the nun.

Esme: 58:51

For this reason, I did not know that me neither, and I'm glad you said that yeah, because I like when, I like to know that information too, and usually we spend a lot of time talking about the cast and directors and stuff. I know we didn't really do it this time and I kind of wasn't doing it because it was like, oh, it's a game from playstation, so I wasn't thinking in that mode at that time, but I'm glad that you mentioned that.

Laura: 59:08

Yeah well either way. I mean, they were all new faces too, so we can't really like be so excited that we like the actor that we know, but that's what makes it even cooler, because they gave new actors a chance yeah, I definitely like to see new faces. Yeah, like I don't know any of them honestly, and I thought nina, which her name is, her real name is Odessa, azion or Azion it's a apostrophe, zion. So I don't know how you pronounce that last name, but I thought she was really pretty.

Laura: 59:30

Yeah, she's very exotic in her name and features like curly hair, green eyes and she had a lot of freckles on her face which stood out to me, so we could get into a scary story. If you're ready, let's do it are you guys ready?

Esme: 59:54

Oh my god. So we're about to start our scary story segment.

Laura: 1:00:00

And we're having a lot of fun here. Our scary story today revolves around someone who experienced something on a chill, normal day In a residential street, may I add which seems like the most unscariest environment ever, by the way. We have a guest speaker telling us their experience. Our guest wrote down her experience because it was so memorable when it happened, so would you like to elaborate on what happened? What was ?

Guest: 1:00:21

That day we were waiting for some friends and I was in the back seat and something caught my eye. It was a house on the other side of the street and I saw something weird and it looked like someone was playing peekaboo and doing the motion of appearing and then hiding behind a curtain. And then it looked strange to me and I said who is that? While my other friend looked, but she ignored me. It's hard for me to remember. And I said who is that? While my other friend looked, but she ignored me.

Guest: 1:00:48

It's hard for me to remember because I was pretty young all I could see was eyes and old wrinkly hands on the window curtain that was so scary later I found out that the house was actually vacant and the homeowner had passed away, and I heard she would always look at people through her kitchen window, exactly where I saw her that's scary, and what did it make you feel when you realized that she was dead? I felt in shock and I was confused.

Laura: 1:01:20

If I were you, my initial thought process too, would be like how come I saw her? No one else had a chance to do? You think you're special, or do you think your other friend or whatever didn't look at the same time that you did? Or that's weird, that you were the only one that witnessed that?

Guest: 1:01:35

well, I think, since I was a few years younger than them, maybe I could have just seen it out of luck, or yeah, because they say that usually younger people and kids, they usually are able to see more than grown-ups.

Esme: 1:01:47

Yeah, I've heard that. Is that the only time you ever saw anything weird or out of the ordinary?

Laura: 1:01:51

yes, I have heard of that sensitivity of kids and even animals having that. So it could be that because you were young, did an animal tell you no, I don't know. I don't know how they know. That's a good question, but you know how dogs sometimes bark at nothing and then they say like, oh, there's still something there yeah, no, I'm just kidding, but you know what?

Esme: 1:02:08

I have heard that there's people that something that they know is a ghost and they looked at their pet and the pet was looking at it too so that's why they're like oh, my pet saw it. Or like animals could see everything thank you so much for telling us your story.

Esme: 1:02:20

That was creepy thank you for having me and I think what makes it creepier is that you don't have to be in a scary place, you don't have to be in the dark at night or somewhere spooky. You could be across your friend's house in the middle of the damn afternoon. Yeah, google tells us this. While it's impossible to scientifically prove whether children can see ghosts in a supernatural sense, many people report experiences where their children claim to see or interact with unseen entities. Psychologists suggest that these experiences can also be attributed to various factors, including vivid imaginations, developing cognitive abilities and cultural influences. Some suggest that children may be more attuned to their senses and have higher levels of awareness than adults, leading them to perceive things that adults might miss. Okay, I'm going to interrupt this because obviously in this experience, she wasn't really imagining it, because it was real like. Later she found out the fact that someone had passed away, and what a coincidence it was an older lady and she said that she had seen her.

Laura: 1:03:14

This is before she knew, so there's no way that she could have imagined this person that she didn't remember before yeah, that's what makes it like undeniably a true story, because she didn't have no prior knowledge to anything for her to say like, oh, let me make like a prank or joke, let me lie. You know she didn't have that knowledge to do that not only that?

Esme: 1:03:34

um, I know that she had mentioned to us that her friend had also said that later, after they were gone, when they got back they saw that lady's daughter. Was it a daughter?

Laura: 1:03:43

um, maybe I think she said that there was someone in town that was like taking care of things, because you know, the house was vacant again and it ended up getting confirmed, right. Yeah, they asked the daughter or whoever that person was. That was, you know, visiting it for a little bit. They confirmed that there was no one in that house at that time. So that also feeds into the idea that you know this person. Not that we believe that they were lying at all, we have no doubt but we're just saying like it just shows.

Laura: 1:04:09

It was additional information, yeah additional information that shows that the house was empty and there was no way someone could have been in there Like a worker. I don't know someone like a real estate agent.

Esme: 1:04:17

Someone, even another relative, like there wasn't anyone else there.

Laura: 1:04:20

Yeah, Something that just seems interesting when the story is the fact that they were like making eye contact with our guest speaker, like why did that go at her, like the ghost knew like that she would look at that time, or like why did she choose?

Esme: 1:04:35

to like look right at her, not just appear as like a yeah, and why play peekable?

Laura: 1:04:37

because you know how some um based on the story, I don't think the person, the ghost, was playing peekable. I think they were just like not pacing, but like looking out, then going back in, looking out, like I don't think it was a game, a playful vibe.

Esme: 1:04:50

From my understanding, it looks like that's just what it looked like, which made it creepier because only the eyes and the hands were shown so it kind of shows like there's like a mysteriousness to the ghost, because it's not really showing all of itself right, maybe because it wanted to be in sight and it was daytime and that's what I was gonna bring up.

Laura: 1:05:08

I think I cut myself off a lot of times. When people see ghosts, they see them like passing by or like in the corner, like sometimes the ghosts are not interacting with them or looking at them right. But then this one, the ghost was specifically yeah, that's even scarier, attention. Yeah, I don't think I would like that.

Esme: 1:05:24

Yeah, it's crazy and also like based on this, I mean I don't know if I want to read this whole thing, because it also gives points of like, psychological explanations, imagination, perception, imaginary companions, which that I didn't want to say, that they talk about like okay, so the imaginary companions I know that this is not that like what I'm gonna say, because this is obviously a one-time thing that she happened to see, but I do have a very strong, strong belief that the majority of the children that see imaginary friends or that have imaginary friends, that they are spirits. I don't think that is just their imagination alone, because, yes, kids have a big imagination, but they know they're imagining as they're imagining, like they're pretending, pretend, is very different than oh, I see a person, I see this person and this is my friend and he's sitting right here. Don't you see him? You know that's a totally different thing, I feel, because I have heard stories from people, friends or whatever. Like I have family members that have at one point seen something and I do think that it, depending on how the child reacts to that first sighting of this being, is whether it becomes his AKA friend or if it just doesn't appear anymore Because, like I had a really good friend at one point and she told me that throughout her life that she remembers having an imaginary friend and she even knew his name.

Esme: 1:06:47

She remembered his name, his name was david. She described him to me she's like, oh yeah, he had like brown hair, like his eyes were dark, he was like he had dimples, and she's like, yeah, she goes. And it's crazy she said that because as she would grow like, he looked always like. He always looked the same age to her but at the same time he looked her age but she was getting older. So she was like she doesn't remember him aging, but that he always looked her age like, but still somehow the same, if that makes any sense.

Esme: 1:07:12

And she says that she only would see him when she would get in trouble, and she would get in trouble a lot. She had, like you know, family dysfunction. So whenever like things were happening and whatever, she would go to her room, gets into her room and she'll be like crying or in trouble, and that when she would go he was already there, he was already in her room and that she would like talk to him or they would play and she would feel better, like she would like forget about her problems or whatever. And she says that the last time that she ever saw him, she was probably like around 11 or 12, that she remembers seeing him, that she he didn't, she didn't see him for a long time. That she saw him once again and I think when she started questioning, like wait a minute, like she was already older, like he never came back and I was like what the hell? That's freaking weird. And she's like, yeah, she goes.

Esme: 1:07:51

And he didn't seem weird to me because I was so used to seeing him throughout my childhood that finally, like something clicked when they're like what the hell, what? Who is this person like? Why is he in my room? Like, who is he like now? Like you know, kids, as kids, you know, you just accept whoever's there and oh, yeah, some ladies there in my room, whatever. But I guess, like, as you grow up, eventually you're gonna be like, okay, something's off, like who is this person? And yeah, he didn't come back I'm processing it.

Laura: 1:08:14

I'm like stunned because that's that makes me feel like like wow, that really could happen. But then I'm also like forcefully trying to think like no, maybe there could also be trauma that causes you to really believe that something's real, because you said that it was tied to like negativity, you said there was dysfunction, so it just could be like a lot of things. And I guess only like a parent would really pick up on if their child you know, because we don't know everyone's story but like a parent you would think they would know like no, there's, there's a haunting, or like something well or no, my kid is just like that, like right, you know but let me add another little tidbit.

Esme: 1:08:46

she says that her brother, she had an older brother. Her room was upstairs and he lived downstairs. So this older brother I don't really know how much older, but I know that he was significantly older than her, so she was a kid and he was already like a teenager, late in his teens, you know, and sometimes he would live there and he would sometimes not live there and I guess he would come back and forth and stuff. So she says that the last time that he got kicked out by the mom he was already like an adult, but like a young adult, like maybe early 20s, you know. But that she kicked him out because he would practice like like Matt, like he would do like occult things and practice like certain things, and the mom didn't want him in there because she knew that he was doing that and she already told him you know what, you can't be bringing that stuff in our house thing. So she was like a churchgoer and every completely opposed to that and that he was bringing in things that you know she didn't like.

Esme: 1:09:34

So she says that she doesn't. She that's all. She remembers that that's the reason that he got kicked out, but that he would always be down there getting high and doing this, but that he would do some weird things. So that made me and her because at that time when she told me this, we were like I don't know. She told me the story when we were like 16 years old, so I still remember this, but she told me like yeah, maybe that's why I would see like these weird spirits, because he was opening doors like to for spirits to come in or like be present in our house. She says that she never had anything scary happen to her.

Laura: 1:10:02

That's good, but that's something that ghost was really nice to her like truly a friend I mean, who knows, I mean maybe there was like other weird things. That I mean because sometimes, like as a kid, it doesn't click yeah, it doesn't click.

Esme: 1:10:13

I mean maybe there was no intention.

Laura: 1:10:14

I mean we don't know that, we don't know but at least for her, she, she never like, she never saw it like that.

Esme: 1:10:18

Yeah, at least yeah, I I do get what you were saying, though, because I agree, sometimes trauma could cause things, and I mean, let's not forget that there's mental illness. That could come hand in hand. Schizophrenia, or something yeah, so people can actually see people or things that are not there, but in this case that was the only thing that she ever encountered. But obviously the mom knew that he was doing something, because maybe the mom knew more or maybe she would see things who?

Laura: 1:10:47

knows was gonna say she probably saw stuff herself. That's why she was really like adamant about kicking that guy out yeah yeah, I think, so that was a two-in-one for you guys.

Esme: 1:10:56

Yeah, that was a two-in-one. I mean the reason that one came up is because we were talking about imaginary companions and how kids are more prone, or you know how they say that they're more prone to see spirits, but I mean it's not really connected, but at the same time, there, you know, there is connection, like there's a lot of things that we don't know, so, yeah, there's like a lot of stories out there, I'm sure that have to do with children.

Laura: 1:11:18

So, yeah, hopefully you enjoyed our two-in-one story. Sometimes we do that, and those are our extra bonuses for our audience members and those of you that are true fans of scary stories. We hope you can still sleep at night, yeah.

Esme: 1:11:29

And, of course, if any of you have a scary story that you want to share with us, we would love to hear it and possibly put them on the podcast you can contact us through our email down below and, like we said, we'll possibly shout you out.

Laura: 1:11:44

Or, if you want to remain anonymous, that's always always welcome, but we would love to hear your story and have you on the show.

Esme: 1:11:47

so with that we'll wrap it up, and we can't wait to review the next horror movie with you.

Guest: 1:11:51

Goodbye see you soon.

Esme: 1:12:21

Where's my money?