Oh, wow. What a journey this was.

It starts in a pretty unassuming place: a big, black void (Final Fantasy VII) (Star Wars) (The Thing (2011) 0:00:37--0:00:38).

As with any great horror, the first step is to lower our expectations. Put us at ease. This is done wonderfully here. It's almost peaceful. But, the wisps of forehead color that rise like flames foreshadow the nightmare to come.

As we venture downward (The Descent), we enter a vast desert (Dune) that feels very alienating. Though we haven't gone far, the framing that seems to put us on one of Saturn's rings tells us that we're very far from home (E.T.).

Further in and things really seem to crescendo as we fall over eerily dark hills into the lair of the desert's greatest monster: some... thing we can't even fully perceive. But we can perceive its eyes, and those eyes might be the most violent eyes my eyes have ever laid eyes on.

From here, the narrative takes a turn: it's all about our escape. We make our way over rolling hills, sun-bleached landscapes. But it's soon after this that I think things start to fall apart. The lips were incredibly funny. Me and my viewing party spent hours staring and laughing at the lips. But, they're also a stark departure from what we've been shown so far, and I'm left not really knowing what the author is trying to say. Personally, I think it would have been great if there were another set of eyes instead.

Things drag on, but it's not long until we're struck out of nowhere by an ending sequence right out of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2001: A Space Odyssey) that really doesn't work and fails to resolve any of the narrative threads.

All in all, I'd give this work a 19 out of 31 and a nice slap on the bum.