Critically Acclaimed Network · William Bibbiani

Critically Acclaimed #362 | Project Hail Mary, Undertone, Ready or Not: Here I Come, Reminders of Him, The Gates

March 24, 2026·1 hr 30 min·5 clips

Ryan Gosling wakes up alone in a spaceship in another solar system, with his crew dead and Earth's fate in his hands.

It starts with a practical gripe. The movie's weakest piece, they argue, is not the mood but the story engine under it. The plot feels too familiar. Ghosts, possession, spooky montages, Catholic images, and old inscriptions all land like parts the genre has dragged out before. The demon gets a little more patience. One speaker notes that the lore is apparently based on real folklore, which makes the miss sting more. There was room for stranger choices there. The demonic material could have felt less like standard screen fright, especially if the source behind it had more texture. Instead, the images stay easy to recognize. Old books, Catholic pictures, and sudden scary faces do the job they usually do in this kind of horror. Then the defense starts. The movie may not have much new in the plot, but its sound gives those familiar moves a meaner charge. The style is stripped back. Close-ups, dark rooms, and one young woman stuck with her anxieties become the frame for a story heard more than seen. That restraint helps. Crashes hit before the listener quite knows what caused them, and that gap makes the setup work better than it should. The scares often live in the audio. Even the montages play better when the terror comes through noise, rhythm, and listening. So the verdict lands in two places. The script leans on cliches, but the sound and minimal presentation still get under the speaker's skin.

As heard by us

A familiar possession story gets its unease more from sound design than from surprises.

Critically Acclaimed spends this stretch on a ghost-and-possession story that leans hard on familiar beats. Whitney Seibold and the co-host notice the expected plot turns and the standard spooky imagery: old books, inscriptions, Jesus Christ, Catholic imagery, and the usual…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When you want a horror review that judges a familiar possession story by its sound design.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Critically Acclaimed Network