The Edge of Sleep

I can't think of a show like this one, it's paving its own way in a really interesting form. An amazing show with clearly a lot of love thrown into it, Edge of Sleep deserves praise for a well written plot, incredible directing, and an engaging cast. It captures this idea of dreams on film in a way I don't think I've seen before. Their disorganized shots of these dreams captures the surrealism and disorientation of night terrors, and the cast also acts very well as their exhaustion progresses. The characters start out exhausted and emotional, but as their exhaustion grows you can see their emotions and reactions fade in a way that's clearly both intentional, and incredible acting wise.

I haven't watched any Markiplier videos in years, and knew nothing about this before its sudden release when it was everywhere. I decided to give it a whirl, and it's worth a watch I'd say.

For the positives, I think at a high level it's an intriguing premise. What would you do if 99% of the population died in their sleep, and you had to try and figure out what to do without being able to sleep yourself? There's some creepy segments and imagery, and honestly Mark's not a terrible actor. He's not going to be winning an Emmy or anything but I thought he did a decent enough job for someone who got famous by playing games and acting like a goofball on YouTube. It's also very quick, 6 twenty minute episodes, and they move along pretty briskly. It could easily be knocked out in an evening.

For the cons, the main one is probably that it's a little art-housy. Everything that happens does get some kind of explanation, but I could understand people being frustrated at how light some of the explanations are. There's also some Hollywood Logic on display, of people being able to do things or act in a certain way that real people wouldn't be able to do. The general script and acting also aren't amazing, although both were serviceable enough. Also, the last halfish of the final episode is basically just a big exposition dump, which is always annoying.

Really though, I think it's a small enough investment that it's worth giving a shot. It's basically the length of a movie, and there's enough creepy imagery to make it worth a watch.

I really like Mark, so I really wanted to like this. The show isn't bad but it's okay. Each character doesn't play their role correctly in my opinion. I feel as though I can see how each character should've been played compared to how they were. So the acting is a bit rough. But overall the show is okay. It's a bit predictable. The way it's edited is a bit bleak. I feel like i could've been sucked into this world a bit more than I was. By no means is this show bad though. I enjoyed watching every episode and I finished it in one sitting. It made me a little scared to take a nap. You should definitely watch it however, just know the acting is a little mediocre, and the plot is a little predictable.

The show does do very well in regards to the podcast which I wasn't expecting. Being a huge fan of the podcast, I wasn't too sure how I would feel about this but it genuinely did good! The visuals and atmosphere give the show the creepy and eerie feeling that the podcast delivered. It also mastered the ability of wanting to keep watching it to see what is going to happen next. My biggest issue was the elements that were left out meaning the small little details in the podcast that gave it that extra edge. Also only having 6 episodes that were 20 minutes long had made it out to be more so a standard movie length then a fully drawn out tv show. Yet overall I would recommend checking this out! The cast and crew clearly worked their best to do the podcast justice.

Going into this I had high expectations based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews. Markiplier has done some great stuff and, having not listened to the podcast, I was going in blind. Overall I wouldn't say I was overly impressed or disappointed. It was pretty good, but nothing more. The acting wasn't anything special. The effects were solid. Story was very interesting but a bit confusing, they took the premise and went a very cerebral, Lovecraftian direction that I wasn't expecting. Things make a lot more sense after the finale but there are still a lot of questions. Because it's so short, even if you don't end up liking it, you pretty much only lose 2 hours. It probably would have done better waiting till a little later to introduce the stranger elements because they seemed pretty out of place at the start.

Overall, I recommend it. It's an easy commitment that you can binge quickly and it makes you think.