YMMV / The White Vault

• Awesome Music: The opening theme, composed by Brandon Boone, perfectly encapsulates the feeling of isolation and dread that hangs over the series.
• Jerkass Woobie: Walter can be a bit of an insensitive prick (David Ault, Walter's voice actor, describes his character as a "whiny bitch", a result of him not being as loved as he could have been) and sometimes a coward, but he can be forgiven, seeing as how he's in a truly terrifying situation that just keeps getting worse. Many people would react in largely the same way under his circumstances. (And, let's face it, his desire to run from the danger is fully justified by what happens later.) It helps that he comes off as a genuinely well-meaning, friendly guy before things go pear-shaped, and the stress and fear cause him to break down—and he does keep trying to push through regardless. Heath's last act is to save Jónas from the monster. And when the creature is about to kill him, Heath has the guts to yell at it, "Kill me then, you cunt! Do it!"
  [in an unsent email] I'm not dying here. We can do this.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Jónas in the final stages of transformation into one of the creatures-in his last recording, he describes his skin sloughing off as he crawled through a narrow tunnel and mentions that when he took off his hat, his hair came with it.
  • Franco in the miniseries Illuka also becomes one of the creatures. Reports describe his skin peeling off, leaving necrotic-looking flesh behind, and teeth falling out as he walks down a hallway.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first five episodes are mostly setup, showing the team settling in at the Outpost...oh, hey, a village, that's interesting...wonder what's inside the box? And then Karina takes a nasty fall, and then they get the box open, and that's when the plot kicks into high-gear.
  • The side stories tend to follow the formula as well, with most or all of the first half dedicated to whatever mundane pursuit the group was occupied with, with only a few outright supernatural occurrences hinting at the hell that will break loose later.

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