Until Dawn (2025)

​“Until Dawn” stars Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Odessa A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Maia Mitchell, Belmont Cameli, and Peter Stormare.  Released on April 25, 2025, the film has a group of young adults surviving a deadly time loop at a lodge.

The film is directed by David F. Sandberg, who also directed films such as “Lights Out”, “Annabelle: Creation”, and “Shazam!”.  It is based on the 2015 video game developed by Supermassive Games.  They say that you only live once, which is pretty challenging when you’re in the world of a horror movie.  Whether it’s by a psychopath or a monstrous being, your life can instantly end without any warning.  However, on this occasion, death resembles a video game, in which you get plenty of chances to reach the endgame and…you know, avoid dying again.  Unfortunately for its victims, it’s far from an easy task.  “Until Dawn” revitalized the survival horror genre by emphasizing the butterfly effect system in which players control how a horror story plays out and who survives the night.  In a way, the player served as a writer of the game’s story instead of just playing it, which is less complicated than becoming one.  Praised for its execution and gameplay, “Until Dawn” expanded its world-building through its spin-off, prequel, and spiritual successor.  It also spawned a film adaptation that took a much different direction to the game’s concept, much to the fans’ frustration.  I survived through the “Minecraft” adaptation and its tiring “chicken jockey” meme, so now it’s time for me to do the same with this.  Was I able to accomplish this daunting challenge?  Let’s find out.

The story follows Clover (Rubin), a young woman whose sister Melanie (Mitchell) mysteriously disappeared a year ago.  Eager to know what happened, Clover and her friends take a trip to the remote valley where Melanie vanished and come across a welcome center for them to rest for the night.  One night, Clover and the others are suddenly killed by an unknown presence, only to find themselves back at the beginning of the night, forcing them to relive their deaths repeatedly.  The group discovers that they are trapped in a time loop where they encounter a different killer each time they die, each more horrendous than the last.  However, they also found that the previous victims didn’t survive the loop past the 13th night.  Their only hope of escape is to survive the entire night until dawn before the point of no return.

“Until Dawn” is another video game I only see other gamers play instead of trying out myself.  Unsurprisingly, this is due to me not being a massive fan of horror video games despite my tolerance towards horror movies.  Sometimes, it’s best to watch someone getting chased by a scary-as-hell presence than stepping into that victim’s shoes.  Regardless, I have profound respect for the game’s influence on the horror genre and approach to the butterfly effect system, which is enough to get me intrigued and cautious in its film adaptation.  On the one hand, it had David F. Sandberg returning to the realm of horror after helming the “Shazam” films for the failed DC Extended Universe.  On the other hand, it’s the latest adaptation that doesn’t follow the game’s storyline beat-by-beat and features an original story that’s set in the same universe, which has already gotten fans up in arms even before its release.  But, knowing me, all I care about is whether the quality of the film is fun or scary enough to warrant this approach.

The concept of the “Until Dawn” movie is best described as the horror version of “Groundhog Day”.  However, the only catch to this scenario is that each night is different than the rest, and the time-loop effect has a time limit.  This means these characters have until a certain point in the loop to survive only one night without prior knowledge of the previous one they died in.  It emphasizes the game’s survival choices, in which each player's decision changes how the story progresses.  This mechanic has worked in the game, paving the way for others with similar gameplay like “Beyond: Two Souls”, but the real question I should answer is whether it works in the movie.  As someone who hasn’t played the game, I can say that the concept works, but not always.

“Until Dawn” utilized its time loop narrative to convey a tension-filled and enjoyable reflection of the horror genre tropes we grew up with.  Slashers, demon possessions, monsters, the works.  Everything you crave in a horror movie is present in this twisted and grisly tribute to the genre.  However, despite being one of the more bearable films of the genre, it’s not without its obvious shortcomings that dampen its chances of surviving the expansive sea of horror films.  One such case is the story, which has already turned off the fans’ interest even before the film came out.  The game’s plot was a basic survival horror experience involving a group of teens confronting a masked killer and the monstrous wendigos in a lodge on a snowy mountain, with the players deciding the story’s direction.  The film adaptation, on the other hand, offered a time-loop twist to the concept, complete with a new location and original characters.  Fortunately, it retains several elements from the game to ensure its place in the source material’s universe, including the wendigos, the missing sibling trope, and Dr. Alan Hill, who Peter Stormare reprised from the game.  But even so, this isn't a true adaptation of the popular choose-your-path game, which would prove difficult to win over fans already skeptical of the movie’s direction.

But, if you toss the comparisons aside and see the movie for the way it is, there’s a slight chance you’ll have a decent time with what it delivered.  Was it the best video game movie ever?  Not in the slightest.  However, I will consider the film something I can enjoy without playing the game, mainly because I cannot play a horror game to save my life.  One reason is that it offered several different horror films for the price of one, all of which occurred in the same house.  This allowed the filmmakers to go crazy with how these characters gruesomely die in multiple ways without resorting to only one choice, and yes, the kills are pretty graphic.  Most kills are what you expect from an R-rated slasher film despite being in the trailers: gory, brutal, and mildly fun.  But there was this particular kill I didn’t expect would happen, which helped maintain my interest and enjoyment in its time-looping concept.  If you watched the ending of “Ready or Not”, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Another reason was Sandberg’s direction, which continues his trend of providing atmospheric eeriness and unsettlement to accompany the movie’s basic tropes.  Some of its scares have this usual balance of terror and predicable emptiness, with the latter being from the scenes we saw in the marketing.  However, Sandberg did enough to compensate for the genre’s traditional “jump scare” routine by injecting chills and suspense into its darkly lit environments, build-ups, and nightmarish scenarios.  However, for the former, there were a couple of scenes where the ill-lit lighting made it difficult to see what was happening.  Regarding the horror genre, It didn’t match the heights of Sandberg’s earlier works like “Lights Out”, but it further showcased the filmmaker’s strengths in combining anxiousness with straightforward horror elements through his spine-chilling vision and atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the one thing that held “Until Dawn” back from success was its screenplay by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler.  On the positive side, the script surprisingly offered characters that were tolerable to get acquainted with and humorous outside of them getting murdered multiple times.  Were they dumb sometimes?  Yes, but they’re not to the point of me having to come into the screen and slap them silly.  It didn’t have much emotional depth in their development, especially when referring to Clover’s relationship with Melanie and its themes involving psychological trauma and death.  Fortunately, this is one occasion where I didn’t mind the characters being one-dimensional or even two-dimensional due to their personalities.  The reason for their tolerability was because of its young cast.  Their performances weren’t anything special, but they ensured their presence was enjoyable enough to convey their characters’ approachable aura.  Ella Rubin, who recently appeared in Sean Baker’s “Anora”, was pretty decent in conveying Clover’s horror-stricken persona.  Michael Cimino and Belmont Cameli were also respectable in their roles of Max and Abel, respectively.  Of course, for all you Disney fans out there, Cimino is the same guy who voiced Kevin in Disney Channel’s “Hamster & Gretel”.  Peter Stormare was the only actor who returned from the game to reprise his role as Hill, and he maintained the creepiness that his character possessed through his performance.  

There were also specific scenes with characters acknowledging the film’s common tropes, including the time-loop narrative device.  In a way, I can see it as an attempt to create a “love letter” to the horror genre and the time-looping movies that came before it while simultaneously providing a playful critique of the repetitive tropes found in other similar films.  However, the writers didn’t seem to follow that through with this approach, transforming itself into a cliche-heavy horror experience it’s poking fun at as the film progressed.  It’s not terrible since it delivered what the concept suggested, but I think they could’ve done more with its meta references and plot to make it worthy of its deviation from the source material.

Overall, “Until Dawn” didn’t survive all of the genre tropes it encountered, but it delivered enough entertaining moments in its concept and gruesome kills to escape its shortcomings.  Its heavy departure from the source material’s plot would understandably make fans want to stay elsewhere.  As a result, it serves as another occasion where audiences unfamiliar with the game might enjoy the adaptation more than the hardcore fans.  There’s still the matter of its hit-and-miss scares and screenplay, which provided plenty of familiar tropes it’s making fun of in a straightforward way.  Fortunately for me, “Until Dawn” still functions well as a basic yet enjoyable approach to the time-loop concept that’s combined with graphic murders and chilling tension.  The film may not reach survivor status like the other crown jewels of video game adaptations like “The Last of Us”, but thanks to its suitable cast and Sandberg’s atmospheric vision, it is one night I wouldn’t mind living once.  If you’re familiar with the horror genre and the other time-loop movies like “Groundhog Day”, I’d say it’s worth giving a chance.  However, don’t expect it to be anything like the source material plot-wise or even a game-changer in the realm of video game adaptations.  If you keep that in mind, you might survive this experience. 

C+