PLOT: A group of friends trapped in a time loop, where mysterious foes are chasing and killing them in gruesome ways, must survive until dawn to escape it.
REVIEW: It’s always going to be a controversial decision when you adapt a video game and then decide to not follow its story. But if any adaptation was going to do it, the game where you make different decisions to try and survive a slasher, with varying outcomes, seems like the place to start. After all, everyone has a unique game experience so you’re going to piss off some sect of fans by following a certain throughline. Until Dawn gets rid of that issue by introducing an entirely new story, yet still carries plenty of connections with the game. The real question is… does it work?
Until Dawn follows Clover (what a name) and her friends as they’re out looking for her missing sister. It’s pretty stereotypical, but that seems to be what the movie is going for. Once at her sister’s last known location, they find themselves in a time loop, where they die to various horrific villains over and over. We also get an appearance from Peter Stormare, the only actor who actually reprises his role from the game. I was a little skeptical of his inclusion at first, but he’s worked into the narrative seamlessly, and his role gets even better in retrospect.
I know there was a certain sect of the game fandom that was upset about the diversion with the story, but I’ve always found that a bit silly. I’ve quite enjoyed my multiple playthroughs of the game, but I don’t need one with different actors. We’ve already seen that storyline done before, why would I want to see it again, only on a path that maybe I’m not a fan of? Instead, the filmmakers are able to tie it into the game in an interesting way, while still giving it enough room to breathe on its own. It just can feel a little stale at parts, as the time loop almost works against the narrative. While I would argue this probably fits in more with the Dark Pictures games, this could actually expand the Until Dawn series (which, despite its fervent fanbase, is still just the one game). Obviously, I won’t get into why, but the time loop aspect allows them to go back to this well, even in video game form if need be.
Ella Rubin does a decent job as Clover (and looks eerily like Dixie D’Amelio), but no one in the cast has much to work with. All of these characters are paper-thin, and it’s mostly the high concept that keeps the story moving forward. Ella has a sister that the group is for, and there are some basic dynamics between the friends. Outside of that, they keep the details to a minimum. But I found myself less rooting for the teens and more just wanting somebody to escape the loop. Oddly, I quite enjoyed Abe (Belmont Cameli) as his character ended up being more useful and pragmatic than we’d usually see from his type.
For a movie where a bunch of characters die over and over, I found myself a bit disappointed in the kills here. There are a couple that make an impact, but otherwise, they feel very generic. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all done well on a technical level, but given David F. Sandberg‘s experience in the genre, I was really expecting it to be a bit more over the top. Instead, far too many people are killed off-screen or where we’re just seeing the aftermath. Thankfully, there are some body explosions that were handled extremely well that almost made up for it. But when you’re dealing with this kind of concept, not giving us a massive kill montage feels like a missed opportunity.
Overall, I didn’t hate my time with Until Dawn, I just found it was an all-too-familiar journey. One moment it felt like they were picking apart tropes and the genre, and the other times it felt like it was perfectly in line and stereotypical. If you’re going to break down the genre, then you need characters and story beats that actually subvert the norm. Instead, we get bland characters that, appearance aside, are indistinguishable from one another, and a completely uninteresting story. I enjoyed the connections to the game, and the actors make the most of their vanilla characters. And hell, I’ll support any movie that give Peter Stormare a paycheck. The man is a national treasure.
UNTIL DAWN IS IN THEATERS ON APRIL 25TH, 2025.
