Until Dawn was one of the first video games I can remember playing that really felt like a movie. The 2015 survival story took the conceits of a teen-focused “cabin in the woods” horror and placed the story in our hands. The choices we made determined who lived and who didn’t, and its “butterfly effect” gimmick made us think hard about the consequences of playing God. It’s one of a handful of truly cinematic, plot-driven games that have dominated the zeitgeist, pulling dedicated gamers and total novices into its orbit. Like its contemporary The Last of Us, it doesn’t necessarily need a live-action adaptation. But of course, that hasn’t stopped PlayStation Studios from making one anyway.
Ten years after Until Dawn, Sony unveils a new version of a familiar nightmare. To call the film a true adaptation of the Supermassive game is a stretch of epic proportions: where the former was all about story and causality, Until Dawn: The Movie throws plot out the window in favor of gore and schlock. It uses a time-loop conceit to replicate the feeling of dying and respawning in a video game. It also gives director David F. Sandberg an excuse to blitz through as many teen horror tropes as can fit in two hours. The result is a diverting, if utterly unhinged and nonsensical, homage to the genre.
Until Dawn begins with a tale as old as time: a beautiful girl (Maia Mitchell) is running from a ghastly monster. Our heroine crawls through a dimly-lit tunnel with a shadowy creature on her heels, and though she manages to get away, there’s another kind of monster — a slasher in a clown mask — waiting to slaughter her anyway. Like any scream queen, she’s ready to beg for her life. “I can’t... again,” she says, teasing a mystery that Until Dawn will spend the rest of its runtime unpacking.
Elsewhere, we encounter a group of friends on a bittersweet road trip. Clover (Ella Rubin) is searching for her sister Melanie, who went missing a year prior. She’s joined by her lovelorn ex Max (Michael Cimino), attached-at-the-hip couple Abe (Belmont Cameli) and Nina (Odessa A’zion), and Megan (Ji-young Yoo), whose sensitivity to the occult guides their way. They’re retracing Melanie’s path as best they can, and after months of dead ends, they find themselves in Glore Valley, the last place Melanie was seen alive.
A freak thunderstorm drives the group to the local visitor center, and it doesn’t take long for them to realize something is amiss. A trove of missing persons posters (one that notably features Melanie) and an hourglass fixed to the wall tell us this house is hiding a dark secret. But before anyone can uncover it — or better, escape to civilization — that aforementioned clown slasher appears to murder the entire party. It’s here that Until Dawn showcases some brilliant, gory practical effects, but the simplicity of this sequence is quickly undermined by the film’s time-loop gimmick. Once Clover, Max, Abe, Nina, and Megan perish, their night resets and their true mission begins: “Survive the night, or become a part of it.”
From here, Until Dawn pitches its characters from one horrifying demise to the next. Each time they perish, they’re brought back to the start of the night — and each time that creepy hourglass resets, something new is trying to murder them. Sandberg, directing a script written by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler, leaves no stone unturned. From supernatural possession to parasitic worms and spontaneous combustion, Until Dawn speedruns through every trope one could think to include in a horror movie. It’s less a tribute to the original game as it is to horror itself, but Until Dawn does share some connective tissue with its predecessor.
Wendigos, the cannibalistic monsters who prey on the protagonists of the game, are a threat again here. Peter Stormare also reprises his role as Dr. Hill, the ultra-creepy psychiatrist who speaks to players throughout the game. His antagonist plays a similarly meta role here, and he’s saddled with the difficult task of explaining the rules of this strange hellscape. But even with his help, Until Dawn doesn’t make much sense.
The film wants to explore the ways that trauma and fear can turn good people into monsters, but that theme is frequently overshadowed by gory thrills and overcomplicated worldbuilding. A capable, endearing, and surprisingly funny cast keep this story from getting totally lost in its influences, but it’s not quite enough to elevate Until Dawn to the levels of the original game.
