THE STORY – 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.
THE CAST – Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odezza A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell, and Peter Stormare
THE TEAM – David F. Sandberg (Director), Blair Butler, & Gary Dauberman (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 103 Minutes
In the mere weeks since “A Minecraft Movie” had audiences storm theaters (and chuck up buckets of popcorn while yelling, “Chicken Jocky”), it seems like Hollywood isn’t putting the brakes on video game adaptations. With a far-differing viewer demographic in mind, “Until Dawn” hopes to scrape up some horror moviegoers while cashing in on one of the buzziest trends in the industry. Filmmaker David F. Sandberg, whose horror roots got him his foot in the industry, has been preoccupied with the world of DC superheroes since 2019. Now, he’s ready to jump back into the genre with a little added cushion of recognizable IP. Sadly, what Sandberg cooks up in his return to horror is not as smooth as he would’ve hoped for, as “Until Dawn” is a hackneyed horror film that only reminds us of how uninspired this flavor of studio filmmaking can be.
We start “Until Dawn” with the disappearance of a young woman named Melanie (Maia Mitchell). Her sister Clover (Ella Rubin) has struggled to accept her absence, and in an attempt to find any clues about her disappearance, Clover and her friends Max (Michael Cimino), Nina (Odessa A’zion), Megan (Ji-young Yoo), and Abel (Belmont Cameli) embark on a road trip in an attempt to trace Melanie’s last steps. Soon, the group is led into a valley, where they slowly realize that not everything is as it seems. The weather is acting unnaturally, and the lodge they’re seeking shelter in is filled with a slew of eerie imagery, mainly an hourglass slowly counting down. Clover and her friends become aware that they are pawns in a game where they are relentlessly hunted, killed, and mysteriously forced to repeat the same night. The only way they can ensure their survival is if they make it until dawn, or they will become a part of the night.
The appeal of “Until Dawn” as a game was the ability for players to make decisions that could alter their playing experience in a butterfly effect. The consequences of your in-game actions led to an investment that Sandberg honestly struggles to conjure in the film adaptation. Besides specific details about the world of “Until Dawn” and the involvement of Peter Stormare’s Dr. Hill (a character Stormare also portrayed in the video game), the film goes in a far more pedestrian route, opting to be in the vein of a rehashed “Groundhog Day”-esque narrative that leaves little to be desired. The only aspect where this gives Sandberg and company some leeway is by displaying a wide array of deaths, ranging from simple violent blows to the head to over-the-top physical reactions, which are admittedly amusing, even if only for a short amount of time. “Until Dawn” also has the urge to have characters make snarky quips that aim to poke fun at tropes of films like this. The problem is that each sly comment or joke feels half-hearted, failing to function on a comedic level like “Happy Death Day,” which feels like the clear blueprint for this “Until Dawn” adaptation.
It doesn’t help that every character in the film fills in every cliche of the prototypical group of friends in most slasher films. Everyone, even Cassie, is driven by such surface-level desires that they are nothing more than human bean bags waiting for audiences to see them die in another vicious way. Even Stormare’s return feels wasted, as he’s only doubling down as the evil man behind the operation, who occasionally makes an appearance. It’s shocking how little Sandberg can get out of his cast, who, with the aid of a lackluster screenplay, are given nothing to work with. A slight chuckle or two comes from Max and Abel’s exchanges with one another, but it’s primarily due to Cimino and Cameli trying their best to make the humor work.
Watching “Until Dawn” would make you forget that Sandberg started his career in horror with films like “Lights Out” and “Annabelle: Creation.” His latest feature is void of any moments that elicit genuine fear from the audience, as Sandberg defaults to cheap gore and jump scares. The film is also edited in such an ineffective way that it results in its tension never building up. There are durations of “Until Dawn” where the characters are just hashing it out over what to do as they realize what is happening to them. It leads to repetitive moments that bring down any sort of momentum. We shouldn’t be shocked that a “Until Dawn” movie wouldn’t live up to the game’s standards, which more or less succeeds due to how solid the storytelling is. This could have been a fun slasher, but “Until Dawn” is only another entry into the pantheon of video game films that very much don’t understand what made people so interested in the series in the first place.
