My Thoughts on Until Dawn
Adapting video games into movies is always a tricky thing. On paper, it should be a straightforward process, just take the twisted lore of a game, add in some jump scares, and you’ve got a horror film that practically markets itself. Enter Until Dawn, an attempt to take a popular horror video game and give it the cinematic treatment.
The plot follows Clover Paul, who heads out on a trip with her friends to retrace the last steps of her missing sister, Melanie. Melanie disappeared a year ago in a remote area, and the group set out to find some sort of closure.
The film starts off pretty typical: a road trip, some banter between friends, a stop at a creepy gas station with a weird owner, nothing we haven’t seen before. But things take a turn when they discover the abandoned visitor’s center in an old mining town called Glore Valley.
A rainstorm has passed, and yet the place is dry, like some unnatural force is at work. It doesn’t take long for the group to stumble upon some creepy clues, and as per usual in these films, they decide to press forward rather than retreat. Naturally, it all goes downhill from there.
The town seems cursed, and every time they die, time resets, forcing the group to relive the same night with different threats popping up each time. It’s like the Groundhog Day of horror, which, in theory, could’ve been an interesting way to play with narrative structure.
But the way the time-loop works in the film, with the giant clockwork hourglass constantly reminding us of time resetting, starts to feel less like a cool concept and more like a gimmick. It’s overused, and it starts to drain the tension instead of building it.
Now, I haven’t played the game myself, so I can’t speak to how faithful the movie is to the source material, but what I can say is that the film tries to hold onto the feeling of the game by weaving in video game style elements, like characters “respawning” after they die.
And, while I appreciate the idea, it doesn’t quite land. The film leans heavily on the time-reset element, but it just starts to feel repetitive and predictable. It’s a concept that could’ve been really engaging if done right, but the execution just didn’t hit the mark for me.
The characters also don't really help, as, they’re all completely annoying. Seriously, they’re not just unlikable, they’re actively irritating, with no no real depth to any of them, and it makes it hard to care when they start dying off one by one.
And speaking of the deaths, the monsters in this film are a mixed bag. There are Wendigos, but the film just keeps throwing random creatures and threats at the characters, from masked killers to witches to some seriously nasty water that causes people to explode (which, I’ll admit, is one of the more creative and fun parts of the film).
But if the curse is supposed to reset the night and send out more and more creatures, shouldn’t the final loop be an all-out monster chaos? Instead, we keep seeing the same few monsters, and the threat doesn’t feel like it’s escalating the way it should.
The biggest problem with Until Dawn, though, is its inconsistency. The premise of the film, which is this time-loop curse that resets the night and brings new threats, sounds great on paper, but it doesn’t quite hold together. There are moments where you start to think the film will take off, but then it just veers off track. There’s a lot of potential here, but it feels like the movie doesn’t know what to do with it.
With that said, sometimes, you just want to watch a dumb, fun horror flick that doesn’t take itself too seriously. and Until Dawn definitely falls into that category. It’s got monsters, gore, and some creepy moments, even if the overall story doesn’t make much sense. It’s a guilty pleasure kind of film, one you can watch, turn your brain off, and enjoy the chaos, even with the flaws.
If you’re in the mood for a monster-filled, jump-scare heavy movie that doesn’t ask too much from you, this could be worth a watch. Despite the annoyances, I still managed to have some fun with it. It’s a dumb, mindless ride, but it’s not going to stick with you for long.