Director David F. Sandberg delivers this fun horror adaptation of Until Dawn based on the PlayStation 4 video game. Written by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler about a group of friends, stuck in a mysterious location that they can’t escape, and are killed over and over in a time loop. In order to break the cycle, they must survive.
The story initially begins when we see a woman being chased by some sort of creature, and as she narrowly escapes, she is presumably killed by a man wearing a mask. It’s now a year later and we discover that the missing woman is Melanie (Maia Mitchell) and her sister Clover (Ella Rubin) is now seeking answers about her disappearance. Her friends Max (Michael Cimino), Nina (Odessa A’zion), Megan (Ji-Young Yoo), and Abe (Belmont Cameli) are all along for the ride to support their friend.
On the drive, the group is caught in a dangerous downpour when they come across a clearing and a house. Although outside the clearing it’s wet and rainy, the grounds where the house is remain strangely dry.
The house is actually an empty visitors center with a visitors log with Melanie’s name. There’s also a billboard with pictures of missing persons, and they find one of Melanie. As the group separates into different rooms to further investigate, each one is horrifically killed by the man with the mask from the beginning of the film. Clover is the last to die, which resets an hourglass clock, and the group is once again alive.
“…they are killed over and over in a time loop…”
Each victim is very aware of how they were painfully killed, and when they try to leave, a nefarious force won’t let them. They realize they are caught in a time-loop or “butterfly effect”, any choice will cause a different outcome but always lead to them being killed horrifically. Each time they die, there is also a consequence; their bodies begin to mutate into a beast-like creature, and they must escape before it’s a full transformation.
The film takes David F. Sandberg back to his Lights Out horror feature debut. Although that was PG-13, he was able to do this one with an R rating, and it shows his growth as a filmmaker. It’s not just about the “scares,” there is an element of cleverness that feels like a mixture of Edge of Tomorrow meets Happy Death Day. Gary Dauberman also deserves a lot of credit because a good story always starts with a good script, and having Hollywood’s current go-to horror writer help pen this adaptation also shows that when you put the right pieces together, you get the right result. Dauberman, having also adapted a few of Stephen King’s literary works as features, understands the proper beats that a horror film must have in order to work.
Video games have had a lot of misses as adaptations, but this isn’t one of them. The idea that someone will remember and feel how they are violently killed is disturbing. But then adding another element that each time you come back, you won’t be the same is terrifying. This extra layer to the storytelling keeps Until Dawn fresh and keeps it from being just another Groundhog Day rip-off. I won’t be surprised if the film gets a sequel.
"…Video games have had a lot of misses as adaptations, but this isn’t one of them."
