Film Review - Until Dawn
David F Sandberg’s horror video game adaptation is dull and unconvincing
Apparently, Until Dawn is based on a video game. In the past, I’d have said that explains the nonsensical plotting and threadbare characters. However, television has proved interesting drama can be derived from a video game source (The Last of Us), so that inconvenient truth derails such an argument. At any rate, the characters here are unremarkable, though they are all intensely irritating. Perhaps the pleasures are supposed to come from watching them die horrifically gruesome deaths over and over again, but as Vyvyan once said in The Young Ones: “Even mindless violence seems boring today.”
If you’re still interested in slogging through this review, the horror mashup premise involves a quintet of nondescript young people retracing the steps of their mysteriously disappeared friend, Melanie (Maia Mitchell). They comprise Clover (Ella Rubin), Nina (Odessa A’zion), Megan (Ji-young Yoo), Abel (Belmont Cameli), and Max (Michael Cimino — no, obviously not the late film director back from the dead, though that would have been an amusing twist). Guided by an obviously suspicious petrol station employee (Peter Stormare), they arrive at a peculiar remote house where they are promptly trapped and killed by a disfigured masked maniac.
However, they return from the dead, and time resets itself. From here, they discover they have to survive the night, or the whole thing keeps resetting, Groundhog Day (1993)-style. Except it’s not like that because 1) there’s a new horror menace every time; witches, wendigos, demons, deranged asylum doctors, and other nasties, and 2) this isn’t a charming, life-affirming romantic comedy. Not that I mind horror films, but I prefer them to be scary. In contrast, this is an aimless generic mess that throws everything and the kitchen sink at the screen and hopes it sticks.
At one point, we even get a brief flirtation with found footage. Our young ensemble can’t remember some of their previous deaths but conveniently recorded them on phone video files. Why can’t they remember? Who knows. The film’s excuse is that horror is scarier the more inexplicable and less explained it is. That’s true, but to scare an audience, certain basic requirements, such as interesting characters and a compelling narrative, are best included. If you’re not used to horror films, you might find this occasionally frightening, but it’s thin gruel for genre fans.
In an attempt to grudgingly say something nice about this film, Lights Out (2016) and Shazam! (2019) director David F Sandberg points his camera in the right place, ensuring things are dark and creepy. But no amount of spooky atmosphere can make up for a lazy premise, idiotic narrative, and thoroughly unconvincing characters. I suppose undemanding gorehounds with limited exposure to horror history might get a kick out of some of the splatter, but otherwise, I just hope Until Dawn is a better video game than this clichéd, lowest common denominator dreck. Save your money and go and see Sinners instead (or see it again).
(Originally published at Medium.)
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