When it comes to video game adaptations, I learned a long time ago to not get my hopes up. Sure, there have been a few films that manage to do the source material justice, but for the most part the films tend to just fail in spectacular fashion. Until Dawn is honestly a game I never expected to see turn into a film or TV show, mostly because the game play is basically like a “choose your own adventure” style, and it just didn’t seem like something that could work. The approach the film takes is something different and takes the story into a Groundhog Day direction, only every time the characters re-spawn it becomes a different sub-genre of horror film. While I feel this is a terrible videogame adaptation, this actually turned out to be a fun premise for a film. So how does the film stand on its own? Well, a lot better than I had anticipated.
A group of friends have decided to tag along with Clover (Ella Rubin). She is on a trip to find out what happened to her missing sister. Along for the ride is her ex, Max (Michael Cimino) who still pines for her, her best friend, Nina (Odessa A’zion), and her boyfriend/ psychology major, Abe (Belmont Cameli). And then there is the oddball, fifth-wheel, Megan (Ji-young Yoo) who believes she has psychic abilities. The group has some decent chemistry, which helps this film a lot, because for the most part the film doesn’t waste time jumping into the creepy horror element. When the group stops off at a gas station, Clover encounters the gas station attendant (played by Peter Stormare) who drops some hints about people who have gone missing nearby. The gang follows up on this lead, and they find themselves at a unique little house that has a strange hourglass that mysteriously turns itself over and a guestbook that has Clover’s missing sister’s name scrawled inside.
I dug how the first time loop the group experiences has them inside a slasher, and we get some cool, gnarly kills, and when they re-spawn, though the location remains the same, it is a different kind of horror they have to face. This aspect very much feels like a video game, and it’s fun how every time the characters think they have things figured out they get hit with a curveball. Now what makes this fun is also what hurts this film, because we know the characters will return. The stakes just are not raised, and it loses a bit of the suspense factor.
A big issue I have that I feel harms the film is when they try to explain why the time loop exists. It’s like the more they tried to explain it, the less it made sense. Really, they should have just left things ambiguous. Not everything needs to have an answer in horror. While I dig the idea of them exploring a town that got swallowed up after a freak accident, there just isn’t enough time or a large enough budget to do this plot line justice.
Another problem is the overall look of the film. It’s one of those issues that have come up since films transitioned to being shot on digital. This just looks too clean and flat and lacks atmosphere. The way some of this is lit, it reminded me of something you’d expect out of a haunted-house attraction, and at times I felt like I was watching a commercial for Halloween Horror Nights rather than an actual horror film. It’s as though they wanted our attention to be held with the kitchen sink of horror characters being thrown at us rather than giving the audience an immersive experience. They should have been slowing things down and giving us something to fear, but instead this kind of felt like an action film.
Director David F. Sandberg can do horror, I had fun with his early film Lights Out, but I feel his time doing blockbusters like Shazam just clouded his judgment when it came to pacing. There are a lot of fun and cool ideas here, but they don’t quite land as they should. By no means would I say this is a bad film; there are a lot of fun moments, and I feel this is a horror film that will do well for those wanting to dip their toes into the genre, especially with Halloween around the corner. Still, at the end of the day, this did leave me wanting more, and as a fan of the game, it got me wanting to dust it off and play it again, and it got me to appreciate just how great a game it really is.
