Review: "Until Dawn (2025)"
Ten-ish years ago I played the game for our Extra Life marathon; honestly, I've been thinking about it ever since. Making Until Dawn into a movie is possibly the scariest part.
Melanie is missing. Her sister Clover and four of her friends, Max (ex-boyfriend), Megan, Nina, and her boyfriend Abe, decide to go on a search for her themselves a year after she disappeared. They have already been through, presumably, several states and multiple stops at places they knew Melanie went to. Each of them left them with no further details as to where she is. The final place she stopped in was a random gas station where she posted/sent a video to her sister. She explains that she is sorry for running out, and she hopes that Clover will call her because she misses her sister.
Megan, who apparently is a self-appointed psychic in the group, suggests that the group hold hands and take a moment. They have done this at each of the spots before, and she doesn't want to break the trend. As they take a quiet moment, Megan clearly senses ... something, but the moment is broken up by an RV almost running them over. Clover decides to go inside and ask the guy working if he has seen her sister. He eerily responds that he has seen her recently and, "She must be missing." He knows where she was last, and that is likely the reason why she is missing. She went to Glore Valley, not far from where they are currently. It is where a lot of people have gone missing over the years.
Clover and her friends immediately hop in their car and head that direction. Once on the road, they are surrounded by a terrible rainstorm. At some point, they end up on a small gravel road and (off camera) have been turned around several times. An argument over turning around again ends when the car suddenly breaks through the storm to find a clearing around one house. The storm strangely ends right at the edge of the property. Not so much that it stops raining and clears up, but the storm just isn't IN the clearing. It is all around them, but not where they are currently.
The group enters the house to investigate, but things only become less clear. The house looks like no one has been in it since the late 90s. Abe records everything around him and searches off on his own, finding a wall of "Missing" posters. Strangely, there are no details for the people on the flyers, just a picture and the word "Missing" above each. Nina signs her name in the "Guestbook" and comes to the realization that Clover's sister was, in fact, here. Not only that, but she signed the guestbook multiple times, and each time her signature became less and less legible. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mysteries surrounding Glore Valley.
When this film adaptation of a PS4 game was announced, however long ago, I was very skeptical of how it would turn out. It didn't seem to follow the game at all, and it didn't seem to have literally ANY connection to the source material. Now, having watched it, I think actually drawing attention to the game and the movie together was probably to its detriment. The movie, outside of this tenuous connection, is honestly really good. While there are some connections to be made, someone who has not played the game won't know them or care, as opposed to someone who has played the game, who will see the title and expect too much from a movie adaptation. I guess what I am trying to say is that, on its own, Until Dawn is a good movie, but trying to rope gamers into watching it because of the small connection to the game is probably a mistake.
Until Dawn, boiled down to its bare ingredients, is basically if Groundhog Day were a horror movie. The characters live out their final night in the cabin at Glore Valley over and over again, dying each time. No two nights are the same, and their deaths come in various ways each time. They have to break the cycle to escape. That is very derivative, but it works here for the setting, mostly due to the "Until Dawn" hook.
There is a lot of fun to be had in this film, as far as horror movies go. It certainly would have detracted from the film to do a "death montage," but it wouldn't have been too far out of place. They make up for it in the end with a bit of "found footage" squeezed into the end. It works really well within the context of the film. The effects overall are really well done. A good mix of CGI and practical effects on display here, with even a couple of callbacks to the game.
The acting is all great considering it is just a teen-scream film. While the writing is mostly predictable, I was happy that it didn't fall into the trap of trying to be "hip" and write a bunch of slang and jargon that no one actually uses or wants to hear. Again, I think it could have gone on longer than its hour-and-a-half runtime, but I'm glad it didn't. Until Dawn doesn't overstay its welcome, and I greatly appreciated that. Get in, tell a story, and get out. While this part of the "Until Dawn-averse" is done, it sets up a sequel in a decent way and could potentially spawn more than one. Hopefully, the next game in the series, as well as the next movie, should they decide to make it, will both be worth checking out in the near-ish future.
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