Considering the pedigree of the horror video game adaptation Until Dawn, I admittedly expected something better.
From director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation, both Shazam! movies) and writers Gary Dauberman (director of Annabelle Comes Home, the recent Salem’s Lot remake; and writer of the It movies, The Nun, and the original Annabelle) and Blair Butler, Until Dawn patterns itself after the recent rash of films about victims living the same night over and over while trying to figure out a way to survive, but with foggy rules and a vague overseer of these events. Here, that's Peter Stormare’s Dr. Hill, and ultimately the horror is slightly undercut by me not giving a shit about anyone living or dying.
The events begin one year after Melanie (Maia Mitchell) goes missing while driving into your standard-issue mountainous, backwoods small town to a small house that seems front-loaded with every manner of killers and spooks and things that go splat in the night. For all of its silliness at times, the movie does go hard on the hard-R blood and guts, which is somewhat shocking for a studio film. Her sister Clover (Ella Rubin) drags a small group of her friends to retrace Melanie’s steps, and they wind up in the same abandoned visitors center where they immediately find themselves stalked by a masked killer who eventually slaughters them all. End of movie!
No, not really.
They all wake up and find themselves back earlier in the day to the moment they first went into the center, and it all starts again, only with different deadly forces coming after them, including one where they all drink the water and blow up.
Michael Cimino plays Max, a young man who clearly has a crush on Clover and wants nothing more than to help her in her cause of finding her sister, no matter how improbable. Ji-young Yoo plays Megan, Belmont Cameli plays her boyfriend Abe, and Odessa A’zion (daughter of Pamela Adlon) is probably the most interesting and gutsy character, Nina. At a certain point early on, the group realizes they only have a limited number of deaths before they permanently become part of this monster mash of murderers, since each time they come back to life, their bodies have altered somehow, making them more grotesque. If even one of them dies, they all have to recycle to the beginning all over again. The only way to survive this is to stay alive until dawn.
Like most video games, I’ve never played Until Dawn, but from what I’m told, the film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the basic premise of the game. The creature work and kills are sometimes spectacular, but these characters are so underwritten and two-dimensional that seeing them die each time didn’t pain me at all on their behalf. There is one sequence involving a witch living in the house across from the center that I found really well put together, if only because the way the witch tormented Clover was truly spectacular. But beyond that, I got nothing for you.
By the end, I was more curious about what these youngsters were turning into than I was about what happens if they survive the night. And Stormare, who is so great at playing a combination of bizarre and threatening, seems like he’s only there for the vibe because his character offers few answer and even fewer compelling moments. The film is a messy, jumbled, whimper of a horror experience that will probably be given multiple sequels, just to piss me off.
Until Dawn is now playing in theaters.
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