Until Dawn (now on Netflix) cleverly solves the problem of adapting a hit video game by turning the start-over-with-another-life methodology into a Groundhog Day-esque concept. And so a group of Young Horror Movie People find themselves dying and being resurrected over and over again while they piece together a way to escape a time loop – which means the deaths far outnumber the characters, a bit of math that’ll have horror-flick sickos feeling like they have the raunchy-kills equivalent of Elon Musk’s bank account. The movie marks a return to the horror genre for director David F. Sandberg, who made Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation before spending large piles of Warner Bros.’ money on two Shazam! movies. He’s at the helm of a fairly inspired idea, opening the door for a meta-horror endeavor with significant potential. Whether it meets that potential is the question.
The Gist: “Not again!”, Melanie (Maia Mitchell) screams as she’s chased through the woods by a zombie-cave-monster guy, then scythed to death – is there any other way to be scythed? – by a creep in a clownish mask. Yep, two horror-movie tropes in one scene. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this, right? Um. About that. I’ve seen the whole movie and I’m not so sure but let’s hold that thought and meet the main characters: Clover (Ella Rubin), Megan (Ji-young Yoo), Abe (Belmont Cameli), Max (Michael Cimino) and Nina (Odessa A’zion). They’re all friends, Clover leading the way on a haunted “tour” of the last places her sister was seen before she went missing a year ago. Yes, Melanie is (was?) the sister, and she sent Clover one final selfie-video in this here spot, in front of a general store in the middle of nowhere. They stand out front trying to catch a vibe or whatever, and Clover goes in the shop to have a conversation with the proprietor played by Peter Stormare, and anyone who’s seen a fair amount of movies in the decades since Fargo know that chatting up a character played Peter Stormare is something of such portent, it makes the most ominous portent look like plain old regular unflavored portent.
Clover, of course, is unaware she just partook in some heavy doomshadowing, so they continue on, driving through a blinding rainstorm that just suddenly stops. Curious. Like there’s an invisible wall in the world, on one side an ungodly soaker and on the other a perfectly nice day. Unexplained phenomena? Sort of. I can confirm that an explanation is sorta attempted later in the movie and I don’t know if I tuned out for a sec or it was just garbled nonsense but let’s stay on the task here and follow the Scooby Gang into the “welcome center” on the perfectly nice side of the rainwall. It’s like they stepped through a time warp where everything dates to the mid-to-late ’70s and, of course, a decent cell signal is about as accessible as the remains of the Titanic.
They explore the building and find a weird guest book with the same names in it repeated – anyone superstitious? – 13 times each, and a bulletin board full of missing-persons flyers. No surprise, Melanie’s name is in the book and her face is on the board. We get frequent shots of a mechanized clock with an hourglass that flips over when it’s time to repop this squad after they’re killed by the aforementioned slasher, or creatures identified as wendigos but are really just iterations of fast zombies, or, most amusingly, the water out of the bathroom tap, no spoilers, buddy. Our protags, when they’re not squabbling like chipmunks fighting over an acorn, try to assess this highly unusual situation, as escape is seemingly impossible for some reason, a reason I couldn’t quite discern because The Concept kept making up rules as it goes along but let’s not be distracted as the group kinda trials-and-errors its way through the figuring-it-out process. Oh, and they haven’t seen the last of Peter Stormare, not at all. In fact, they’re privy to Low-Angle Peter Stormare, something that does not bode well if you’re trying to live through the movie you’re in.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is Happy Death Day, Edge of Tomorrow and/or Groundhog Day meets Cabin in the Evil Dead Chainsaw Massacre Woods: Freddy vs. Jason.
Performance Worth Watching: On one hand, we have some annoying Gen-Z uncharacters, and on the other, Peter Stormare being a greasy scoundrel in about three scenes. It’s not really a choice, is it?
Memorable Dialogue: Scream called, and it wants its dialogue back:
Max: So the night is just starting over again?
Nina: Like in whatever the f— that movie’s called – like, that shit is actually real?
Max: There’s been a bunch of movies like that.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: DON’T DRINK THE WATER. Again, no spoilypants here, but that’s a great gag. Too bad there aren’t any more of them, because as Until Dawn plays out, we’re left with the nagging feeling that this should be more fun, and funnier – all the better to distract us from the incoherent narrative, which stacks the third act with explanations and still doesn’t pull the bits and pieces together. It teases out the “rules” of this reality, but then kind of forgets about it and fudges its way to the end. Such disheveledness applies to the overall concept too; you can sense an attempt to spoof or pay homage to multiple horror tropes, but they blur together unto repetition. It’s an inspired core idea that leaves us more confused than enthused.
The movie ultimately lacks the spirit, distinction and personality to execute potent satire. It’s either trying to be too subtle in its comedy or attempting to appeal to fans of Miserable Shit like Saw. So what we’ve got here is a major tonal identity crisis. We get a Blair Witch zombie folk-horror escape-room slasher movie chock-full of witches, zombies, towering monsters, a creep with a scythe, gross baby dolls, dead-eyed clowns, dank basements, even danker tunnels to God Knows Where and a collection of young twits who don’t know how many teeth are in the human head and surely think the old VHS tapes they find are “from the 1900s.” One character is a self-professed psychic and another prefaces statements with “as a psych major…”, bits that feel like setups to jokes that are dropped and forgotten, buried under the film’s inability to embrace its own innovations – or gimmickry.
Our Call: Until Dawn isn’t as scary or amusing as it should be. It’s just frustrating. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.