{"id":1741,"date":"2025-06-05T18:33:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T16:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cineairo.com\/?p=1741"},"modified":"2025-06-05T18:34:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T16:34:01","slug":"untill-dawn-be-kind-dont-rewind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cineairo.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/05\/untill-dawn-be-kind-dont-rewind\/","title":{"rendered":"UNTILL DAWN: Be Kind, Don’t Rewind!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A year after her sister Melanie vanishes, Clover (Ella Rubin) gathers a group of friends and heads to Glore Valley \u2014 a snowy, isolated ghost town steeped in local legend. But what begins as a search for closure quickly spirals into a waking nightmare. The group is cursed to relive the same horrific night over and over again, each time dying in new, increasingly brutal ways. With every reset, the horror genre shifts \u2014 one night a slasher, another a supernatural ghost story, then body horror, then monster mayhem. The only constant is the rule: survive until dawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a chilling premise with genuine potential. But as the night resets again and again, so too does the film \u2014 stuck in a loop of spectacle without consequence, atmosphere without weight, and horror without heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David F. Sandberg\u2019s Until Dawn<\/em> isn\u2019t a remake of the critically acclaimed 2015 PlayStation game \u2014 though at times it pretends to be. It\u2019s a spiritual prequel, a parallel thread in the same universe, designed to expand the franchise rather than retell it. But where the game immersed players in choice, consequence, and fear born from personal failure, the film opts for a time loop that mimics structure but never soul. It trades emotional weight for genre chaos and assumes that more blood equals more fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To its credit, the film wastes no time. The conflict begins almost immediately. There\u2019s a quick flash of backstory and then we\u2019re already spiraling through death after death. That may be intentional \u2014 a modern horror instinct to get to the point \u2014 but without mystery or buildup, horror becomes noise. The events unfold quickly, but the characters don\u2019t, and neither does the dread. If the goal was to pull the audience straight into the meat of the story, the result ends up feeling rushed and hollow. The set-up might be fast, but it\u2019s not captivating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time loop mechanic is the film\u2019s central idea, and at first, it\u2019s a clever way to echo the video game\u2019s trial-and-error dynamic. Characters retain bruises and memories from previous loops, and each reset seems to escalate the danger and shift the genre. It\u2019s a concept that works on paper, and for some horror fans, it might offer the unpredictable tension they crave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by the third or fourth reset, the novelty wears off. What could\u2019ve been a smart, escalating narrative devolves into a collage of loosely connected horror tropes. The film tries everything: masked killers, witches, creatures, possession, psychological horror. It\u2019s Groundhog Day<\/em> meets Cabin in the Woods<\/em>, with a dash of teenage melodrama. But the result is a tonal mess \u2014 not an evolution of fear, but a parade of it. A highlight reel. A haunted house walkthrough, not a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What made the video game extraordinary was never just its monsters. It was the emotional gamble. Every choice mattered. One wrong decision, and you might doom a character you\u2019d grown to care about. The tension wasn\u2019t in watching horror unfold \u2014 it was in knowing you could\u2019ve prevented it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie replaces that feeling with passive d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. We watch characters die, then reset. We know it\u2019ll happen again. We know nothing sticks. Even the characters seem aware of it, but they\u2019re not shaped by it. The player agency that made the game such a haunting, personal experience is reduced here to a cinematic gimmick. The \u201cButterfly Effect\u201d is gone. In its place, a wheel spinning in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clover, our protagonist, is supposed to ground the film emotionally. She\u2019s grieving her sister, fighting her own inner darkness, and gradually unraveling as the loops repeat. Ella Rubin gives a solid performance, but the script doesn\u2019t give her enough to work with. The psychological angle \u2014 particularly the idea that Wendigos are born of emotional despair and depression \u2014 is introduced with potential, but quickly discarded in favor of more visceral scares. What could\u2019ve been a character-driven horror becomes one more exercise in bloodletting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the cast exists to serve the structure. Odessa A\u2019zion brings energy to Nina, and Ji-young Yoo as Megan shows early promise, but none of the characters have room to grow or surprise us. They\u2019re written to die, not to develop. Acting-wise, no one is outright bad \u2014 but no one gets the chance to be good either. Dialogue swings between exposition and clich\u00e9, and the rare emotional beat is undercut by the looming expectation that another death is just minutes away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visually, the film delivers. The practical gore is impressive. Faces melt, limbs tear, throats are slashed in ways that recall \u201980s horror excess, and it\u2019s clear Sandberg knows how to stage a bloody scene. Benjamin Wallfisch\u2019s score adds menace when needed, and the film has a slick, occasionally eerie visual palette. But like everything else, the style doesn\u2019t serve a deeper purpose. It\u2019s horror as display, not as storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are nods to the game, of course. Peter Stormare reprises his role as Dr. Hill. Josh Washington\u2019s file appears late in the film. And the final shot \u2014 a car approaching a snowy lodge \u2014 gestures at the beginning of the game. These details are meant to connect the film to the broader universe, but they feel like bait more than tribute. For fans of the game, they might spark a flash of recognition. For newcomers, they\u2019ll mean nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that gets to the core issue: this movie isn\u2019t for fans. It may use the name Until Dawn<\/em>, and reference its mythology, but it doesn\u2019t respect what the game achieved. It doesn\u2019t understand what it meant to play a horror story where you<\/em> made the wrong choice. Like so many other video game adaptations before it \u2014 Max Payne<\/em>, Hitman<\/em>, Resident Evil<\/em> \u2014 this one adapts the frame, not the feeling. It recreates moments of fear, but not the mechanics that made them meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s worse is that it could turn new viewers away from the original. Someone seeing this film with no knowledge of the game might assume it\u2019s a hollow IP. But the game is anything but. It\u2019s emotional, complex, morally weighted, and still one of the best cinematic horror experiences ever released on console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t enjoy this film. It failed to pull me in. I wasn\u2019t on the edge of my seat. I didn\u2019t care who lived or died. Even as a semi-slasher, it lacks tension. Some individual scenes work, and the variety of horror on display will entertain casual viewers. But there\u2019s no emotional center. No one to root for. No story that sticks. Just death, blood, reset \u2014 until the credits roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a movie built from a brilliant premise and a beloved game. And somehow, it ended up being just another loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating: 4.5\/10 <\/strong>\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/strong>\u00bd<\/strong>\u2606\u2606\u2606\u2606\u2606<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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