Until Dawn (2025)

I watched this movie tonight because I was in the mood for horror and had borrowed it from the library based upon seeing a trailer in theatres for it last year.

It is a movie based on a PlayStation video game which I hadn't played, but also heard good things about. With these vague bona fides and expectations around such an adaptation, the most likely outcome would have placed it in the realm of the Resident Evil cinematic universe, which like that franchises' most famous antagonists? It just doesn't stay dead.

I did not expect that this Until Dawn would actually turn out to be one of the more effective horror films I have seen in a while. The cast is composed mainly of actors I haven't seen previously in anything, except maybe character actor Peter Stormare, who likely disappears as a supporting role in many features. But the performances were solid, the music cues kept tension, and the special effects weren't cheesy. This movie was better and scarier in its framed shots and jump scares were earned rather than just cheap thrills. I actually cared about the survival of the characters as they were defined, even though the back stories were not fully outlined, I didn't need them to be laid out more than they were.

This film is a less goofy "Cabin In The Woods" setting blended with the plot device of "Happy Death Day", even though I found enjoyment in both of those comedy horror films, this particular combination trimmed the comedy and doubled down the stakes of the horror.

The premise of the movie is that a group of friends is supporting Clover Paul, a girl who lost contact with her sister about a year ago. The group of five friends are retracing the stops from her lost sister's video posts as a means of attaining a sense of closure for Clover. As they make it to the stop where the last video from the sister was posted, they get a lead that there is a place nearby where a lot of people seemed to have gone missing. As the group drives off, a rainstorm in a forested road obscures the path, until it mysteriously tapers off to reveal a lodging house in the middle of a clearing. This phenomenon of a wall of rain just stopping like a bubble is slightly eerie, but the sun in the clearing is late afternoon and it is nice to have a break from the downpour. The group investigates the lodging house, but it appears abandoned as if the hosts have gone fishing for a short lunch break. One member wanders in the back officez looking at a bulletin board covered with "lost notices" with faces of the missing. There is an hourglass on the wall with a skull motif under it like a casual pirate decor vibe. Another member opens the guest book and finds it empty, but figures it should be used for it's intended purpose and signs her name.

This triggers a subtle shift in events, as something catches everyone's attention and they congregate to confer over what exactly is going on? The sun has set and suddenly the log book of guests is no longer empty, it is filled with names of repeated guests, with deteriorating handwriting scrawls into gibberish. Only to be replaced with a fresh new guest's signature only for the pattern to be repeated. The group is attacked by a masked freak with a machete and are hunted down one by one. Only for the hourglass in the lobby to mechanically flip back over and reset to the beginning of the dusk, with the party all drawing a startled, hard breath at the memory of their demise. They quickly learn the mechanics of their test - survive the night until dawn, but the night's events are not a firm loop as much as a bizarre escalation of new events to confront and avoid each iteration, so past pattern recognition is of limited utility for what MIGHT happen again.

But the group gets tired and weary, wondering how to keep their sanity and whether there is a limit to the number of chances to solve and resolve the puzzle for how to survive for one full night.