![\"Until](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/until_dawn_poster.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Until Dawn is a gimmick movie \u2013 a production with
\njust enough tantalizing moments to assemble an intriguing 3-minute trailer but
\nnot nearly enough to comprise a full-length feature. It\u2019s technically based on
\na video game, although the connective strands are limited to a few thematic
\nelements, the occasional Easter egg, and the presence of actor Peter Stormare.
\nLike far too many game-to-film adaptations, the better option is to fire up the
\nPS5 and stay far, far away from the multiplex.<\/p>\n
The movie has a Groundhog Day<\/a> meets Final Destination<\/a> vibe but that\u2019s more window dressing than anything else. The
A better movie might have made this into a hallucinogenic trip
Until Dawn presents itself as a mystery movie, with
\t
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\tUntil Dawn (United States\/Hungary, 2025)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Until Dawn is a gimmick movie \u2013 a production with
just enough tantalizing moments to assemble an intriguing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,9472,15370,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-53937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movie","10":"tag-movie-reviews","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114408232410312009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nplot is largely irrelevant; the whole point of the movie is to watch the five
\nmain characters get repeatedly slaughtered before being resurrected to go through
\nthe whole thing again. Rinse and repeat. I\u2019m not sure of the exact body count but
\nit\u2019s in the dozens. Most of the deaths are pretty routine: slashed throats, bludgeoned
\nheads, stabbings. Admittedly, one can lay claim to a modicum of inventiveness \u2013
\nin which people drink water that causes them to explode \u2013 but that\u2019s an
\nexception.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/until-dawn-1.jpeg\")
The movie starts out with five friends \u2013 Clover (Ella
\nRubin), Max (Michael Cimino, not to be confused with the late director), Nina
\n(Odessa A\u2019zion), Megan (Ji-young Joo), and Abe (Belmont Cameli) \u2013 on a road
\ntrip to nowhere, looking for Clover\u2019s missing sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell). A
\ncreepy old man at a road-stop general store, Dr. Hill (Peter Stormare), suggests
\nwhere she might have gone, so the twentysomethings head up there, only to
\nbecome trapped in a hellhole stuck in time. That\u2019s when the killing starts,
\ncourtesy of a slasher-movie clown. Except, instead of staying dead, the victims
\ncome back to life, a little worse for the wear, when the sands in a mysterious
\nhourglass run out and it flips over. The implication is that if they can stay
\nalive until time expires, they might be able to escape alive.<\/p>\n
\nwhere we wonder whether this is really happening or whether it\u2019s a bad acid
\ntrip. The movie is too underwritten to effectively perform such a narrative sleight-of-hand.
\nIt\u2019s not interested in the details of the plot. It has a beginning point and an
\nend point and all that matters in between is the pointless exercise of
\nrepeatedly killing the characters. Even that might not be so bad if there was
\nsome humor or invention in the process but the film is a dour affair, mostly
\nstuck inside a shoddily designed haunted house, with plastic characters who
\nhave little backstory and less personality. It would be an insult to call them
\nstereotypes \u2013 they don\u2019t rise to that level. They are non-entities.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/until-dawn-2.jpeg\")
Of the five principal actors, I vaguely recognized two: Ella
\nRubin (who was in Anora<\/a>) and Ji-young Joo (the Prime Video series Ex-Pats).
\nNeedless to say, both were better in those earlier projects. I\u2019m not familiar
\nwith the other three, who are at least photogenic. The director, David F. Sandberg,
\nis surprisingly not a first-timer. In fact, he has previously been in charge of
\nsome pretty high-profile fare (the two Shazam!<\/a> movies). <\/p>\n
\nsome great \u201ctruth\u201d needing to be solved in order to allow the characters to get
\ninto their car and head back to the real world. We learn that they don\u2019t have
\nunlimited lives, so the clock is ticking. By the time the movie gets around to
\npulling back the curtain on what\u2019s going on, I no longer much cared. That\u2019s
\nwhat happens when the characters are so plastic that even a scintilla of empathy
\nis impossible. I can think of bad slasher sequels from the \u201880s that were more engaging
\nthan this one.<\/p>\n