Directed By David F. Sandberg

Starring – Ella Rubin, Odessa A’zion, Michael Cimino

The Plot – One year after her sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell) mysteriously disappeared, Clover (Rubin) and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, gore and adult language throughout

UNTIL DAWN – Official Movie Trailer (HD)

POSITIVES

Despite all of the preconceived feelings and lack of expectations that come with video game adaptations, “Until Dawn” is far from the worst of them, with a surprising abundance of redirected creativity that allows the film to stand out on its own original merits. This begins within an opening act that wastes little time in putting the motions of the plot together, with not only the first kill conjured during the movie’s opening minutes, but also the complete manifestation of the established set-up taking only fifteen minutes. This leaves more time for fun inside of a script that feels like the colliding of “Groundhog Day” and “The Cabin in the Woods”, where instead of characters making butterfly effect choices in the present that will somehow come back into play in the future, like the game, the script instead opts to force these characters to endure the everyday horrific realities of their terrifying captors, and this in itself leads to a refreshing gimmick that a hardcore horror hound like me appreciated. Similar to “The Cabin in the Woods” conjuring a different kind of killer behind every corner, “Until Dawn” too plays homage to the many creative compartments of the genre, with a new form of horror, like found footage, creature feature and body horror, surmising within each day that these five characters attempt to break the spell. While nothing here completely reinvents the wheel, with regards to depicting the many brands of horror that frequent our theaters every year, they’re each presented in ways that effortlessly attain clarity and coherence to what artistically the production was going for, with some gruesomely brutal kills in their various executions that at least inscribes fun to characters whom I had absolutely no connection to. The production’s meaningful choice to utilize practicality in the forms of its torturous effects definitely go a long ways towards feeling every spontaneously abrupt blow enacted on these characters, and with thirteen days sprawled across five characters, there’s plenty of carnage candy to repetitively inflict on these inescapable victims, presenting what was easily the most redeeming factor to the movie’s favor. As for the aforementioned repetitious gimmick itself, there are issues with the set-up that I will get to later, but Sandberg’s direction does finally attain some semblance of tension and urgency during the final act, with a vulnerability factor to the group’s previously established final day that does finally spring free some palpable stakes for our protagonists, with only one life left to endure. This in itself feels like a similarity to video game logic, but for the most part the movie successfully distances itself from its pixelated predecessor, with only Benjamin Wallfisch’s riveting reworking of the game’s original compositions, and the occasional Easter egg involving imagery of the game’s original characters being periodically deposited throughout the movie’s 98-minute duration, to give it a more refreshingly balanced spin than those that everybody was prematurely spoiled by in playing the game that came out a whole decade before the film. On top of this, the performances are a mixed bag, with very little opportunity inside of suppressed characterization, however the “Hellraiser” reboot’s Odessa A’zion and Peter Stormare make the most of their opportunities, with layered emotionality to the former, and fun ferocity to the latter, that solidifies the level of professionalism that each of them brought to a movie that is definitely well beneath them. For Peter, it’s nice to see him as the only actor who returned to portraying the very same character that he did in the game, unlike Rami Malek or Hayden Panitierre, who are only shown in file pictures splashed across a desktop, as it does establish some kind of kinetic link between the game and the film that serves as a wink to the audience, without deliberately slowing the progress of the film to establish fan service.

NEGATIVES

At the end of the day, this is sadly another disappointingly executed video game adaptation that flounders an opportunity that practically writes itself, beginning with the surprisingly ineffective direction of Sandberg, whose recent days helming the “Shazam!” movies have clearly cost him the ability to sizzle the suspense and atmospheric uneasiness of horror that started his career. Perhaps it’s a means of flat characters, a redundant structure in gimmick, or all of the above, but Sandberg’s execution amounts to very little in the discomfort of the audience, with nothing in the way of momentary frights or atmospheric uneasiness in the depths of his various set pieces, and while Sandberg’s need to cater to the laziest kind of terror in an abundance of predictably timed and telegraphed jump scares do little to effectively set a precedent leading to bigger and better gags, resulting in an artistically stale and continuously floundering bore that grew all the more tedious throughout a variety of captured subgenres that at least should’ve expanded the director’s artistic flare, instead leaving to a medium of monotony that only grew worse with meaningless characters whom I had not even an accidental attachment to. This is where the script really compromises the engagement, as so little time is spent with these characters during the opening engagements that we feel like we never have a grip on who they are as people, outside of Clover being a worried sister who dragged her friends to find her, a year later, and with unnaturally stock dialogue reminiscent of a video game transition screen, that feels like studio pinpoints for the ensemble to continuously hammer home to an audience that they believe is too stupid to accurately interpret something on their own, leaves each of them feeling as nothing more than a mounting body count towards a gimmick-first engagement. This is not to say that the performances are a victim to the movie’s suffering, as Ella Rubin’s primary protagonist, Clover, is among the most unmemorable leading ladies that I have experienced in quite sometime, made worse by the illogical decisions that her and these bumbling buffoons make in seeking resolution to escape this never-ending day. This is where I truly lacked ever wholeheartedly engaging with the film, as glaring plot holes and wasted time started to stack like dirty dishes to the movie’s foundation, leaving it difficult to emit empathy for the characters and their conflicts when neither of them make it any easier on the audience to go along with the magnitude of what they’re facing. On plot holes, there are a couple to dissect, but the notebook ledger involving each prisoner of the house was the greatest of them, where a book of thirteen signatures for every resident is meant to articulate how long each of them have to survive the night. It’s not only a major convenience to think that every single resident would continuously re-sign their names while fighting for their lives, but it’s even lazier to suppress the notion that the signatures would be unaffected in a world where everything is wiped clean, each time these characters die, but I guess how else would they surmise vital information towards conveying to the audience? I know, how about establishing one of the characters to being psychic? This way we can implant exposition into her gimmick without having to explore it naturally with the frequent trial and error of these kids repeatedly dying. To say this gimmick is convenient is a major understatement, as the script never uses it beyond anything other than attaining knowledge that they otherwise couldn’t find, instead of some form of characterization to make her more dangerous or impactful to the various monsters, and just as quickly as she delivers newfound knowledge to her peers, she’s shuffled off unceremoniously in the blink of an eye, summoning this as the amount of characterization that the script wants or needs to spend on her. If this isn’t enough, the fact that characters frequently waste opportunities to elude their predators by offing themselves whenever one of the five of them die is completely ridiculous, even if you have an undying allegiance to save all of them. Because they only have a random number like thirteen times to get this right, their incessant need to continuously waste chances on an imperfect opportunity sacrifices the urgency of the engagement, leaving a trail of stupidity in their wake, with characters who I have no reservations saying that they all deserve to die.

OVERALL
“Until Dawn” fares slightly better than most live action video game adaptations, with its intricate homage to the many layers of horror that does surmise an indulging fun factor and some satisfying carnage candy to sink your teeth into. Unfortunately, the flatly meaningless characters, lack of atmospheric or conflicting frights, and surprisingly disappointing direction from Sandberg leave it doomed to experience more of the same from its uninspiring predecessors, with another conclusive execution that proves movie studios still don’t understand the soul behind the screen of what makes these games such an exhilaratingly immersive rush to those thrill-seekers.

My Grade: 5.4 or D-