Despite stumbling at the finish line, Until Dawn has enough over-the-top fun and heart to enjoy.
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As much as I like horror movies, I tend not to like horror games quite as much. When done right a horror game can provoke genuine anxiety in the player, which, as someone with anxiety, I like to avoid replicating whenever I can. So much so that even the more horror movie segments of beloved shooters like the Halo and Half-Life 2 were always inconveniences I tried to work through as quickly as possible. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that while I had heard of the game Until Dawn I had never played it, which also means I may be a perfect audience member for a movie based on said game. No expectations is a nice play to be, but can Until Dawn bring something new to the time-loop horror genre, or will it wallow in cliche?
The Setup
The film follows five friends, Clover, Max, Nina, Megan and Abe, who are all travelling to find Clover's missing sister Melanie. But when they arrive at the town Melanie was last seen at, a not so charming place called Gore Valley, the five friends find themselves stuck in a loop of violent death and rebirth. Can they uncover the mystery and escape? Or will they eventually die for real?
Almost all video game movies suffer from one major problem: transferring the stuff from the game that will work in a movie. Which is especially difficult shifting from an interactive medium to a non-interactive one. Put another way, video games sell you on: you are Spider-Man where a movie sells you on a Spider-Man story.
Hence why two of the most successful movies about toys have been meta-critiques of society and commentary of the toys themselves (see Barbie and The Lego Movie).
Until Dawn has figured out what works...mostly. The core appeal of a time loop in a horror movie setting is that you can have fun with it, because a single death doesn't mean anything. You can put the cast through a parade of horrific deaths that you can play for laughs or maximum impact because, f*** it, we'll just come back.
And since we don't want to do the same things over and over again, we can bring in a traditional slasher villain, have at least one hilarious over-the-top room clearing event where everyone learns the rules of this world, and then introduce things like witches, zombies and everything in between. The "figuring things out" phase of Until Dawn is genuinely inspired and full of gruesome kills that take full advantage of the R-rating to set it apart from other time loop horror flicks, notably the PG-13 Happy Death Day movies.
That's also a pretty faithful recreation of a horror video game experience where you'll try something, likely fail, and try to use that knowledge to avoid dying this time around.
So where does it get difficult? When you try to make it mean something.
Based on my reading, the game finds meaning in player choice. Because when you make a decision here it might save one person's life over here, but could also lead to another character's death. And you can use that to muddy the moral lines.
As a movie, Until Dawn has two ideas that work well for the on-screen interpretation: co-operation and making the most out of your existence.
The movie takes great pains early on to show certain characters acting for the sake of their own survival and self-interest and then gleefully making them pay for it. You try to drive off into the sunset by yourself? You're gonna die horribly for committing a moral faux-pas. Where this becomes extra clever is when the characters start making their ability to die and come back mean something.
For instance, once our five friends realize what it takes to survive, they consistently end their own lives to ensure that they're not a lone survivor, throwing away the notion of a "final girl" in favor of a collective "we fight and die as a group" mentality, that is very refreshing in the horror genre.
And considering the cast of young people, I wouldn't expect, but was pleasantly surprised to hear characters discussing what gives life meaning, with the movie and everyone else landing on, it means more when you've only got one.
So what's the problem? Because at the worst possible time, the video game stuff shows up to mess with the time loop movie.
All of the best time loop movies are kind of moral lessons. The originator Groundhog Day is all about a mean guy learning to become a good person, and wouldn't you know it, he gets the respect and romance he'd been craving the whole time. Once you achieve personal growth, you can break the loop.
And then here comes Peter Stromare reprising his role from the game apparently to explain what's really going on here with an exposition dump that feels completely separate from the movie we've been watching so far.
Which is no knock on Stromare, he gives the movie exactly what it asks of him, but everything that he drops in introduces new ideas that aren't supported by the rest of the movie. Like claiming this is all about Clover facing her fears and these are all manifestations of them? Clover certainly didn't seem like a scared or guilty person before she got her and has been nothing but heroic. What on earth are you talking about?
But the video game had this setup, so we're using too and in the process kinda derail all of the movie's best ideas.
It genuinely feels like an element left over from an initial draft after someone played the game and they forgot to update it.
Does it ruin the movie? No. There's still enough dramatic momentum to keep things fun, but it does prevent the movie from getting the rare and very coveted "great video game movie" label.
The Verdict: A Lot of Good Ideas
Despite stumbling at the finish line, Until Dawn has enough over-the-top fun and heart to enjoy. 6/10
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