I am not sure who this movie is made for.

After her sister goes missing, Clover brings her friends on the trail on which she was last seen. But in finding an isolated hotel, the group find themselves trapped for a night that seems to never end.

Directed by Peter F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Shazam!) Until Dawn is a PlayStation affiliated production; Until Dawn being the name of a video game released on PlayStation. Starring a host of slasher fodder, I mean actors: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’Zion, Ji-young Yoo, and Belmont Cameli. Until Dawn is one of those anomalies that aggressively takes from its source material, yet wants to be remembered for its own merits. Even when those merits are lacking in comparison. When the comparisons are with a video game, the conversation really begins.

Until Dawn, the video game, was released in 2015 by British video games developer Supermassive Games. It laid the groundwork for the company’s modus operandi; high fidelity graphics with gameplay marrying with a cinematic presentation. It involved a group of teens getting stuck on a snowy mountain before having to survive “until dawn” while monsters attack. All with the same tongue-in-cheek irreverence usually found in 1990s slasher movies. It was a tremendous hit, and Supermassive Games have not looked back since; currently working on their eighth game of similar styling.
So the news of an Until Dawn movie adaptation was met with a muted reception. They are making a movie based on a game that’s sold entirely because it is like a movie? At least it will be easy to make. Right?

Director Peter F. Sandberg is recently known for both Shazam! movies, but his breakout movie was Lights Out. A small horror film that was given life after James Wan’s production studio saw Sandberg’s short film of the same name. Lights Out was a neat little movie with the central idea of “you can only see the monster if the lights are out.” Until Dawn has this motif very briefly, and it was pleasant to see.
Unfortunately, this new film gets off on the wrong foot with some classic horror tropes. Our protagonists arrive at a creepy American gas station and we get our first jump scare: they are all nearly ran over by a bus. The film never really escapes this early sinkhole of tropey writing. There are bright spots riddled throughout but none of them coalesce enough to outweigh the negatives.

Suffice to say; the movie is narratively nothing like the video game. Our team arrive at a hotel that is mysteriously unaffected by a massive rainstorm. The storm looking like a wall of rain encircling it. Once inside, one of the teens remarks “Wild”, when looking at an empty guestbook page. Never has dialogue felt so natural. When Clover discovers her missing sister’s name written in this book multiple times, not one but three characters get to exclaim “Holy shit” at the guestbook. Never has dialogue been so enticing.

The film proceeds with a series of “death loops”; with the night at the hotel resetting when everyone dies. Which ironically is a video game trope, but isn’t what Until Dawn is about. This isn’t as fun in implementation as Happy Deathday or Final Destination, and it makes everything weightless. Add the fact that the writers start to directly reference the video game, all but re-writing the video game’s premise, you have a narrative disaster. It should be noted that not a single writer of this movie worked on the video game.

So the question remains: who is this movie for? It isn’t for the video game’s fans. It flagrantly alters compelling narrative devices the game’s story implements. Is it for audiences who don’t know any better and just want constant cheap jumps scares? File under: Yes. Is it for gore-fans? Even the gore is fairly forgettable.

It is a surreal situation. We have a video game written like a 90s slasher movie having more narrative intrigue than a 2020’s slasher movie borrowing that game’s title. But that’s what we have here; a barely boilerplate slasher movie. It could have simply been the movie video game adapted into a movie. Sure, the fans would have been nitpicking, but at least you could bring in new fans from the movie-goer audience.

There are some bright spots buried in here. A particular sequence involving water was the sure highlight for anyone watching. Another involving a character opening a door to a horrible, spooky basement and saying “Nope”, while closing the door again. Actor Peter Stormare is lifted straight from the video game, who is fun to watch on screen.

But these are all very small moments that could fit on a postal stamp. The other one-hundred minutes aren’t worth suffering through for these alone.

Additional Marshmallows: I think the most surprising thing in this movie was, honestly, a teen knowing how to use a rotary phone.