Until Dawn
by Hope Madden
Watching the 2011 genre classic Cabin in the Woods when it came out, you couldn’t help but think it would make a great video game. Each new level could bring on a different one of those beasties from the elevator, and you’d have to try to survive them all to win. Fun!
Until Dawn, the new horror flick from David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation), follows exactly this logic. It’s as if someone did make that video game, then turned that game into a movie. Which is kind of what happened.
Sandberg and writers Blair Butler (The Invitation, Hell Fest) and Gary Dauberman (the Annabelle, Nun, and It franchises, among others) retool the popular Until Dawn survival game to give it more of a cinematic structure. Five friends, out on a road trip to remember a pal who’s been missing for a year, stumble upon a long-abandoned welcome center.
They spy their missing friend’s name in the register. It’s in there 13 times.
Next thing you know, time loop horror overtakes the friends as one malevolent force after another descends upon the welcome center. As soon as all five friends are dead, an hourglass resets, they revive, and the next wave of horror hits.
Peter Stormare lends his effortless creepiness to the proceedings, which benefit from his performance as well as work from an ensemble that’s better than the script demands. Belmont Cameli and Hellraiser’s Odessa A’zion are particularly effective, but all five friends break free of the tropiness of their roles to find familiar, human centers.
It had to have been hard, as their characters continually make the dumbest decisions possible.
The film feels terribly confined by its premise. Rather than the gleeful celebration of all things monstrous that made Cabin in the Woods such a joy, Until Dawn lacks inspiration. The set design never rises above a seasonal haunt aesthetic, the creature design lacks imagination, and the repetitive nature of the time loop grows tedious.
It shouldn’t come as a great surprise, given the filmmakers. Dauberman’s hit big a couple of times, but his fare is mainly middling. Sandberg’s genre films are exclusively mediocre, and Butler’s work rarely reaches that height.
But Until Dawnis not a complete waste of time. Sandberg doesn’t skimp on bloodshed, and the cast really elevates the material. It’s no classic, but it offers a bit of bloody fun.
