‘Until Dawn’ review: Midnight monster mash-up

Dark and unstructured, Until Dawn is both a faithful love letter to horror fans and an unfaithful adaptation for its gaming ones.

The name Until Dawn might sound familiar if you’ve played a video game in the last decade. In 2015, Supermassive Games released Until Dawn, an interactive survival horror game, on the PlayStation 4 to great success. The game centered on a group of friends returning to a snowy cabin and, based on your decisions as the player, the characters could live or die in the story against the mysterious horror hunting them down. Supermassive Games saw much success in this format, with standalone entries released that followed Until Dawn’s lead, including a remake released in 2024.

With a game focused on narrative and the development of its characters, Until Dawn fans always had a “What if?” theory surrounding how this story could translate to the big screen. Helmed by director David F. Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation, Shazam!), 2025’s Until Dawn from Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions would finally answer that question. Unfortunately, what came to be was a convoluted, horror-packed tale that went for the easy kills instead of honing the legacy that came before.

I want to play a game with you.

One thing to note about Until Dawn is that the story isn’t adapted from the game. Written by Blair Butler (The Invitation) and Gary Dauberman (It), the film focuses on a group of friends heading to a house in the woods searching for a missing sister. What transpires is a curse that traps the group in a nightly survival for their lives, where a new horror is unleashed each night that kills them. Their only hope? Survive until dawn to stop the curse.

Instead of Until Dawn adapting its namesake, the film chose to set the plot in the same universe as the game. Well, it “tries” to connect both properties. Until Dawn juggles the need to set itself apart as a confined story, while also providing clever easter eggs for fans. If you’ve played the games, these nods will give you the joy of having the “a-ha!” moments. In particular, without spoilers, there is one easter egg during the film’s climax that will have you bouncing off your seat and unraveling what this means for Until Dawn at large.

But to answer the big question for non-game fans: no, you don’t need to play the game to watch Until Dawn. The movie charts its path as a standalone experience, making Until Dawn (the movie) mostly in name only. And if you take the film as its own, you’ll find yourself having a decently enjoyable experience, basking in all the carnage and chaos heading your way. But for game fans, it’ll be a frustrating experience resisting the urge to compare. While the movie is set in the same universe, certain glaring details, from monsters to the world, have been tweaked that contradict what has been introduced before. Brace yourselves, as your patience may vary.

Crafting a horror experience.

By no means is Until Dawn a terrible horror movie, but it has noticeable flaws. Sandberg did a good job creating an eerie atmosphere that channels the spookiness of slashers and horror games. The film positions itself as a gory and unforgiving slasher that sees pleasure in the deaths of its main characters. For horror fans, comparisons to The Cabin in the Woods will be felt throughout the movie’s tone and light structure. Until Dawn sticks to the horror archetypes and cliches we know and love from slasher films: a group of friends, a deadly entity hunting them down, a secluded cabin or house in the woods, and a big twist for why it’s all happening. But, combine all these elements into a time-repeating twist inspired by Groundhog Day. Until Dawn isn’t the first film to utilize this format, and it surely won’t be the last.

Right from the first bloodshed, our unsuspecting group gets picked off one by one in bloody kills. Until Dawn is all about its deaths; the murders propel the plot forward and emphasize how dangerous this curse can be. Even to the point of the group making stupid decisions that will inevitably lead to their deaths. Until Dawn embraces its slasher quality and goes in for the deaths, seeking to provide thrills with its chills (and succeeding occasionally).

But even with the eerie deaths (well-executed with practical and digital effects), Until Dawn does have a structural issue. Specifically, the film tries to be everything to everyone in its simplified plot. A masked killer, wendigos, spirits, witches, and demons are just the tip of the iceberg for what the group faces. The concept of “a new terror every night” stretches itself in every direction, leaving certain elements underdeveloped or kept to a surface level.

And some horrors feel like a gimmick; merely an interlude to showcase a new horror villain that didn’t quite fit in. Until Dawn should’ve taken a note from Supermassive Games’ line-up and reined in the cause of the bloody terror to 1-2 main entities (3, if necessary). This would’ve helped to ground the film and utilize that additional runtime to flesh out the plot in needed ways.

The killer finds its victims.

Speaking of the plot, a highlight from Until Dawn came from the chemistry of its main characters. The complex relationships between the group were easy to understand, and the nuances of each archetype shone despite the script. We had a de facto Final Girl archetype Clover (Ella Rubin), whose search for her sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell) brought them to the woods. Lovestruck Max (Michael Cimino), who wants to protect Clover, spiritualist psychic Megan (Ji-young Yoo), rebellious Nina (Odessa A’zion) and her relationship of the season, Abe (Belmont Cameli). Plus, the mysterious Dr. Alan Hill (Peter Stormare, also in the game), who plays a looming presence on the group. While the film doesn’t dive too deep into the characters, we get enough onscreen to fill out their group dynamics.

Where this falters, however, comes in the third act of the film. Until Dawn falls into the same trap as many other horror contemporaries: it doesn’t know how to wrap up the big reveal. The script/finale would’ve benefited from another round of rewrites and editing to land the point harder. After a roller-coasting pacing of murders, monsters, and mayhem, Until Dawn needed to take a beat to sit with its reveal.

We do have an answer for the mystery. However, the third act could’ve fleshed everything out more to emphasize how and why everything happened the way it did. This reveal is the most important detail in a structure like this, but Until Dawn treated its value as nothing more than dialogue. While this could be filed away as yet another bumpy movie ending, this move feels even more egregious since there’s a larger story universe impacted.

The bottom line.

Until Dawn is an imbalanced yet enjoyable slasher movie that leaves you uncertain about your experience. Its time-repeating format and priority on jumpscares create a decent popcorn horror atmosphere; one that you can enjoy if you’re in the mood for a horror flick. But its convoluted mystery, light plot, and weak final act squander its potential from being a better movie. And that’s not even accounting for the connection (or the minimal ties) to the source material. Until Dawn has all the elements to be a strong film, but it didn’t go hard enough to land the kill.

Until Dawn is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures. Read more articles by Justin Carreiro here.