‘Until Dawn’ Review – A Misguided Reimagining That Loses The Essence

I wanted to be excited about the Until Dawn movie when it was first announced. The game was such a fun ride—cinematic, full of tension, and packed with choices that actually mattered. It already had the perfect blueprint for a horror film. But even from the first trailer, something felt off. The tone felt different, and the setting didn’t look quite right. Still, I tried to keep an open mind. Maybe it was just the marketing. Maybe the film itself would deliver. Well… it didn’t.

The film opens with a character named Clover (Ella Rubin), who doesn’t exist in the game, and I say that as someone who’s played Until Dawn multiple times. She’s introduced as the central protagonist, leading a group of friends on a road trip to find her missing sister. Before long, they find themselves stranded in a remote visitor center nestled in a shadowy valley (a far cry from the iconic snowy mountain lodge), where they become trapped in a supernatural time loop of death, cryptic warnings, and slasher hijinks. It’s not that the premise couldn’t work—it’s just that it has almost nothing to do with what Until Dawn was about.

The problem here isn’t just creative license—it’s a total disconnection from the core DNA of the original. If you’ve played the game, you’ll immediately notice what’s missing: the atmospheric descent into madness, the sense of isolation, the moral consequences of every decision you make. None of that survives in this adaptation. Instead, we’re thrown into a story that feels more like a generic teen horror experiment than a faithful reimagining of the beloved game. The setting is wrong, the tone is off, and the characters feel like hollow echoes of the deeply flawed but memorable teens from the source material. This isn’t Until Dawn, no matter how many times the movie tries to convince you otherwise with half-baked Easter eggs and recycled names.

Gone are the rich personalities of Sam, Mike, Josh, and the others. Gone is the snowy lodge, the creeping sense of dread, the moral choices that ripple throughout the story. In their place? A group of horror movie clichés straight out of a bargain-bin slasher flick, a villain in a mask, and a never-ending time loop that drains all the tension. You don’t care who lives or dies—not because the stakes aren’t high, but because the film never gives you a reason to care.

What’s most baffling is that the game basically handed the filmmakers a ready-made script. Until Dawn was always cinematic—it was practically a movie you could play. And yet, instead of building on what worked, this movie tries to reinvent the wheel in the most disjointed way possible. It keeps the name, throws in a few nostalgic breadcrumbs for the fans, and hopes nobody will notice that it barely resembles the game at all.

Now, to be fair, not every video game can be adapted beat-for-beat. I get that. Some things just don’t translate from controller to camera. But this version of Until Dawn seems almost afraid of its own source material. It introduces so many new elements—like the time loop and a mysterious valley manor—that it ends up more like a Rush of Blood fever dream than a faithful adaptation. The pacing is frantic, the horror is loud but empty, and worst of all, the characters are so underwritten it’s hard to care whether they live or die.

Clover, our new lead, could’ve been an interesting character, but the film never really gives her space to breathe. Her relationship with her sister is barely fleshed out, and any attempts to create emotional stakes feel like an afterthought. The rest of the group are essentially cannon fodder—each fitting neatly into a trope (the ex-boyfriend, the goth clairvoyant, the new couple, etc.), but offering little else. It’s as if the film took one look at the nuanced, emotionally fraught cast of the game and said, “Nah, let’s just plug in a checklist of clichés.”

Even the film’s one nostalgic callback—Peter Stormare reprising his role as Dr. Hill—feels wasted. His scenes have a surreal energy to them, sure, but they’re disconnected from the story and ultimately amount to little more than a wink at fans. It’s like the film wants to say, “See? We remembered the game,” while completely missing what made Dr. Hill so unnerving in the first place. He was meant to be a reflection of your choices, your guilt. Here, he’s a prop.

There are moments when the movie briefly flirts with being fun. The gruesome death scenes, boosted by some solid practical effects, are inventive enough to make gore hounds happy. A sequence involving found footage-style playback of past deaths is clever, and there’s a claustrophobic bathroom scene that’s genuinely tense. But these scenes are fleeting. They’re not built on suspense or character investment—they’re spectacle for the sake of spectacle.

Visually, the film suffers from a serious lighting problem. It’s so dimly lit in places that you miss entire chunks of action. I’m all for moody horror atmospheres, but there’s a difference between eerie and “I can’t see anything.” It’s a shame, too, because some of the creature designs and set pieces seem well-made. They’re just shrouded in darkness and edited at a breakneck pace that kills any tension they might’ve built.

Ultimately, this adaptation—or “inspired by,” depending on which part of the marketing you believe—doesn’t just fall short. It feels like a betrayal of what made the original game special. The tension, the atmosphere, the choices—all of it is stripped away in favor of a frantic, throw-everything-at-the-wall horror mash-up that forgets to build characters, suspense, or even a coherent plot. This movie might’ve worked as a standalone horror flick with a weird time loop twist. But calling it Until Dawn and then discarding everything that made the game iconic? That’s not just misleading—it’s insulting. Honestly, the only Until Dawn thing about this movie is the title.

If you’re a die-hard fan of the game, maybe steer clear of this one. If you’re just looking for a forgettable, overstuffed horror movie with cool kills and a messy plot, it might scratch that itch. But if you were hoping to relive the chills of Blackwood Mountain? You’re better off just replaying the game.

Until Dawn is currently playing exclusively in theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures.