UNTIL DAWN REVIEW

“Another solid horror flick that is equally scary, gory and entertaining – what more can a diehard horror fan ask for?”

Although I never played the Sony Playstation game on which this movie is based*, I had a lot of expectations for this horror movie, mainly since I’m such a big fan of David F. Sandberg as a filmmaker for his horror work, but I also thought both his “Shazam” movies were head and shoulders above so many other comic book movies surrounding them. (*This will be the recurrent theme of this review, so please bear that in mind.)

Until Dawn begins with a girl trying to dig her way out of a grave before being pulled back. We learn that this is Maia Mitchel’s Melanie, and shortly after that scene, we meet her sister Clover (Ella Rubin), who desperately travels to the area where Melanie was last seen with a group of her friends. After driving through a thunderstorm, they arrive at a strange old house where it isn’t raining, but once they go inside, they begin a night of terror as they’re killed off one-by-one. Death doesn’t last long as they reawake to discover that they’re caught in a time loop, and before you can say Final Destination, they are being killed in other ways, but in this case, it’s again and again.

I thought the Annabelle Creation prequel that Sandberg directed from a screenplay by Gary Dauberman was absolutely terrific, one of the best installments of “The Conjuring” franchise that wasn’t directed by James Wan, so it was exciting to see Sandberg working with Dauberman again, as they co-produced this video game adaptation with the ubiquitous Roy Lee.

Without knowing if this has anything to do with the game or the fact that in video games, players tend to be respawn after being killed, I was more interested in this movie since it allowed “Sandberman” (oh, just let me try to make this a thing, okay?) to play in a lot of different horror sandboxes. While I’m not sure anyone would consider Until Dawn to be “fun,” I certainly had a blast with it as more creatures and killers showed up to kill these kids. Even more amusing by that is that I actually liked the young actors that Sandberg and Dauberman put together to play the kids. I only knew Ji-young Yoo, because she just appeared in Freaky Tales, but generally enjoyed all of their performances. Their characterizations were in line with horror tropes, but there were much more to like about all of them, even as we watch them being killed over and over and over.

An even bigger coup for the filmmakers must have been getting Peter Stormare to reprise his role as Dr. Hill in the movie. Again, not knowing the video games, I’m not sure if those who like his character from it will enjoy his relatively small but important role here. I remember for years seeing this Swedish character actor showing up in movies like Bad Boys 2 and Minority Report and really being annoyingly over-the-top, but the older Stormare plays things down here, so it’s great to see him.

The comparisons to timeloop movies like Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow are going to be out there, abundant and a-plenty, but honestly, Until Dawn reminded me more of the excellent Cabin in the Woods, which similarly played with horror tropes to create something quite different from the likes of The Evil Dead.

I’m a big fan of production design, and that is fully on point here, as it is in some of the best horror movies, because everything from the house to the surrounding areas (like the gas station where they first meet Hill) are just great. It’s the work of Jennifer Spence, who has been working with Sandberg for a long time, and her set decorator(s) do a fine job making the interiors so unique that you might be distracted from the actors. It looks like the kind of set that I would have loved to visit, not unlike the environments created for Sony’s Escape Room movies. In fact, all the below-the-line work comes from legends like composer Benjamin Wallfisch, cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (who has shot a lot of great genre films), and editor Michael Aller. The number of people who have worked with Sandberg before and chose to join him on this adventure is quite telling, not just about the quality of the script, but also the fact they must genuinely like working with him as a filmmaker.

In general, Until Dawn is a film that should appeal to every level of horror fan since it delves into so many different horror sub-genres in a fun way, and honestly, there’s only one thing better than seeing annoying young people get killed once, and that’s seeing them killed over and over, even when, like in this case, they actually aren’t at all annoying. That’s another nice twist on the horror sub-genres the film is paying tribute to.

The best compliment I could give any movie is for me to have a desire to see it again as soon as possible. Even with any minor issues I might have with Until Dawn, that’s definitely the case here. “Sandberman” (just let it happen, k?) have created another solid horror flick that is equally scary, gory and entertaining – what more can a diehard horror fan ask for?

Rating: 7.5/10

You can watch my interview with Sandberg and Dauberman over at Cinema Daily US, and some box office thoughts in this week’s The Weekend Warrior.