Until Dawn was one of the first video games I can remember playing that really felt like a movie. The 2015 survival story took the conceits of a teen-focused “cabin in the woods” horror and placed the story in our hands. The choices we made determined who lived and who didn’t, and its “butterfly effect” gimmick made us think hard about the consequences of playing God. It’s one of a handful of truly cinematic, plot-driven games that have dominated the zeitgeist, pulling dedicated gamers and total novices into its orbit. Like its contemporary The Last of Us, it doesn’t necessarily need a live-action adaptation. But of course, that hasn’t stopped PlayStation Studios from making one anyway.
Ten years after Until Dawn, Sony unveils a new version of a familiar nightmare. To call the film a true adaptation of the Supermassive game is a stretch of epic proportions: where the former was all about story and causality, Until Dawn: The Movie throws plot out the window in favor of gore and schlock. It uses a time-loop conceit to replicate the feeling of dying and respawning in a video game. It also gives director David F. Sandberg an excuse to blitz through as many teen horror tropes as can fit in two hours. The result is a diverting, if utterly unhinged and nonsensical, homage to the genre.
