Time Loop Slasher Until Dawn (2025) Gets Stuck in Repetitive Cycle
Title: Until Dawn
First Non-Festival Release: April 23, 2025 (Theatrical Release)
Director: David F. Sandberg
Writer: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler
Runtime: 103 Minutes
Starring: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
Clover (Ella Rubin) is determined to get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance of her sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell). Even if this means forcing her friend group to go on a road trip to re-trace her steps. It’s not until the last stop that she, her ex-boyfriend, Max (Michael Cimino), best friend, Nina (Odessa A’zion), her latest boyfriend, Abe (Belmont Cameli), and free spirit, Megan (Ji-young Yoo) finally get a lead on her whereabouts. This leads the ill-fated crew to a seemingly abandoned visitor center that may be the key to understanding what happened to Melanie.
Half-baked time-loop teen slasher Until Dawn is an enjoyable yet deeply flawed film.
Right out the gate, Until Dawn has a steep climb to make given that its story and concept are so far away from the source material of the game it intends to bring to the screen. Establishing its time loop insanity quickly, Until Dawn injects mystery into the plight of its crew of clueless young adults. With each day resetting the carnage from the night before and new horrors lurking in the wings of the next night, the story’s formula works well enough to eke out a few choice scares. Unfortunately, with its stark departure from its source material, Until Dawn struggles to justify why this story matters more to fans than the video game. Those unacquainted, however, will find the results serviceable.
The action comes to a screeching halt thanks to its cast of dimensionless characters and flat performances. Tenuously stitching together the friend group, the crew in Until Dawn lacks the social cohesion to project authenticity. With most details of the characters boiled down to their relationships with each other and maybe one defining trait, there just isn’t much substance to go on for the chaotic story. Even Clover’s arc of accepting the death of her mother and the ensuing grief spiral of her and her sister gets lost in the silliness of the time loop horror.
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There’s a kernel of a compelling message inside Until Dawn in the form of its warning to not let fear overwhelm, contain, or control you. Using the legend of the wendigo, Until Dawn breaks down how to use fear to control the victims who find themselves stuck in the Glore Valley time loop. By using their grief against them, the victims of the supernatural death trap are tortured over 13 nights before succumbing to the irreversible transformation. This idea is compelling but feels underbaked given the rapid pacing and thin connective tissue piecing the film’s violent nights together. The oversimplication of the wendigo myth also adds weight to the story, obfuscating its origin in indigenous folklore and minimizing its purpose down to a scary story and setting.
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While the scares are light, Until Dawn makes full use of its concept through solid set design and special effects work. As the nights pass and the remnants of Glore Valley resurrect themselves from the fog, Until Dawn makes its once intimate setting feel vast and even more dangerous. Witch’s houses, systems of underground tunnels, and abandoned asylums turn Glore Valley into the most terrifying haunt imaginable. The special effects team do a great job of crafting the various killers and creatures that populate the town, too. Madmen, parasites, and bodily explosions are just some of the dangers awaiting the hapless young adults. All of which look and act positively threatening thanks to the care of these departments.
With tempered expectations, Until Dawn is a perfectly fine horror film that is dragged down by the promise of what it could have been more than what it actually is. Messy storytelling, dull characters, and a stark contrast from its source material may offer too many strikes against it for horror fans and lovers of the game. Still, it has enough effective scares and genuinely interesting ideas that make it watchable. Don’t let your fear control you and make up your own mind about 2025’s foray into time loop horror.
Overall Score? 5/10
