Until Dawn [Movie Review]

Until Dawn [Movie Review] | The trailer had me hooked and I really wanted to watch the movie.

But the reviews has been demeaning and bad. Of course, I have to watch it for myself. 

Is it really bad?

SYNOPSIS

Until Dawn (2025) Trivia

• Starring: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A'zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell & Peter Stormare
• Director: David F. Sandberg
• Producer: Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, David F. Sandberg, Lotta Losten, Roy Lee, Gary Dauberman & Mia Maniscalco
• Production Company: Screen Gems, PlayStation Productions, Vertigo Entertainment, Coin Operated & Mangata

• Distributed by: Sony Pictures Releasing

• Release date: April 25, 2025

• Running time: 103 minutes
• Rating: MA
• Country: United States
• Language: English
• IMDb: 6.0/ 10
• Tomatometer: 53%
• Metascore: 49%
• It's based on the 2015 PlayStation game, set in the same universe with a new, standalone story that builds on the original lore.
• Wendigos in the film seem to sense only movement, like in Until Dawn (2015), where staying still was key to survival.
• Each time the loop resets, the group tries new ways to survive—just like how a game's story changes based on your choices. 

Clover is determined to find her missing sister, Melanie. With her ex-boyfriend Max, her closest friends Nina and Megan, and Nina’s boyfriend Abe, they retrace Melanie’s last known location, a rundown gas station in the middle of nowhere. There, a strange attendant named Hill warns them about a cursed path leading into Glore Valley, a ghost town with a grim history where people simply vanish.

Curiosity and desperation pulls them in. But soon after arriving, a relentless storm traps them in an eerie visitor center. Oddly, the rain doesn’t touch the town. It only rains on the outskirts. Intrigued, the group heads into the center and uncovers a chilling wall of missing person posters. Melanie’s face is among them.

They also found a guest logbook. The weird thing is - a person's name will be written on it for several times and the writing became more illegible at each entry. And it seems that each person will sign in their name, 13 times at the maximum. 

As night falls, things turn deadly. They discover a hidden house beneath the center, and a masked figure wielding a pickaxe begins a brutal killing spree. Everyone is killed. But death is only the beginning.

The night becomes not only deadly, it becomes weird too. The group wakes up again, right at the beginning of the night. A mystical hourglass resets. They’re stuck in a time loop, forced to endure horror after horror with only 13 lives before they vanish like the rest, hence the 13 check-ins. 

With each revival, they become more aware of their surroundings and the potential danger. They also lose a little of their humanity with each resurrection. 

Each loop reveals more: Glore Valley collapsed after a mining disaster. Hill is not a gas station attendant. He was brought in as a therapist after the mining disaster but his methods are inhuman. A VHS tape reveals the ultimate fate of those trapped here: after the 13th death, they become the very monsters that hunt humans. The monsters is known as wendigo.

Clover is pushed to her limits. She’s forced to confront her sister, now a wendigo, and the grief she buried after their mother’s death. 

As she fights for her lives and her friends', she finds Hill mid-experiment. He confesses that the creatures are manifestations of her depression and her fears. Clover uses his twisted system against him. She poisons his coffee with cursed water. He explodes. Megan is freed. The masked killer is finally defeated. Her friends live.

As dawn breaks, the surviving friends escape the tunnels. The loop is over.

Or is it really over?

MY REVIEW

What I Like:  

• I have not watched the first one (Until Dawn 2015). And I don't know the game. But I actually enjoyed the movie. 
• Each night gives different horror.

What I Don't Like:

• I want the nightmare for each night explored better.

Will I Watch It Again: Yes, I will.   

Overall: 4.6/ 5.0

The pictures are taken from multiple sources on the Internet. Thank you.

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