This adaptation of the cult horror game spins a promising premise into a stylish but shallow spiral of déjà vu.

Translating a beloved video game into a feature-length film is no easy feat, and Until Dawn (2025) finds itself caught between reverence and reinvention—never fully satisfying either impulse. Directed by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation), the film adaptation of Supermassive Games’ acclaimed 2015 interactive horror experience arrives with expectations as high as the snowy mountain peaks that once haunted the original. Unfortunately, the result is a visually competent, sometimes eerie effort that ultimately loops on itself in more ways than its premise intends.

Gone are the sweeping tracking shots of icy cliff edges and gothic ski lodges that defined the game’s snowy isolation. In their place is a mist-shrouded valley and a rusting visitor centre—less operatic in tone, more grounded in survival horror clichés. The story follows Clover (Kaitlyn Bernard) and her group of friends who venture into the remote wilderness where her sister Melanie vanished a year earlier. But this isn’t a straightforward slasher. Soon, each grisly death resets the evening, plunging the characters into a surreal time loop. Every death becomes part of a macabre routine—a concept ripe for tension and innovation.

Yet despite this intriguing setup, Until Dawn struggles to replicate the game’s carefully balanced atmosphere of dread, character interplay, and escalating supernatural unease. While the film toys with repetition in the vein of Happy Death Day or Triangle, its execution feels flatter. The stakes should rise with each iteration, but instead, the sense of urgency dissipates into predictability.

One of the most glaring issues is tonal dissonance. The game deftly shifted between teen horror, creature feature, and psychological thriller—leaning into its interactive nature to let players explore moral ambiguity and consequence. The film, however, strips away much of that complexity. The characters are archetypal and underwritten, with little of the branching narrative depth that gave players a stake in their survival. Despite Bernard’s earnest turn and a committed supporting cast, we don’t get enough time or texture to care deeply when the inevitable deaths arrive—especially when the film keeps undoing them.

David F. Sandberg, known for his knack with shadowplay and minimalist dread, brings some eerie flourishes to the visuals—particularly in the initial sequences of isolation and the early deaths. But his more intimate, character-driven horror style doesn’t always sync with the sprawling, meta-narrative scope the story requires. There are moments of atmosphere, to be sure, but they’re rarely sustained.

Perhaps most disappointing to fans of the game is the near-total omission of the Wendigo mythology that underpinned its final act. In favour of streamlining the plot for a film-length runtime, the supernatural elements are toned down or erased entirely—leaving a more conventional masked killer in their place. It’s a simplification that robs the story of its distinctive edge and sense of mythic terror.

The Prognosis:

Until Dawn isn’t an outright failure—just a missed opportunity. It flirts with high-concept horror and offers a few moments of stylish unease, but never quite captures the pulpy grandeur or narrative inventiveness of its source material. As a standalone film, it’s serviceable. As an adaptation, it’s trapped in its own loop, chasing shadows of something far more chilling.

• Movie review by Saul Muerte