A movie adaptation of a video game? Eww. Hold on, though. Hasn’t TV bucked the trend of crumby entertainment based on console classics? Wasn’t Fallout an unexpected and groovy success on Amazon TV? Didn’t Season 2 of The Last of Us become the most anticipated event since the last series of The White Lotus? Yup, both of those were heavily genre-influenced and showed that if you treat such a source with respect and imagination, gaming lore can be a gold mine. Just ask the makers of A Minecraft Movie. Chicken jockeys aside…  If you’re not aware, Until Dawn was a modest success on the PlayStation platform way back in 2015. This was very much (and this is a reference for the oldies) a technological update of the Fighting Fantasy books and choose-your-own-adventure platforms that were huge in the 80s and 90s. Putting you in the pixelated shoes of several characters, you explored and made crucial choices within a cabin-in-the-woods scenario. Depending on your actions, members of the group lived or died in horrible ways. It was notable at the time for “starring” the captured movements and likenesses of Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Peter Stormare and integrating horror tropes into a survival horror aspect. It led to several spiritual successors and a recent remaster. Cue this movie version, which is directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay and a story by Gary Dauberman (The Conjuring and IT franchises) and Blair Butler. Certainly not a straight adaptation of the game’s narrative, it features a Groundhog Day (or Happy Death Day if you want a genre reference) twist to the proceedings. Currently rewinding in US and UK screens, we’ll see if it’s worth repeat viewings.

 

After a quick prologue that features the apparent demise of a character, we’re introduced to the plot’s Scooby gang, a collective of the usual horror-movie protagonist stereotypes. Clover Paul (Ella Rubin) is the main character, suffering from anxiety and dark thoughts, and she is trying to come to terms with the disappearance of her sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell from the opening scene). Her four friends (Michael Cimino as Max, Odessa A'zion as Nina, Ji-young Yoo as Megan, and Belmont Cameli as Abel) are trying to support her on a road trip to follow in Melanie’s footsteps and provide some kind of closure. Whilst travelling through the remote woodlands, a tip from a store owner (Stormare, sort of reprising his video game persona) leads them to a deserted mining valley and a visitor’s lodge. After the sun sets, they meet a masked psycho who slaughters them graphically. The end. Game over, man. Except it’s not. They awaken from their “deaths” at the start of the same evening. Apparently stuck in a time-loop, they are destined to eventually deteriorate into monsters if they don’t stop dying and can survive… yep… until the dawn of a new day.

 

For those who were familiar with the source material, they were probably wondering how a multi-branched 10-hour-ish narrative was going to play in a 100-minute film. Well, the easy answer is that it doesn’t. The idea of a time-loop might seem intriguing and a neat-ish way to enable multiple death scenes and outrageous plot threads. The truth of the matter, though, is that it doesn’t quite work that way. The good news is that it contrives a way to graphically kill the same characters over and over again. This is a great excuse to use practical effects to explode, bisect, stab, and generally abuse the lead characters whilst still progressing their journey. The downside to this is that it greatly reduces the tension and emotional weight of the events. You can throw a dozen jump-scares at our heroes, but we know that they’re going to get up again and ask for more.

 

The plot tries to get around this by adding a MacGuffin whereby the leads have only a set number of nights where they can die, before they become part of the scenery and devolve into the cannibalistic “Wendigos”. And yes, those are antagonists from the original game (as is the masked Jason-alike), but the lore is never really rounded out or explained. A time-loop certainly is not involved in the source material. But supposedly, having a finite number of “lives” is a snigger-worthy way of referencing its console history. This is also referenced in other little nods, such as one character saying that they didn’t know why they said a certain sentence, just that it felt “the right thing to say at the time” (which is surely pointing to the choices in dialogue when playing the game version). And if you feel so inclined, there are at least three Easter Eggs that visually confirm that the film takes place in the same “universe” as the game, even if it’s not the same characters involved or location. Totally wasted on anybody with no knowledge of that, though, so why bother?

 

Truth be told, UD is fun for as long as it lasts, but it’ll just feel average to most horror fans. The “Groundhog Day” format could have been much more inventive in execution, but despite the words used in the strapline, every night is not really a different nightmare. The Wendigos and the masked villain appear multiple times and are usually responsible for the main kills. There are some minor incursions into other sub-genres, such as body horror, parasitic worms, and demonic possessions. Those moments make up the most gratifying and fun elements of the film, and you only wish that the story had spent more time on this pick-n’-mix of horror. Especially as the special effects are mostly practical and intensely gory. From the moment an eyeball is speared onto a stake and a character literally bursts into a splat of viscera, you’ll appreciate the adherence to an R-rating (still only a 15 in the UK, though. Made of stronger stuff, us Brits!).

 

As such, this could have been a riotous version of many different horror themes, but most of this is only hinted at. A red-eyed colossus appears for only a brief second and is never seen again, a sketchbook teases the introduction of a werewolf that never happens, and a (admittedly clever) homage to found-footage films is underused, something which teases at more interesting events that we never see. Think of it… We could have had a new version of the bonkers Waxwork (1988) with loads of different themes instead of what we get. At the very least, a condensed version of Cabin in the Woods, with its standout grab-bag of creatures, could have been attempted, instead of the relatively limited palette that is used. Sandberg is a proven and accomplished horror director. Before his Shazam! superhero films, he was responsible for the it-has-no-right-to-be-this-good prequel Annabelle: Creation and the underappreciated Lights Out. Some of the scenes involving the masked nutter and the Wendigos are incredibly solid and chilling. If they ever get round to doing another reboot of Friday the 13th, then Sandberg could definitely cut the mustard and wouldn’t wimp out on the kills.

 

However, one of the problems here is that, by the very nature of the story, the jump scares are incessant and very often predictable. When you’ve had one skull-faced cannibal lunge at the screen, then you’ve witnessed a lot of future scenes before they’ve happened. The time-loop and scenario should have added variety to the mix, but it’s really just more of the same. And whilst on the subject, the narrative doesn’t make a scrap of sense or hold any coherence. You’ll be absolutely lost as to explain why there is a time-loop in the first place, just what the main antagonist is trying to do, what it’s all got to do with a mining accident, and who built the hourglass contraption in the first place. If the film itself were an hourglass, sand would be leaking all over the floor, the glass would be cracked, and you’d be looking for the receipt. One character tries to explain that their predicament is like “one of those films”, without ever calling out Bill Murray’s touchstone comedy in any detail or attempting to understand what is happening. Because of that, when certain cast members contemplate suicide to fast-forward the timeslot, it comes across as somewhat disturbing when compared to how Groundhog Day and Happy Death Day dealt with the same situation. Especially when the main character here has already touched on the subject of mental health before the events of the film.

 

All of this does sound overwhelmingly negative, but as a standalone film (particularly if you have no knowledge of the game), it’s actually quite an enjoyable experience. Just as long as you appreciate needlessly gory demises of potty-mouthed young adults, and who doesn’t? (In horror-fantasy only, of course. Don’t cancel us.) There are some vague attempts to note some serious aspects of human emotion in there (Clover can’t move on from her sister’s death. She’s stuck in a loop. Geddit?!), but otherwise it just feels inconsequential and a bit daft. Come for the horror tropes and stay for the gleeful gore, but don’t expect anything more profound or exciting. You won’t feel short-changed, but you won’t be challenged either. So, it looks like it’s still down to the streaming channels to provide high standards of gaming horror on our screens for the moment.