Title – Until Dawn (2025)

Director – David F. Sandberg (Shazam!)

Cast – Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion, Peter Stormare

Plot – Trapped in a time loop of endless violent deaths, a group of friends searching for the truth behind the disappearance of one of their own must work together to escape the hellish world they find themselves in.  

“Every death brings you closer…to the truth”

Review by Eddie on 01/09/2025

While not quite producing A Minecraft Movie box office numbers, David F. Sandberg’s fellow 2025 video game adaptation, in this instance of Playstation’s hit horror property Until Dawn did manage to produce a healthy $50 plus million world wide in box office receipts off a reported $15 million dollar budget.

The very definition of an easy win for Hollywood studios, minimal investment off a popular if not exactly household name product and an easy sell to those seeking out genre thrills, Until Dawn does little in the way of attempting to stand above its source material or the regular lazy video game movie adaptations even if Sandberg and his behind the scenes team can’t be accused of sticking to the safety of the original game, making their Until Dawn an almost entirely different feeling one.

Likely to enrage rather than engage hardcore fans of the game that arrived as paying customers at the cinema or at home eager to witness the original blood-splattered narrative come to life on the big screen, Until Dawn focuses its attention on an entirely new setting and collection of characters (minus the games recognisable face Peter Stormare) as Sandberg throws them and us into a time loop of grisly deaths as a collection of young adults try to overcome the bloody odds stacked against them to survive their nightmarish groundhog day.

An entirely silly proposition and one that revels in its over the top gore and character demises (death by water!), Until Dawn is not going to appease horror fans looking for decent frights outside of signposted jump-scares but for anyone wanting their horror lathered in OTT elements and disposable characters you can’t remember the names of, Sandberg’s film will have you covered.

Making a name for himself early in his directional career with a vast array of memorable horror shorts, including the viral Lights Out before he moved into the Hollywood system with the likes of his feature version of Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation before 2023’s Shazam: Fury of the Gods blacklisted him from big budget Hollywood for a period, it’s a shame Sandberg hasn’t managed to find the right horror film to really stake his claim in the industry yet with Until Dawn unlikely to win him any new fans.

Far from the worst video game adaptation of recent times, here’s us looking very much at you Borderlands, Until Dawn provides a few very simplistic delights and moments of gory fun but for anyone that has played the original source material you do begin to wonder relatively early on if it would’ve been wiser to stick far closer to that storyline than what we get dished up here.

Final Say –

A forgettable yet thankfully fast paced feature length version of one of Playstation’s great cult hits, Until Dawn has some playful and inventive moments but their mostly overshadowed by a rather generic and pedestrian offering that gives us very little in the way of memorable moments or characters.

2 missing persons posters out of 5