Film Review : Until Dawn (2025)

Until Dawn seems to continue the trend of video game movies either not being fantastic or just completely deviating away from its source material.

While having never played the game, from my understanding, the movie sets its own story inside the same universe. Here we follow a group of friends who are revisiting the steps of one of their sisters who went missing. They stumble upon a house deep in the woods and soon discover that they are being hunted by different things and dying yet wake back up in the same house.

Its your typical Happy Death Day / Groundhog Day type movie which is self aware here. Our characters get hunted by monsters and serial killers here each night as they try to uncover the mystery of why this house seems to have so many disappearances tied to it.

The acting and characters here are fine with most falling into non memorable cliches but the real stand out here is the practical effects. Instead of CGI really we get tons of fantastic practical effects and makeup here that works really well and helps this film stand out. A practical series of events here are ones that will go down as one of 2025s more memorable horror practical effects moments.

Sadly though the film gets bogged down otherwise. Our story here as it finishes is just a mess feeling both rushed and too long. The film drags on at times and when the twist happens I was left asking myself is this seriously what they are trying to do. Our climax moments too once we leave the house and start to explore the area ends up looking cheap in parts. Large corridors with strobe lights feels looks and feels like our characters are in a cheap haunted house.

We also get hinted at so many cooler things in this film that either never get shown again or are simply just a hint of what we could have had vs some of the more generic monsters we are given.

In the end Until Dawn is a fine mainstream horror. With the R rating we are treated to some great kills and effects but its all held down by an awful story and twist and a run time that drags on a little past its staying point.

Score :

2.5 / 5