Groundhog Day, But Dumber
🎥 Let’s Watch the Trailers, Shall We?
🧠 Ohhh boy, where do I even begin?
Quick mention but the director of this film David F. Sandberg, gave us films such as Annabelle Creation (which to this day is still the best spinoff in the conjuring universe).
He also gave us that Lights Out horror short on YouTube, then gave us that Lights Out film, so he had a pretty decent horror track record. Keep that in mind while reading this review plz!
First off: if you’re coming here and haven’t watched any of the trailers, but you heard they were making an Until Dawn adaptation… Let me save you some heartbreak.
This movie is nothing like the game, except for some surface-level references and the title slapped on top.
That’s it.
So bury your expectations and prepare for some royal disappointment.
And yeah, you might be wondering:
“Wait, why would they make an adaptation of the game without making it anything like the game?”
GREAT question.
Kinda reminds me of World War Z—the movie had nothing in common with the book except the title.
(And look how that turned out.)
🏚️ The Setup: Generic Horror Cast Incoming
We follow our main generic horror characters:
- Clover (Ella Rubin)
- Max (Michael Cimino)
- Nina (Odessa A’zion)
- Megan (Ji-young Yoo)
- Abel (Belmont Cameli)
They’re on a road trip trying to find Clover’s missing sister, Melanie (Maia Mitchell), and to somehow help Clover “get over her loss.”
On the way, they find a gas station where Clover meets a mysterious guy at the counter—Hill (Peter Stormare).
(Yes, the actor who played the psychiatrist in the game. Hmmmmm.)
Hill points them toward creepy woods where people keep going missing. Because of course he does.
They find an old Victorian house in the woods—and as soon as they enter the field around it, the rain magically stops.
Weird.
They find a creepy book full of people’s names written over and over again.
Hmmmmm. That seems…important.
🔁 Wait, Time Loops Now?
Within 20 minutes, they all get murdered. Brutally.
Masked killer wearing Josh’s mask from the game. (Reference!)
Also, there’s nothing deep or interesting to this killer, he’s just a knockoff Jason Vorhees, and I meant that in every way possible, he’s just a silent bald killer who can’t feel pain and is tough to kill, so yeah Jason Vorhees.
But then—Time Loop Activate!
They respawn back where they started.
Nina’s writing her name in the book again.
The hourglass flips over.
They’re stuck. Groundhog Day horror edition.
Every loop brings a new way to die: masked killers, exploding bodies, possession, zombie wendigos—yeah, it’s a mess.
Oh, and missing posters of them show up every time they die.
Neat, right?
No. No, it’s not.
Also, there’s a scene where Clover is in a witch’s house across from them, and she looks at the table and sees sketches of werewolves, also the film shows a shot of a full moon.
That my friend is called foreshadowing, except no not really because we never see any werewolves in this film, so idk what the point of that foreshadowing was about.
😤 Ok, Y’all. I Need a Moment to Rant
So apparently, according to the director, the whole time loop thing is supposed to “symbolize” how in the game you’re always making different choices and getting different outcomes.
Ok sure, fine, I get the point.
But like—that’s not a time loop.
No one said Until Dawn was secretly Groundhog Day with bonus blood. And it gets even more absurd when you hear the rest.
The director straight-up said he wanted this movie to stand on its own and kinda be like a “sequel” to the game.
Oh. Right.
Because clearly, we naturally go from:
mentally ill Josh pulling Saw pranks in a snowed-in lodge with wendigos in the walls.
cursed time loops, exploding corpses, and zombie banshees.
Yeah. Makes total sense. SIGH.
🧟♀️ The Wendigo Disaster
Sorry, I’m not done ranting—but hey, it’s Until Dawn, so y’all knew there were gonna be wendigos. Big spoiler, whatever.
But seriously, what the hell were they thinking here? So, turns out Melanie didn’t survive. And now she’s a wendigo, which I guess is supposed to remind us of Josh’s sister in the game who also disappeared and came back as a wendigo, right?
Except—massive sigh—the game did this WAY better. Actually, let’s take a moment to emphasize that: the wendigos in the game are done WAY better.
Like, in the game Josh’s sister was legit terrifying.
Bony, starved, like a creepy-ass Gollum creature with sharp teeth, sharp nails, crawling all over the freaking walls, and you’re like, “HOLY CRAP, THAT’S HER?!” The only way you could recognize her was from a tattoo on her arm. But in the movie, Clover’s sister Melanie still looks basically the same—perfect hair, clothes intact. Literally the only difference is now she’s got zombie-face makeup on. Wow, guys, totally the same impact! (facepalm)
Speaking of zombies—I refuse to call these movie things wendigos. Absolutely refuse. These things do NOT crawl around on walls or ceilings, they just awkwardly contort their bodies and sprint around chasing people. They’re zombies! Freaking ZOMBIES. At some point, this stopped being a wendigo movie and straight-up turned into a zombie flick. When did that happen?!
So I’m just sitting there in the theater—face in my hands, literally groaning out loud, wondering what the hell I’m watching. Because it ain’t Until Dawn, y’all. Not even close.
😑 Sigh, Moving On…
Also, the characters?
Mainly unlikable as hell.
You got Clover, who’s just an idiot. The second she hears her sister’s voice, she flings open murder-doors without thinking—because who needs caution when you’re literally being hunted by supernatural monsters?
And then you got Abel.
Oh boy. What a piece of shite of a character he is.
There’s one point where Abel basically motivates Clover to head into the woods because they got “contact” from mystery man Hill saying he’s out there with her sister.
When Nina (the only one with two brain cells to rub together) questions him, Abel legit says this—
⚠️ (massive trigger warning) ⚠️:
“Well I mean, what’s the big deal? She tried offering herself twice before anyway, so in a way, I’m just nudging her in the right direction.”
🤬 Yeah. Massive. Prick. Energy.
Luckily, Nina does what we were all thinking:
She grabs an axe and shanks Abel right in the side.
And when the killer strolls into the room later, Nina just shrugs and points at Abel bleeding out on the floor like:
“Him first.”
😂😂😂 Okay, not gonna lie—that one got a genuine laugh out of me. Hardcore respect, Nina.
But it goes back to what I was saying, these characters have no depth to them, it’s never brought up later in any argument on why Nina stabbed Abel? If I were him I would have screamed and yelled when I respawned in.
Also, we get no understanding of why Max and Clover broke up or how it impacted them; the only character who can be considered slightly interesting is Megan – a psychic of sorts – but it’s never fleshed out. FRUSTRATING.
🎯 Final Thoughts
Honestly y’all, it’s super hard for me to separate this from the actual game, because—hello—it’s literally called Until Dawn. And taken as an adaptation, it’s straight-up disrespectful. Even on its own, it’s generic horror garbage hitting every predictable trope in the book.
Rating: Solid (and generous) 4/10.
Points were awarded strictly for making me laugh unintentionally.
⚠️ Spoilers Ahead — Y’all Been Warned
Okay y’all, buckle up—let’s talk about these death scenes, because they’re absolutely bonkers and not in a good way.
So these characters just keep dying over and over again in totally random ways. Like, first it’s your typical masked slasher dude. Fine. Then they drink some cursed water that makes them literally explode—except poor Megan, who for some reason gets it the absolute worst. Like seriously, her leg explodes first, then she hits the ground, then her stomach swells up and explodes, and then her head pops. Girl, why the hell did Megan get such an unnecessarily detailed death, while everyone else just goes “pop”? What is this movie even doing?!
Then we get demonic possession deaths, creepy doll deaths, and more confusing nonsense. Like, Clover randomly opens a door she shouldn’t have (because of course she does), gets dragged into another house by a possessed elderly witch-lady, and then Clover herself becomes possessed and kills Max. Abel and Nina make a run for the car, but when they reach the edge of the weird barrier, there’s this huge shadowy entity waiting for them. Huh?? Where’d this giant thing come from?! But wait, it doesn’t even matter, because they just turn around and the masked guy from earlier suddenly pops back in and kills them anyway. Like, bro, make up your damn mind—wasn’t each loop supposed to have a different killer or something? Did the movie literally just forget its own plot?
Oh, and possessed Clover gets randomly run over by the masked killer’s car. I’m not gonna lie, I chuckled pretty hard at that scene because at this point everything is just so ridiculously stupid.
🔥 They’re Not Done Yet. It Gets Dumber
Eventually, after they’ve died like fifty billion times (I’m exaggerating, but barely), they figure out they’re on their last life—video game logic much?—and every time they die, they’re slowly transforming into wendigos. Megan is losing chunks of hair and skin, Max and Clover have creepy veins popping out everywhere, and Abel is literally growing a freaking spine out of his back (gross, movie, but okay). But hold up—since when does repeatedly dying and coming back in a Groundhog Day loop turn you into a wendigo?? That’s literally never been part of Until Dawn lore. Movie, did you even TRY reading the source material??
🔥 I Thought I Was Done Ranting, But This Wendigo Nonsense Still Has Me Screaming
Okay, so after Megan disappears again (because of course she does), the rest of the gang goes off to find her. And on the way, Clover bumps into zombie Melanie—oh wait, sorry, I meant Wendigo. No wait, zombie. Whatever. Clover kills her once and for all by pushing her onto a wooden spike sticking out of the floor.
Right. So earlier in a recording on Abel’s phone, we literally saw Max shank a Wendigo in the face with a shard of glass, and it did nothing. But now a splintery floor spike to the chest is suddenly fatal?
Huh. Didn’t know Wendigos were vampires now.
Also, once again, this has nothing to do with any actual Wendigo lore. None. Nada. Zilch. Wendigos aren’t zombies. They’re not vampires. But somehow this movie just throws all that into a blender and hits purée. The game had the lore completely laid out—it was creepy, it was consistent, it made sense. They could’ve just used that. But nah. We’re doing our own thang.
AND. Speaking of Clover—what even was that emotional “resolution” with Melanie? Clover’s been acting like she’s haunted by her sister’s death the whole movie, but now she finally finds her, undead and snarling, and what does she do?
She stabs her and goes,
“I love you, sister, but I’m getting the f** out of here.”*
Wow. Such depth. So moving. Can’t y’all just feel the raw emotion radiating off the screen?
facepalm
📸 The Fake “References” They Shoved In
And because the movie can’t help itself, it throws in a bunch of cheap references:
- Running camera angles from chase scenes in the game.
- Hiding behind walls from the “Wendigos.”
- Hill’s psychiatrist’s office copied almost shot-for-shot. Also yea that Hill guy is Dr. Hill from the game, although I’m confused now because I can’t tell if this is a sequel or a prequel because he dies at the end of this film. Plus he looks nothing like the game version of himself, he now has long brown hair and a puffy brown beard, so again is this a sequel?
- Also, he pulls out a file of Josh, so wait is this film a sequel or a prequel? Because of the tease at the end.
But none of it feels earned.
It’s just “Hey remember this thing you liked? Here it is again, but worse.“
Movie, you haven’t earned this. Quit it.
Anwyays she kills the guy off by moving his mug towards dropping water which he drinks and he explodes.
Wow, that was anti-climatic, so she grabs the key and runs off with Megan, they escape they all escape and make it out. The 2 of them make it out of a grave and get yanked up by their friends, wooohoooo? They survived the night, yayyy?
Also, the continuity in this film doesn’t make a lick of sense, Dr. Hill tells Clover that all the entities they got attacked by this night have been a creation from her imagination, uh huh so did her imagination without her there and just her sister there, manifest the masked killer?
Doubt it, also if this is all a manifest of her mind, then plz explain to me how Melanie became a zombie wendigo? Movie plz make sense just for a second.
So uhh happy ending, the gang is smiling and holding hands while walking to the truck that Abel is already in, hehehehe yay we are mentally scared forever and probably will need therapy.
But at least now we’re better people than we were before and now we can move on from grief, go Fuck right off the film, oh but that’s not the film ends with the camera going back down to the physiatrist’s room to his cameras.
And guess what the cameras change to? That’s right live footage of the lodge in the snowy Mountains from the game, the exact same one and a truck pulls up to it, go piss off film.
U don’t deserve the right to pretend this all ties into the game, anyways the end hope y’all enjoyed this review. I sure as hell didn’t enjoy the film.
Judicious Jarrod's Every-Flavor Entertainment and Media Reviews 