'Until Dawn' Review: Another Subpar Sony Pictures Affair
For the first time in a long time, a Sony Pictures adaptation, specifically a video game adaptation, appeared to bear at least some semblance of hope from the outside looking in. it didn’t happen.
Directed by the well-traveled David F. Sandberg, via the pen of blockbuster horror veteran Gary Dauberman (the It movies, Annabelle Comes Home), Until Dawn boasted sharp visuals and seemingly poignant scares in all the marketing leading up to release. Audiences are quick to write off video game translations on the big screen these days, and rightfully so, but the pre-release buzz for this one appeared unusually positive - and now that it’s out, it can safely be said that such an attitude wasn’t all for naught.
Until Dawn isn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been… take that as you will. For a video game movie from a studio fresh off a string of superhero stinkers, there are more than a few examples of compelling, fresh ideas and interesting visual directions. Sandberg, who most recently endeavored into the horror scene with Annabelle: Creation (before he burned rubber on two straight Shazam movies), is clearly head and shoulders above much of the workforce Sony has recently employed at his same position, and that isn’t due alone to his cheeky director’s cameo.
As a filmmaker who has had past success in the drama, he simply knows how to build a scary set piece. He squeezes unremarkable locations to their fullest potential, twisting volatile scares out of basic build-ups. Without spoiling anything, the bathroom scene in particular is one to look out for; completely unexpected, gnarly work from someone who obviously had faith in this movie.
At least, in concept. Where everything falls apart is on the page. Dauberman, though a sharp storyteller and, as he proved with Salem’s Lot last year, a worthy director, struggles to pace his shorter stories. When you look at something like It: Chapter Two, which he also wrote, characters have room to breathe, exist within their world, and flesh out as the story trucks along. That movie has many problems of its own, but in the very least, the cast stood out across the board as a group of real-feeling people.
At almost half the length of that one, Dauberman’s work in Until Dawn takes the same character concept - a group of likeminded friends working to overcome a common evil - and forces it to operate more like a caricature of the former film as a result. Nobody is given enough time to really leave a lasting impact on the audience due to the screenplay’s insistence on trying to get most everyone involved.
If anyone is the “main” character, it’d be Clover, played by Ella Rubin. Rubin’s innocent-turned-industrial performance sells her persona’s underwritten arc to a surprisingly impactful degree, and the film would’ve benefitted from honing in on her to a more extreme extent. Do you lose more of your other cast’s intrigue that way? Perhaps, but given the slight focus on Clover that already exists, committing to that would go a long way for a movie that lacks identity in more ways than one already. Aside from Sandberg’s occasional directorial disruption, much of what is on screen here is borrowed from other, similar genre successes.
The film often feels like an amalgamation of boo-blockbusters of years past; it doesn’t do anything especially bad, even if some of the dialogue is unbearably on the nose, but most everything that works has worked elsewhere before, and recently. Whether it be something Sandberg has borrowed from himself or from another filmmaker, either way, you’ve heard these beats.
There’s a sequence towards the end of Until Dawn that encapsulates this issue to unfortunate perfection, spinning almost like a gag reel of horror cliches to cover a vast amount of time that the film didn’t bother to show on screen. The further in you get, and the closer the story grows to climax, the harder it is to buy into this vision specifically.
The climax itself is, again, visually strong. Sandberg’s use of shadows and harsh colors, as well as the film’s visceral sound design, lead to an assault on the senses that finally forces the viewer to take the experience seriously. Unfortunately, it’s just a case of too little, too late for Until Dawn. Beyond the first watch, there’s little to necessitate enduring the first two acts to make it to the final string of thrills.
The best way to see this one is with a group of friends who are all in on the joke. Don’t go into Until Dawn expecting a revelation in the genre. If you’re a fan of the games, maybe don’t go in at all. But so long as you don’t brave it alone, there’s just enough here to sponsor a fun night out with nothing better to do. Horror fans may find worth in giving it a shot only because of the sheer lack of anything else in the genre in theaters at the moment. Take it or leave it “quarter one” horror.