Film Review:Until Dawn (2025) 🔪 The Time-Loop Trap: Does the Until Dawn Movie Work Without the Wendigos?

 

 

The 2015 video game Until Dawn was a masterpiece of interactive horror, putting the player in the director's chair and holding them responsible for every fatal choice. The 2025 film adaptation, directed by David F. Sandberg and written by Gary Dauberman, makes a bold, controversial decision: it jettisons the game's famous Butterfly Effect entirely.

In its place, the film introduces a time-loop mechanic—a high-concept horror premise that turns the familiar slasher setup into a gruesome, repetitive video game checkpoint system. The question is: Did this choice free the movie to be a great slasher, or did it kill the unique tension of the source material?

The Premise: Dying to Repeat

The plot follows five friends, including Clover (Ella Rubin), who return to a remote location near the cursed Glore Valley, searching for Clover’s missing sister. After encountering Peter Stormare’s mysterious Dr. Hill figure, they soon find themselves trapped in a terrifying loop: every time one of them dies, the night resets, and they are forced to relive the same terrifying sequence, facing a new and increasingly random threat each time (a masked killer, witches, exploding water, and yes, eventually, the Wendigos). Their only goal: survive Until Dawn.

Beyond the Jumpscare Analysis: The Checkpoint System

What makes the film a compelling watch—but perhaps a frustrating adaptation—is its commitment to exploring the time-loop structure:

• The Slasher Groundhog Day: The film excels at using the loop to deliver on the gore. Since characters respawn after death, the film is free to deliver inventive, brutal kills without permanently ending a character's arc. This turns the plot into a series of gore-filled death cycles, which is visually entertaining but strips the story of the true consequence that defined the game.

• A Hodgepodge of Horror: The movie is essentially a revolving haunted house tour. By cycling through threats—from masked man to supernatural forces—it becomes an unanchored mix of horror subgenres. While fun, this lack of focus dilutes the chilling Native American folklore (the Wendigos) that was the psychological core of the original game.

• A Crisis of Character: The loop allows the characters to gain knowledge with each reset, similar to a player getting better with each playthrough. However, the time dedicated to resetting and explaining the gimmick means the characters are painfully thin, acting more like expendable player avatars than the complex figures fans grew to care about in the game. Only Peter Stormare's return as the manipulative overseer truly grounds the film.

Verdict

Until Dawn (2025) is an efficient, glossy, and violent horror film that succeeds on its own terms as a meta-slasher that plays with the time-loop trope. Director Sandberg delivers stylish kills and tension, but in exchanging the player agency of the "Butterfly Effect" for the predictability of the "Time Loop," the film loses the unique heart and terror that made the game a classic.

It's a fun, schlocky ride perfect for a midnight crowd, but it is ultimately a high-concept slasher that wears the Until Dawn name as a coat of paint, rather than a genuine adaptation.

Until Dawn 2025