Skip to content
Until Dawn finds yet another rag-tag bunch of teenagers coming across a spooky house, at night, this one being in the middle of a forest, where they have to drive through heavy rain to get there, but it stops abruptly before they reach the house, leaving in the building amongst a patch of clement weather.
Of this clan, Clover (Ella Rubin – The Chair) is looking for her sister, Melanie (Maia Mitchell), who went missing in the vicinity, but after entering the house, it’s clearly not up to current building codes, because within about ten minutes, they all die in gruesome ways – including stunning, Korean Megan (Ji-young Yoo – Expats) levitating while in her Chelsea boots – only for them all to somehow come back to life, and end up on a “MISSING” poster.
And this is going to keep happening.
So, you just know that like in Happy Death Day, if they come across an impossible situation, they may as well check out sooner than later, so they can get on with try, try, trying again.
Beyond that, a whole load of weird stuff keeps happening, such as how there’s no water coming out of the taps, and then there is (keep that in mind), and an occasional quote of “Survive the night or become a part of it”. Wooooh! SPOOKY!
Add in Peter Stormare (Rupture) being the usual Peter Stormare and, overall, as a film, it passed 103 minutes rather entertainingly, but while it’s not something I’d rush to see again – unless it pops up on TV in a late slot, since it won’t get a 9pm primetime slot – I would go for a sequel. However, at the time of posting this, with a budget of just $15m – and a need to generally recoup around three times the budget in order to clear a profit – the box office currently stands at just $18.7m.
Additionally, I’ve never played the game, before now, but based upon a comment I read from a fan of it, it doesn’t sound like the writers or director have played it, either! Apparently, one or two elements of the game are used for the film, but then those involved just go their own way after that.
However, there is one more mystery… How come someone labelled the widescreen aspect ratio as 2.20:1 on IMDB, when it’s nothing of the sort?
Hence, at the time before watching this in the cinema, I figured that like similar films in that ratio like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Odeon were going to fcuk it up again, by leaving it like a 1.85:1 aspect ratio film, resulting in black bars top and bottom as well as at the sides (as happens, by default with 2.00:1 movies such as Warfare).
Even on Reddit, a couple of people confirmed it was 2.20:1, and that they’d seen it like that. Well, such obvious wags…
But, when the film started, it was 1.85:1. I wondered if we somehow had some alternate version, given this was an ‘open captions’ version, which caused a reformatting of the ratio. But as the film played, it was clear there was no cropping at the sides, nor did it appear to have ‘opened up’ the top and bottom of a 2.20:1 or 2.39:1 image.
I couldn’t find any confirmation of the ratio until afterwards, but I then actually watched the trailer and saw that was 1.85:1, and that same ratio was confirmed on Blu-ray.com, too.
NOTE: There are no mid- or post-credit scenes.
Until Dawn is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 103 minutes
Release date: April 25th 2025
Studio: Sony Pictures Releasing UK
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 6/10
Director: David F Sandberg
Producers: Gary Dauberman, Roy Lee, Lotta Losten, Mia Maniscalco, Asad Qizilbash, David F Sandberg, Carter Swan
Screenplay: Blair Butler, Gary Dauberman
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Cast:
Clover: Ella Rubin
Max: Michael Cimino
Nina: Odessa A’zion
Megan: Ji-young Yoo
Abe: Belmont Cameli
Melanie: Maia Mitchell
Dr Hill: Peter Stormare
Psycho: Tibor Szauerwein
Reporter: Lotta Losten
Glore Witch: Mariann Borbála Hermányi
Pleading Man: Willem van der Vegt
Melanie Wendigo: Zsófia Temesvári
Wendigo: Ádám Bot
Wendigo: Adam László Kocsis
Wendigo: Adrienn Mész
Wendigo: Ádám Zambrzycki
Wendigo: Boglárka Heim
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.