Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one...only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening.
Until Dawn translates the video game's time-loop slasher mechanics to film with reasonable competence. The plot benefits from the game's clever butterfly-effect structure and creature-feature variety (wendigo, masked killers, supernatural horror), keeping things fresher than a standard slasher. However, the screenplay struggles to replicate the interactivity that made the game compelling, leaving the loop logic feeling convenient rather than earned. Acting is serviceable but largely unremarkable — the young cast hits genre beats without distinguishing themselves. Cinematography is competent genre work with decent atmosphere in the visitor center setting but nothing visually inventive. The ending fumbles the landing, resolving the mystery in a rushed, unsatisfying way that undercuts the buildup. Novelty gets a modest bump for being a reasonably faithful genre adaptation that blends slasher, creature feature, and time-loop horror, though the formula is still recognizable from the source material and similar genre entries.