Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 6: Until Dawn (2025)

I saw Until Dawn after seeing the new Resident Evil. Both films are based on video games, but Resident Evil has raised the video game movie bar so high, I couldn't help but make comparisons in my head as I was watching it. And Until Dawn just pales in comparison.

Resident Evil somehow managed to fit so many aspects of game play into the film without it feeling like you were watching a video game. Things like the character talking to himself as he explores new scenarios, or finding a gun in one room, but then having to figure out where the bullets are, or being dumb and tossing aside a tool that will definitely come in handy later.

But the main conceit of Until Dawn is straight up video game play. All of the characters keep dying over and over again until they can figure out how to make it through the night and kill the big bad. And sure, that concept doesn't immediately mean it's going to feel boring and repetitive. But it felt boring and repetitive. It didn't help that none of the characters is very interesting, so I was never invested in their survival.

There was one night in their long series of nights that I did find genuinely surprising and grossly hilarious, and another night that cleverly turns the movie into a found footage film, but the movie just did not have enough of that ingenuity for me to feel fully engaged.

Until Dawn is streaming in Netflix.