Horror fans, brace yourselves! Until Dawn (2025) is here, and it’s a chilling adaptation of the beloved 2015 video game. Directed by David F. Sandberg, this survival horror film takes the essence of the game and twists it into a fresh, terrifying narrative. If you’re looking for a movie that blends psychological horror, slasher elements, and a mind-bending time loop, this one’s for you.

Where to Watch in the Philippines

If you're in the Philippines and eager to watch Until Dawn, here’s where you can find it:

Digital Purchase & Rental: Available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, and Fandango at Home starting May 23, 2025.
Streaming: Expected to arrive on Netflix by late July or August 2025, following Sony Pictures’ usual release pattern.

Production Details

Director: David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation)
Screenplay: Gary Dauberman & Blair Butler
Production Companies: Screen Gems, PlayStation Productions, Vertigo Entertainment, Coin Operated, Mangata
Budget: $15 million
Box Office: $50 million worldwide as of May 2025.
Filming Location: Budapest, Hungary (August–October 2024)
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Cinematography: Maxime Alexandre
Editing: Michel Aller

Characters & Cast

Clover – Ella Rubin (Fear Street: Prom Queen)
Max – Michael Cimino (Love, Victor)
Nina – Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser)
Megan – Ji-young Yoo (Expats)
Abe – Belmont Cameli (Saved by the Bell)
Melanie – Maia Mitchell (Good Trouble)
Dr. Hill – Peter Stormare (Reprising his role from the game)

Plot

The horror begins with a desperate search: Clover and her close-knit group of friends—Max, the sarcastic realist; Nina, the heart-on-her-sleeve empath; Megan, the fearless thrill-seeker; and Abe, the quiet skeptic—venture into the ghost-town shadows of Glore Valley to find Clover’s missing sister, Melanie. Once a thriving mining settlement, Glore Valley is now a decaying relic of buried secrets, local legends, and an eerie silence that clings to the trees like fog. The group finds refuge in an abandoned visitor center as night falls, unaware that they’re stepping into a trap set by time itself. The first night is a slaughter: a masked killer emerges from the dark and butchers them in a storm of blood and screams. But death offers no escape. Clover jolts awake—same room, same friends, same creeping dread. She remembers. The others don’t. Not yet. And then, it happens again. And again. Each night resets the cycle, but nothing is ever quite the same. The killer changes faces and methods—sometimes a miner with a rusted pickaxe, other times a porcelain-masked wraith with inhuman speed—each incarnation more sadistic and surreal than the last. With every reset, the fear deepens, but so does the mystery. The group slowly begins to retain memories from previous loops, and they realize they are caught in a supernatural purgatory with its own rules, and that the centerpiece of it all is the strange hourglass encased in glass at the center of the visitor center. It resets with them. It ticks even when time stands still. It may be the key—or the curse. As they dig deeper, unraveling Glore Valley’s haunted history, they discover tales of miners who vanished underground, a child sacrifice cult, and a recurring “Hourman” who stalks those who break the timeline. Old radio logs, graffiti scrawled in blood, and cryptic recordings of Melanie’s final hours point to a ritual gone wrong—one that she triggered, knowingly or not, in her own attempt to escape the grief that haunted her. The hourglass, they realize, is not just a timekeeper. It’s a prison. It feeds on unresolved guilt and unfinished business, on secrets and lies buried too deep to rot. With each loop, their bodies remember pain more vividly, the wounds last longer, and one by one, the group begins to disappear for real—first Abe, then Megan, lost to a loop that’s growing thin and unstable. As the resets dwindle and the nights grow shorter, Clover understands the terrifying truth: they’re running out of time, not just metaphorically, but literally. This isn’t just about surviving until morning—it’s about confronting what got them here. For Clover, that means facing her own guilt over Melanie’s disappearance—the missed calls, the brushed-off cries for help, the sister she didn’t save. In the final loop, the killer wears Clover’s face, forcing her into a reckoning not with death, but with herself. She makes a choice—not to fight, but to confess. Everything. The truth cracks the loop. The hourglass shatters. Time lurches forward. And when Clover wakes, the sun is finally rising over Glore Valley. The others are gone—whether saved or lost, she doesn’t know—but Melanie’s necklace lies in the dust beside her. Until Dawn ends not with a scream, but with a reckoning: survival, in this story, comes not from running, but from facing the dark within. The loop is broken, but the scars remain—etched into time, memory, and the bleeding heart of a girl who finally stayed awake long enough to face the dawn.

Edd's Takeaway

Let’s not sugarcoat it—Until Dawn (2025) is a wild, gory ride that swings for the fences with style, but often misses the mark on substance. It’s a bold reimagining of the cult-favorite video game, ditching the branching-choice mechanic for a more cinematic, time-loop horror concept. The result? A film that’s visually slick and occasionally terrifying, but often feels like it's trying to be smarter and deeper than it actually is.

The premise is juicy: Clover, our emotionally tormented protagonist, leads her group of friends—Max, Nina, Megan, and Abe—into the backwoods nightmare of Glore Valley in search of her missing sister, Melanie. The town’s got all the horror clichés baked in: fog-choked forests, an abandoned visitor center, cryptic local lore, and of course, a blood-soaked history. You know the drill. But here’s the twist: they’re stuck in a time loop, and every night ends with them being slaughtered by a masked killer, only to wake up again and repeat the horror. Sounds like Happy Death Day meets The Descent, with a sprinkle of Silent Hill atmosphere—and to be fair, when it leans into its slasher roots, the film delivers some viscerally effective kills.

But once the novelty of the loop wears off, the movie starts spinning its wheels. The killer changes form each night—sometimes a miner, sometimes a grotesque mimic of Melanie—which is cool in theory, but the execution becomes repetitive fast. The tension, instead of building, resets with every loop. The emotional stakes are supposed to rise as the group remembers more from each iteration, but the script doesn’t dig deep enough into the characters to make us care. They're walking tropes: Max is the cynic, Nina’s the empath, Megan’s the adrenaline junkie, Abe’s the nerd with a map, and Clover is the guilt-ridden lead. They scream, run, cry, and die—but rarely surprise us.

To its credit, the film does flirt with some meaty psychological themes. Clover’s arc—unpacking guilt, sisterhood, and the weight of missed chances—could’ve hit hard. But instead of earning its emotional payoff, the movie skips over meaningful character work in favor of increasingly abstract horror imagery. The hourglass at the center of the time loop is a cool visual, and sure, it’s meant to symbolize time, trauma, fate—you get it. But the rules of the loop are muddy. The film tosses around cryptic lore about old miners, cursed rituals, and a supernatural “Hourman,” but it never commits to building a coherent mythology. It feels like someone pasted cool ideas on a storyboard and hoped it would feel profound.

Visually, Until Dawn is a feast of shadow and dread. The cinematography is moody and oppressive, and the practical effects and sound design pull no punches. There are genuinely unsettling moments—creepy whispers on a radio, flickering lights revealing something standing too close, bloody handprints that weren’t there before. These are the film’s strengths, and they earn every scream. But horror fans know that scares alone don’t carry a story.

And then there’s the elephant in the room: the game. If you’re a fan of the original Until Dawn video game, brace yourself. This isn’t a faithful adaptation. It ditches interactivity and the beloved cast of morally gray characters in favor of a more stripped-down, linear nightmare. Some might admire the filmmakers for not playing it safe—but others will miss the game's layered choices, relationship dynamics, and slow-burn storytelling.

In the end, Until Dawn is a bold concept that stumbles in its execution. It wants to be psychological horror with a beating heart, but it often settles for being loud, stylish, and shallow. Still, for fans of time-loop terror, slasher brutality, and atmospheric dread, it offers just enough blood and brain to be worth the watch. Just don’t go in expecting the next horror classic. This one resets before it reaches greatness.