The new movie, based on the video game of the same name, brings fun thrills and chills with a clever time loop mechanic. And I love a good time loop.
Starring Ella Rubin (Anora), Michael Cimino (Annabelle Comes Home), Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser), Ji-young Yoo (Freaky Tales), Belmont Cameli (The Alto Knights), and Peter Stormare (Fargo), Until Dawn diverges completely from the plot of the game. Rather than a group of friends mourning the loss that haunted their previous year’s winter retreat, the movie finds main character Clover (Rubin) looking for her missing sister in a lost mining town.
Until Dawn brings in a clever time loop mechanic as the gang enters an abandoned visitor center. After the last of them perishes following an attack from a grisly killer, the day resets from the moment of they signed the guest book. Now the five friends need to find a new way to survive the night. Why? Because unlike other time loop movies, they aren’t experiencing the exact same circumstances over and over again. Instead, the haunted town finds new and surprising ways to take them out.
While the plot is clever, that doesn’t mean the film escapes from possible plot holes. Here are three potentially movie-breaking plot holes I’m still thinking about after seeing Until Dawn. Spoilers ahead!
In most time loop movies, the characters try everything to escape and still find no way out (until they change their personalities in the final act.) However, the friends in Until Dawn seem to have it pretty well solved only after a few nights. They get close to winning and, rather than accepting the W, they decide to kill themselves and each other so they can all survive at the same time.
Sony Pictures Releasing
And it’s not just a one-off, either. It happens a lot. If they were comfortable each surviving one at a time instead, they all would have gotten out by night 10. So while the town is filled with plenty of ways to die, whether by monsters or killer water, they can still be avoided. It makes you wonder how many of the other people who got stuck in Glore Valley made it out alive. After all, you have 13 chances to find a clever hiding spot, and the movie makes it seem like that’s a totally possible goal to achieve.
In the funniest moment of the movie, the friends have locked themselves into the visitor center’s bathroom. It all seems fine until Abe (Cameli) hands around a glass of water from the tap. Soon, each friend is exploding thanks to this powerful water. It’s hilarious, but it also serves as a new and inventive enemy for the crew to avoid. Drinking even a few drops can lead to your innards painting the wall.
And that’s exactly how Clover solves the problem when she’s cornered by the big bad, Dr. Hill (Stormare). He sets down his coffee cup right next to a drip from coming down from the ceiling onto his desk. She only has to nudge it a few inches to get some drops, allowing the Doc to explode and the crew to find their way to safety.
But wait…if the water is explosive, how did he make that cup of coffee? Last I checked, you needed water to make a cup of caffeinated brew. But let’s say he smuggled the coffee in from his gas station side job–he’s still aware of how deadly the water is. There’s no way in hell he’d place his coffee cup so close to a drip. I’d imagine he would have stanched the leaky ceiling above his office ages ago just to avoid exploding all over the walls.
Toward the end of the movie, Clover wakes up in the living room of the visitor’s center only to learn two important things: They are on their 13th and likely last night and Megan (Yoo), the psychic of the friend group, didn’t wake up into the time loop world like the rest of them. At first they assume that maybe she succumbed to the body-changing affects of the time loop, becoming a monster before the rest of them. However, as they watch videos stored on Abe’s phone, they realize that Megan had actually disappeared the night before. Just after assuring that everyone else had died, the true villain of the movie, Dr. Hill, walks through a door and into the mining tunnels below town. Megan soon followed. It’s then, on Night 13, that the rest of the group decide to follow her.
After the rest get split up, Clover gets near the end of her below-ground journey and finds Megan chained up inside a hospital observation room. The implication is that Megan was captured by Dr. Hill the night before after following him and he secured her there to be eaten alive by a wily Wendigo.
Sony Pictures Releasing
Here’s the thing…If Megan was taken by Hill the night before, that means she didn’t die on Night 12. If the lore is to be believed, that should mean that she survived the night and should have found her way out of the time loop ahead of the others. So why is she still in the hell that is Glore Valley? It’s a question that’s left completely ignored by the movie.
Catch Until Dawn now in theaters.
Starring Ella Rubin (Anora), Michael Cimino (Annabelle Comes Home), Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser), Ji-young Yoo (Freaky Tales), Belmont Cameli (The Alto Knights), and Peter Stormare (Fargo), Until Dawn diverges completely from the plot of the game. Rather than a group of friends mourning the loss that haunted their previous year’s winter retreat, the movie finds main character Clover (Rubin) looking for her missing sister in a lost mining town.
Until Dawn brings in a clever time loop mechanic as the gang enters an abandoned visitor center. After the last of them perishes following an attack from a grisly killer, the day resets from the moment of they signed the guest book. Now the five friends need to find a new way to survive the night. Why? Because unlike other time loop movies, they aren’t experiencing the exact same circumstances over and over again. Instead, the haunted town finds new and surprising ways to take them out.
While the plot is clever, that doesn’t mean the film escapes from possible plot holes. Here are three potentially movie-breaking plot holes I’m still thinking about after seeing Until Dawn. Spoilers ahead!
1. It doesn’t actually seem all that hard to escape.
In most time loop movies, the characters try everything to escape and still find no way out (until they change their personalities in the final act.) However, the friends in Until Dawn seem to have it pretty well solved only after a few nights. They get close to winning and, rather than accepting the W, they decide to kill themselves and each other so they can all survive at the same time.
Sony Pictures Releasing
And it’s not just a one-off, either. It happens a lot. If they were comfortable each surviving one at a time instead, they all would have gotten out by night 10. So while the town is filled with plenty of ways to die, whether by monsters or killer water, they can still be avoided. It makes you wonder how many of the other people who got stuck in Glore Valley made it out alive. After all, you have 13 chances to find a clever hiding spot, and the movie makes it seem like that’s a totally possible goal to achieve.
2. But if the water makes you explode…
In the funniest moment of the movie, the friends have locked themselves into the visitor center’s bathroom. It all seems fine until Abe (Cameli) hands around a glass of water from the tap. Soon, each friend is exploding thanks to this powerful water. It’s hilarious, but it also serves as a new and inventive enemy for the crew to avoid. Drinking even a few drops can lead to your innards painting the wall.
And that’s exactly how Clover solves the problem when she’s cornered by the big bad, Dr. Hill (Stormare). He sets down his coffee cup right next to a drip from coming down from the ceiling onto his desk. She only has to nudge it a few inches to get some drops, allowing the Doc to explode and the crew to find their way to safety.
But wait…if the water is explosive, how did he make that cup of coffee? Last I checked, you needed water to make a cup of caffeinated brew. But let’s say he smuggled the coffee in from his gas station side job–he’s still aware of how deadly the water is. There’s no way in hell he’d place his coffee cup so close to a drip. I’d imagine he would have stanched the leaky ceiling above his office ages ago just to avoid exploding all over the walls.
3. Didn’t Megan survive Night 12?
Toward the end of the movie, Clover wakes up in the living room of the visitor’s center only to learn two important things: They are on their 13th and likely last night and Megan (Yoo), the psychic of the friend group, didn’t wake up into the time loop world like the rest of them. At first they assume that maybe she succumbed to the body-changing affects of the time loop, becoming a monster before the rest of them. However, as they watch videos stored on Abe’s phone, they realize that Megan had actually disappeared the night before. Just after assuring that everyone else had died, the true villain of the movie, Dr. Hill, walks through a door and into the mining tunnels below town. Megan soon followed. It’s then, on Night 13, that the rest of the group decide to follow her.
After the rest get split up, Clover gets near the end of her below-ground journey and finds Megan chained up inside a hospital observation room. The implication is that Megan was captured by Dr. Hill the night before after following him and he secured her there to be eaten alive by a wily Wendigo.
Sony Pictures Releasing
Here’s the thing…If Megan was taken by Hill the night before, that means she didn’t die on Night 12. If the lore is to be believed, that should mean that she survived the night and should have found her way out of the time loop ahead of the others. So why is she still in the hell that is Glore Valley? It’s a question that’s left completely ignored by the movie.
Catch Until Dawn now in theaters.