The following contains spoilers for Until Dawn, now playing in theatersUntil Dawn resolves everything pretty well by the end of the film, but is there a post-credits scene in the horror movie? Directed by David F. Sandberg with a script by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler, the adaptation of the video game of the same name drags five teenagers through a cycle of grisly death and sudden rebirth as they try to find a way out of their situation. The film is a love letter to the horror genre as a whole, with a darkly comedic approach to its grim riff on Groundhog Day.
While Until Dawn does end on a fairly conclusive note, there are enough lingering threads to be explored that it wouldn’t be surprising to see a post-credits scene that teased more easter eggs or future directions for the universe. Until Dawn even has a scene that would typically be held back as a post-credits scene. However, the horror film takes a slightly different approach to that kind of beat.
Until Dawn Does Not Have A Post-Credits Scene
Until Dawn Doesn’t Have Any Extra Scenes After The Credits
Until Dawn does not include any additional scenes at the end of the credits, as the beat would have made the most sense filling out that slot actually appears at the very end of the film proper. Until Dawn ends on a fairly conclusive note for the main characters, even as the full scope of the world isn’t fully explained. Clover, Max, Nina, Megan, and Abel escape the film’s cycle of death and rebirth by making it until dawn, allowing them to escape the monsters, killers, and mysteries hiding just beneath the surface of the house.
While the main cast literally ride off into a brighter future, the final scene of the film returns to the office of the villainous Dr. Hill, who had seemingly perished after drinking the explosive water. However, the security cameras turn back on and shift to a snowy cabin in the woods, seemingly the setting of the original game that inspired the film. Hill’s ominous laughter implies he is still around in some capacity, a tease for future expansions that would usually be the post-credits tag but was instead added to the conclusion of the film.
How Until Dawn Sets Up A Sequel Without Using A Post-Credits Scene
Until Dawn Sets Up A Follow-Up Film That’s A More Direct Adaptation Of The Original Game
Until Dawn may be done with Clover and her group of friends, but the final sequence of the film implies that the dangers posed by Dr. Hill aren’t over yet. The final scene suggests that the events of the video game may be in the same universe as the film, meaning that the plotline about a group of teenagers brought together in a snowy cabin could be the next of Hill’s experiments with the lengths fear and horror will drive people. This could set the stage for a sequel to Until Dawn.
A prospective sequel could bring the characters from the film back for another cycle, or ᴀssemble a new group of characters who more closely resemble their video game equivalents. Either way, this does retroactively raise questions about Hill’s role in that game, especially how he appears to Josh as a hallucination. While this was previously seen as a sign of Josh’s instability in that story, potentially supernatural aspect of the character raises new questions. Until Dawn didn’t need a post-credits scene, because it made sure to keep that tease of future directions in the film’s actual run-time.
