Warning: Major spoilers for Until Dawn ahead
David F. Sandberg’s survival horror movie Until Dawn adds an intriguing time loop mechanism to its adaptation of the source material, the iconic interactive horror game of the same name. Until Dawn departs from the video game in a few noteworthy ways, including the different setting, cast, and character motivations, but it’s still loaded with enough Easter eggs and references to the original game to satisfy hardcore franchise fans. The movie expands upon the lore already laid out by the game, and based on the ending of Until Dawn, it may even be a sort of prequel.
The concept at the heart of the 2025 cinematic adaptation is that the characters are trapped in (and around) a house loaded with dangerous monsters and other ᴅᴇᴀᴅly hazards, all of which are designed to kill them. After the group of five is killed, they all revert back to where they were at the beginning of the night, and the process repeats itself again. With each death they encounter new horrors, locked into that perpetual cycle unless they can survive (you guessed it) until dawn. The full rules of the time loop aren’t fully explained, though.
How The Time Loop Works In Until Dawn
The Cycle Keeps Clover And Her Friends Trapped
Baited into exploring the sunken town of Glore Valley in search of their missing friend, the five people at the center of Until Dawn find themselves in a visitor center which has a conspicuous hourglᴀss on the wall. They soon run afoul of a terrifying masked killer who murders them one-by-one, at which point they return to the exact positions they were in just hours earlier. They next deal with what appears to be body possession at the hands of a witch, which results in their deaths again.
It soon becomes clear that with each death they return to the same spot, albeit looking and feeling a little less healthy, as if the experiences are wearing them down. They are locked into a literal time loop, in which they will continue to be killed unless they can survive the onslaught of horrors until dawn breaks. The large hourglᴀss acts as a countdown timer for the entire game; when the last grain of sand falls with at least one of them still alive, the survivors will be freed from the time loop’s grasp.
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Until Dawn – Key Details |
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RT Tomatometer Score |
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51% |
70% |
50 |
6.2/10 |
6.0/10 |
Over the course of their many deaths, the characters are given clues about how the game works, most significantly the notion that they either “survive the night or become a part of it.“ It’s soon made clear that if they don’t manage to escape the time loop by the end of their 13th death cycle, then they will be turned into wendigos, the infamous monsters from the Until Dawn game. The entire game is seemingly controlled by Dr. Hill (Peter Stormare), a twisted psychiatrist who claims to be studying fear, trauma, and their effect on people.
The Time Loop Is Not From The Until Dawn Video Game
The Mechanism Was Created Specifically For The Movie
The time loop mechanism was not actually involved in the original Until Dawn game, but rather added for the sake of the movie. The game operates as an exploration of the ʙuттerfly effect, with players making quick decisions that lead to new and different paths through the game unfolding. That same concept exists in the movie, with the characters trying new ways to escape the time loop, which only results in them dying in new, gut-churningly grisly ways.
While there is one final “ending”, there are technically 256 different endings of the original Until Dawn game based on all variations of all characters either dying or surviving.
The time loop itself is a narrative device to logically maintain the video game concept of starting over after death. It’s a clever way of transitioning the narrative from a video game to a movie, and it loosely works within the lore established by the movie. One of the main criticisms of the movie is that it doesn’t go deep enough with the story or background, although doing so certainly runs the risk of overshooting the movie’s runtime.
The Time Loop’s Rules In Until Dawn Explained
There Is Only One Specific Way Out
The time loop is governed by supernatural rules that are seemingly under the control of Dr. Hill. The loop itself began at a very precise moment, when Clover first tested the boundary of the Glore Valley mine collapse. Wherever the characters were at that exact point is where they return to following their most recent death. Each time they come back, though, they drift closer to becoming one of the wendigos, with different symptoms appearing for different characters; for example, Megan steadily loses her hair while Abel’s spine begins to stick out of his back.
The loop is meant to create and maintain fear in its victims, as the varying nature of the character deaths keeps them frightened; nothing is more terrifying than not knowing what happens next. As Hill notes to Clover, someone needs to die for the time loop to be broken, which is intended to convince her that she can’t possibly save herself and all her friends. She manages to outwit him with some exploding water-spiked coffee, so that it is actually his death that contributes to the breaking of the loop, allowing the five friends to all escape alive.
How The Time Loop Makes The Until Dawn Movie Like The Game
The Concept Of Restarting And Multiple Deaths Carries Over
The Until Dawn video game plays out like a choose-your-own-adventure story, with different choices yielding different end results. In some of the endings nobody survives, while in others select characters make it through the night. That core concept is maintained in the movie, as the characters play out one scenario until they die, then essentially respawn with the goal of trying something different to try and find a way out. Again, that video game-like restart is the central function of the time loop in the movie, and why it was added to the adaptation.
The various deaths also directly reflect the horror survival game, as the monsters and masked killers provide different outcomes within the scope of the adventure depending on which path the player chooses. There is a far greater array of creatures and gruesome deaths in the movie, but the idea of there being many ways to meet your end is something that’s common to both the movie and video game. While the controversial lore change for Until Dawn may not sit well with hardcore fans of the franchise, the time loop mechanism is essential to the cinematic adaptation’s plausibility.
