Until Dawn (2025)

Until DawnClover’s sister Melanie has gone missing. Desperate for any answers or at least a clue, Clover goes on a trip in search of her missing sister and brings her ex-boyfriend Max, her friends Nina and Megan, and Nina’s boyfriend Abe. They try to retrace Melanie’s steps according to the last places she was seen, and ends up by the gas station where she had sent a message before going missing. When talking to the station attendant, he claims that people tend to go missing near the mining town called Glore Valley. Alright, there’s a pinpoint to check out. When they drive to this place, a heavy rainfall makes them seek shelter at a visitor center. There, they notice the heavy rain is…strangely local. Hmm. Inside the abandoned visitor center, they find a wall that’s filled with posters of missing people. No surprise that they also find Melanie’s photo there. Nina signs the guestbook just for the fun of it, and soon a masked assailant attacks and kills everyone. And that’s the start of a time loop where they will be brought back to the first night, having to sign their names in the guestbook once more and try to survive the night. If they die 13 times, however, they will end up missing just like the previous visitors…including Melanie.

 

Until Dawn is a horror film directed by David F. Sandberg, and written by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler. It’s loosely based on the 2015 PlayStation video game by the same name, where the movie is using the same universe while featuring an original standalone story.

 

Movies based on horror games do not, unfortunately, have many home-runs to brag about. Most of them are either underwhelming, straying too far from the source material and thus alienating the game’s fanbase, and sometimes they’re just outright awful. Sure, there are some exceptions, but they’re few and far between, and of course there’s also a few that could end up in the fun-bad category. So, where does Until Dawn belong? While I have not played the PlayStation game and have no way to compare the game to the movie, I have noticed that many have placed it in the category of movies that strays too far away from the source material. So if you’re a fan of the game, I guess it’s a safe bet that this movie would be a disappointment. All in all, I have to admit we didn’t have high expectations when watching it, but as we more or less just watched it without any comparisons in mind it actually turned out to be….fairly okay? By no means any masterpiece, but it was entertaining enough with some decent atmosphere and visuals. The pacing is fine, the deaths are sometimes quite gory, and there’s a mystery that keeps you engaged. In no way does the movie rely on you having any prior knowledge of its source material, making it a movie where you can go in completely blind.

 

So overall, Until Dawn didn’t turn out to be the disaster we more or less expected. It’s a pretty fine supernatural horror film, works fine on its own and gave us a decent ride. Yeah, I’m certain our opinions might have been completely different if we had played the game and were devoted fans of it. Personally, I have rarely seen a movie based on a book where I’ve read the book first and actually fully enjoyed the movie version, for example. That’s just the way it works for most people, the level of depth and engagement you use when reading a book or playing a video game will always be considerably different from a movie.

 

Until Dawn Until Dawn

 

Director: David F. Sandberg
Writers: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler
Country & year: USA/ Hunagry, 2025
Actors: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell, Peter Stormare, Tibor Szauervein, Lotta Losten, Mariann Hermányi, Willem van der Vegt, Zsófia Temesvári
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30955489/

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

CAM CLOSER II – Horror Short

A woman makes a disturbing discovery when her security camera notifies her of movement in her living room.

 

Horror Short Sunday again! Today we’re taking a look at Cam Closer II, by David F. Sandberg. As usual, his wife is getting pestered by demonic shenanigans again..

 

CAM CLOSER II - Horror Short

 

Director: David F. Sandberg
Writer: David F. Sandberg
Country & year: USA, 2023
Actors: Lotta Losten
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt27773086/

 

 

 

 

PICTURED – Horror short

A creepy picture plays with the fear of a woman. Maybe, there is a connection between the girl in the picture and the woman who tries to find out the secret behind the glass.

 

Pictured is one of David F. Sandberg’s earlier horror shorts (one he made right after the Lights Out short). Just like his other horror shorts, the concept is simple but still effectively creepy!

 

PICTURED - Horror short

 

Director: David F. Sandberg
Country & year: USA, 2014
Actors: Lotta Losten, Hanna Johansson
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3912408/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured – Horror short from David F. Sandberg on Vimeo.

 

NOT ALONE IN HERE – Horror Short

A woman suspects she’s not alone in her house.

 

It’s not often that Mr. Ghööl hands out both the “Creepy” and “Funny” badge, but in this horror short you can expect both to laugh a little in addition to feeling the atmospheric dread creep into you. Who wouldn’t feel on edge if suspecting someone has hidden inside your home, but you cannot find them despite searching high and low? Made by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out director – both the short and the feature film).

 

NOT ALONE IN HERE - Horror Short

 

Director: David F. Sandberg
Country & year: USA, 2020
Actors: Lotta Losten, David F. Sandberg
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt12345606/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIGHTS OUT – horror short

When you are all alone in a small dark room, what do you fear the most? Is it the temporary blindness or is it the uneasy deep feeling that someone, or rather something, is observing your every move?

 

“Lights Out” is the horror short by David F. Sandberg that later became the full-length 2016 horror movie by the same name. In many ways this horror short can be seen as somewhat superior to the film, since it keeps a lot of the mystery with its short run-time, and can easily take us all back to those periods in our life when we were afraid of what might hide in the dark…

 

Lights Out horror short

 

Director: David F. Sandberg
Country & year: Sweden, 2013
Actors: Lotta Losten
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3605002/