The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Until Dawn: From PlayStation to Silver Screen - A Critic's Take
Horror movies live and die by our connection to their characters. Why should we fear for people we don't care about? This fundamental challenge haunts Sony Pictures' latest video game adaptation "Until Dawn," a time-loop thriller that struggles to make us invest in its imperiled teens.
Based on the acclaimed 2015 PlayStation game, this adaptation follows friends trapped in a deadly cycle where mysterious entities hunt them down in increasingly gruesome ways. They must survive until dawn to break free. On paper, it sounds promising. In execution, it stumbles right from the start by dropping viewers into the story without proper character development or backstory.
The film's brightest moment comes with Peter Stormare's appearance as Dr. Hill, reimagined from his psychiatrist role in the game to a gas station attendant who may hold vital clues. Game fans will appreciate this nod to the source material, performed by the original actor. As the narrative progresses toward its conclusion, the tension finally builds to something meaningful, creating genuine suspense about whether our heroes will escape their temporal prison.
Director David Blue Garcia faced an impossible task – condensing a 10-hour, choice-driven game into a standard movie runtime. Rather than attempting a direct adaptation, he created something new that borrows elements from the original. Unfortunately, this approach loses much of what made the game special: the connection to characters whose fates rested in players' hands. The result earns a modest 3/5 stars – not terrible, but another disappointment for those hoping video game adaptations would finally find their footing.
Curious about the fate of these time-trapped teens? Listen to our full review now, and join us next week when we tackle Marvel's "Thunderbolts." Subscribe to The Couch Critic for weekly film breakdowns where every movie gets its close-up!
The weekend's here. It's time to unwind. Grab your snacks, leave the week behind. Blockbusters classics, they're all on the way. Let's kick it off with Cinema Saturdays.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another Cinema Saturday episode of the Couch Critic. I'm your host, nathan, and on today's episode I'm talking about Until Dawn, the video game adaptation of the 2015 game of the same name. And before I can give my likes and dislikes, I have to go over the synopsis.
Speaker 2:A group of friends trapped in a time loop where mysterious foes are chasing and killing them in gruesome ways, must survive until dawn to escape it. Until Dawn stars Ella Rubin, michael Cimino, odessa Azeon and Ji-Yong Wu, and also this is kind of a spoiler but it also stars Peter Stormar as Dr Hill. So the 2015 game Until Dawn is one of those. Make wise choices, choose how you're going to respond to things, what you're going to do, what you're not going to do, and, based on your decisions, the game story changes every time. You choose wisely or unwisely. And when this movie was announced, I was intrigued because I had played a little bit of Until Dawn before. I gotta admit, I don't think I've ever played it all the way through, so I've never actually seen the possible endings, but I was still intrigued because the way the story went and things like that were intriguing to me went and things like that were intriguing to me. But then I started hearing early reviews of this movie and how it wasn't anything like the video game. That being said, I read some stuff about what the director said about the movie, and he has a good point. The game itself is like a 10 hour game, a 10 hour movie, and so to rehash the game in a movie format would drastically condense the storyline, and so instead of wanting to do that, the director wanted to do something fresh, with some similarities here and there. One of the biggest similarities is that Dr Hill is a part of this film, and so in the game Dr Hill is like the psychiatrist, and every now and then in the game you continue to see him over and over and over again, and as you see him, as you progress in the game, the background becomes kind of darker and creepier and that kind of stuff. In this movie, apparently, he's like a different version of the character. When you first meet him he's actually working at a gas station that these teenagers stop and ask for help. So let me just get right into what I thought of this movie. I gave a little bit of the background of the video game, so let me get into the movie.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of horror movies and to me this movie wasn't really scary. It had some attempting at jump scares, but the reason I didn't really find myself that invested in what was going on is because I feel like a lot of horror movies do a really bad job at making you care or getting you to care about the main characters. It just jumps you right into their story, doesn't really give you much back story if and if anything in the middle of the film is when they give you kind of a back story to what they're doing in the movie. In the first place, I couldn't find myself caring what was happening to these characters at all. They did a really bad job at making you care. That was one of my biggest dislikes of this movie is I just did not care about what was happening at all in the entire film. The only time I got invested a little bit more is when Dr Hill showed up. Got invested a little bit more is when Dr Hill showed up.
Speaker 2:I thought that was kind of cool that they brought the actual actor who plays the character in the game to play this character in the movie. I thought that was cool. That's when I was invested. And I got to admit at near the end of the movie, when you don't know whether they're going to make it out or not, I found myself getting kind of tense. So leading up to the end of the movie I found myself a little bit more invested in it. But to just bring you right into this random story, no backstory given, no real reason to care. It was very hard for me to invest in this film. But, like I said, my biggest like is that they got the original actor from the video game to play a similar version of the character in this movie. So I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:But other than that, this movie kind of fell flat for me and I really try not to go in to the movie with those low expectations and I really try my hardest not to be affected by what other people think of a movie. Case in point again Snow White. I tried to go in with a clear mindset of I'm going to give this movie a chance and I was still disappointed. Same thing with this movie. I tried to go in with a clear mindset, ignore what everyone was saying, and I'm not saying I was disappointed, because again I did find myself getting into the ending of the movie, of the movie, and so that you know. Kudos to them for that, for for getting someone who kind of shut off at the beginning of the film because I did not care about these characters. But towards the end I started investing a little bit more into what was happening not again not saying I cared about the characters, but just the way they were were presenting what was happening was more compelling than the beginning of the film, and I was kind of confused about the ending.
Speaker 2:I didn't know if they were saying that this movie is like a prequel to the video game. I'm not going to get into why. I think that's what they were trying to say, because if you want to go see it, I don't want to spoil it for you, even though I kind of spoiled it because I told you that Dr Hill was in it. But if you've never played the video games, you have no idea who that is anyway. So it's not really a spoiler, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So Until Dawn didn't really do it for me. It's another kind of lame video game adaptation. A lot of the Sony video game adaptations have not been that great and it saddens me because I'm an avid PlayStation player. So I'm hoping that one day they will come out with a substantial adaptation of one of their video games, because they have a plethora of video games to choose from and they just haven't. They haven't really sold me on anything.
Speaker 2:So that is my short but sweet review of Until Dawn and I'm going to give it a three out of five stars and that will do it for April, because this is the first Cinema Saturday of May and I believe up next after Until Dawn is Thunderbolts, and I've been hearing really good things. Again, I try not to let positive, negative reviews sway me to think a certain way, but I've heard really good things about Thunderbolts and Marvel really needs to have a good one, a home run movie, because they've been seriously lacking in that department. Now their TV shows Daredevil, born Again, and I even liked the animated Neighborhood Spider-Man show. I liked that. So they're kind of, you know, hit or miss nowadays. But that is what's coming up next on Cinema Saturdays and then you can hear the review of Deck the Halls starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick. So that's what's coming up next on the Couch Critic, where every movie gets its close-up.
Speaker 1:Lights are low, the screens will glow, but we'll go. Only movies know. Popcorn's popping. It's time to stay. Let's escape with cinema saturdays. So grab a seat, let the credits play. We'll see you next for Cinema Saturdays.
