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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

I love David F. Sandberg. Don't get me wrong, I love David Sandberg as well. Both are amazing film-makers. But Until Dawn is a David Fredrik Sandberg film. Or as he called it once: David Fucking Sandberg. Or you may know him as ponysmasher ( at mastodon.social ). Anyway. Until Dawn is a very much a basic video-game film adaptation type, cabin in the woods type, horror film, which seems to be a kind of perfect project for Sandberg's sensitivities.

Sandberg got famous for his YouTube short-films which lead to him being picked up by Warner Bros to direct horror professionally. Then he did two DC superhero films about Shazam!. Those were mostly comedies. Something against type for Sandberg. Until Dawn seems like a combination of both types of Sandberg ( not including the Kung Fury Sandberg, that Sandberg has no F. in the name. ). In Until Dawn you mostly see the original horror Sandberg. But there are moments of the newer comedy Sandberg as well.

Being a cabin in the woods movie, the film draws from references to other films in the genre. Being a bit funny at times, it reminds of a Sam Raimi classic Evil Dead series. But Until Dawn doesn't go that far with humor. It is mostly trying to be a horror film. Another interesting reference ( maybe unintentional ) is to Ti West's film X. At one point, by mistake a character plays on a cassette tape, which is a porno-film.

The movie is low budget ( $15 million ) which doesn't look that bad actually. I think a big part of it comes from the fact that it is an adaptation of a Sony's game, which made the studio of choice be Sony and which probably gave the director and crew all bunch of Sony's gear pretty much for free. So the movie looks good. As much as I hate Sony's cameras they do produce good images.

The films has a weak opening. The writers were tasked with giving the characters a lot of expository dialogue. And what the writers ( Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler ) did was kind of cringe, to be frank. They tried to break the mold of the standard cliche horror movie dialogue. While still technically making a cliche horror movie exposition dump scene. You can feel the attempt, but it was more to mask the exposition, or mislead you to not noticing the exposition. Rather than making the scene actually interesting.

But as soon as the characters get to the cabin, the dialogue goes to the back seat, and Sandberg takes over the controls. This is when the film truly starts.

The premise ( of a kind of Groundhog-day kind of horror film ) allows for true tension ( where you fear for character's lifes ) only in the beginning and in the end of the film. And Sandberg knows this. Instead he makes it abundantly clear that he is gonna fuck the audience up with jump-scares. And then he uses that knowledge to build the tension in the middle of the movie. Genius!

There was a video by Sandberg, that he released on his YouTube channel, about how he did the movie's gore effects and stuff. He is brave enough in that video to not tell people that the movie had "no CGI" ( because it used practical effects ). But he clearly shows how CGI was used and where. And where actually there was no CGI. Like there is a scene where people simply blow up into guts. They filled up a dummy with fake blood and blew up the dummy. And then using simple editing cut from the actor to the explosion. And it looks very fucked up in the film, with, as far as I can tell 0 CGI. But then there are other things that used a lot of CGI.

Sandberg did break tension ( unintentionally ) 3 times during the film. Two times in the room with the "missing" posters. And one time in the house with the old lady. Non of those things would probably do anything to you, if you don't know who David F. Sandberg is. But I know. And that was a stupid, motherfucking thing he did.

In the 2 first scenes, one of the "missing" people is David F. Sandberg himself. I could not help but laugh at it. While the scene supposed to be tense.

In the scene with the old lady, a TV is playing and the camera goes over that said TV to show you the footage on it. It's a news report, where the reporter is played by Sandberg's wife, Lotta Losten, who he shoves into every single one of his movies.

In the original YouTube short version of Lights Out ( which got Sandberg the job in Hollywood ) Lotta played the main character. Sandberg even does a nod to Lights Out with a flickering red street lamp being pretty much the only light source in one scene. Very Sandberg-esk stuff. Loved it!

I enjoyed the movie. The actors were more than good enough, apart from the first scene. The director is phenomenal, especially at this kind of stuff. The image looks good. I dislike the fact that it is Sony. But what the hell. The film overall is kind of amazing.

Happy Hacking!!!

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