Aayush Sharma
Based on the 2015 game of the same title, ‘Until Dawn’ is a gripping time-loop horror movie about a group of friends who stumble across a house of horrors that promises to change their lives forever. Clover (Ella Rubin) and her friends, Max (Michael Cimino), Nina (Odessa A’zion), Megan (Ji-young Yoo), and Abe (Belmont Cameli), are retracing the steps of Clover’s missing sister, Melanie (Maia Mitchell). After taking a pit stop at the local coffee shop, Clover talks to the owner of the shop and shows him the photo of her sister, asking if he had ever seen her. That’s when she learns about a place called Glore Valley, where people have been vanishing mysteriously.
As a result, Clover believes that the place must be where Melanie went missing. Yet, what seems to be a simple tale of a young woman trying to find her sister quickly turns into something terrifying, forcing the group to confront deadly situations and a never-ending time loop. As the story continues, Clover and her friends try everything and anything to survive the night and come out alive. However, with everything going on around them, survival might not be as simple as just staying alive. The film, helmed by David F. Sandberg, expands the ‘Until Dawn’ universe that began with an eponymous video game. Even though the production is set in the same universe, it features a new story with its own mysteries to unravel. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Until Dawn Plot Synopsis
Clover has been leading a difficult life after the disappearance of her sister, Melanie. It’s been almost a year since her vanishing, and Clover is leaving no stone unturned to find her. However, she is not alone in this pursuit, and her friends, Max, Nina, Megan, and Abe, are with her. They are in the last phase of their trip, and if they don’t find anything, they plan on returning to their homes. Once outside a local coffee store, Hartley’s, where Melanie last recorded a video, Clover decides to look around. Although she goes in for a cup of coffee, she receives an important piece of evidence about her sister’s disappearance. The owner of the coffee place tells her that people have been vanishing mysteriously in Glore Valley, and that’s the place where her sister might have ended up. Although it’s quite a long shot, Clover and her friend decide to take a trip to Glore Valley. Yet, there’s only one problem: the weather. It starts pouring heavily, and when it gets overwhelming, Clover decides to take a step back, telling Abe to turn the car.
The group witnesses the first instance of mysterious things happening at Glore Valley when they notice it’s raining everywhere, but not where a big, Victorian-style house is located. The group decides to enter the empty house, named the Welcome Center, and take refuge until the weather clears. This is where the story takes a turn, and things start going downhill for the group. While checking the house out, they discover a wall full of pictures of the people who went missing in Glore Valley. One of the images is of Melanie. When the group starts to carefully observe what’s happening to them, they realize that they are being chased by something evil. Eventually, they get to know about it when Megan, who has an inkling of the psychic, gets possessed by an evil force. On the other hand, Clover comes face-to-face with the same witch who possessed Megan, and learns that they would have to survive the night if they need to get out of Glore Valley alive.
While the group tries to understand what’s happening to them, a giant man wearing a clown mask is after them with the intention to kill. In fact, the clown killer does kill them, but that’s where the story gets intriguing. After dying, they all end up reliving the night again and again, meaning they are stuck in a time loop. But that’s not the only frightening part. Every time they come back to life, their physical conditions seem to be worsening, and they feel like they are decaying. Consequently, the group realizes that the masked killer is not the only one who is after them. Something even more wicked is breathing beneath the ground and waiting for them. Throughout the movie, the group is forced to become a part of a precarious experiment being done by a psychiatrist named Dr. Alan Hill (Peter Stormare).
The members of the group die in brutal ways, including being exploded by drinking water, and face circumstances where they have to take each other’s lives so that they don’t die painfully. Apart from surviving the nightmare, Clover never loses hope and believes that her sister, Melanie, is still alive. However, it doesn’t take much time for her to realize that her sister is never coming back, and the only way to survive this chaos is to focus on her and her friends. Consequently, the story touches on the themes of friendship and identity as well. In the final moments of the film, the group decides to fight the evil forces and survive the night as they learn about Dr Hill’s real motives and why he created monsters. When Dr. Hill tells Clover that this entire place is drawing from her insecurities, and the creatures they faced were actually a manifestation of Clover’s depression and fears, it becomes important for her to overcome those fears and survive.
Until Dawn Ending: Did Dr. Hill Die? What Does the Whistling Sound Mean in the End?
Although there are a few players involved in the chaotic things happening at the Welcome Center, there’s only one person responsible for all of it, and that person is Dr. Alan Hill. Early on, Clover comes face-to-face with Dr. Hill for the first time in the coffee shop. The doctor poses as the owner of the shop, who tells her about the disappearances happening in Glore Valley. Little does the teenager know, he is setting her and her group up to be his next victims. After getting this crucial piece of information, Clover decides to visit Glore Valley and look for her sister. As soon as they reach Glore Valley, they realize why this is a ghost town and how exactly people vanish into thin air. As their journey continues, Clover, before dying for the third time, finds out that the man in the coffee shop is behind all of this. She further learns that his real identity is Dr. Alan Hill, a psychiatrist who used to treat depressed or mentally ill patients. Now, Clover and the group know who is behind all of this. The only thing they need to do is to defeat him. However, it won’t be easy because he has been doing this for a while now and knows about all the safety mechanisms.
Moreover, he has a giant killer in a mask who has been doing efficient work in murdering the victims. While they learn more about him, they discover a door leading up to what looks like a tunnel. Even though those tunnels might take them outside, they refuse to go inside them and believe it would be better if they fought their nemesis. There comes a time when Clover thinks that she needs to find Dr. Hill because he knows what happened to her sister. Though she hopes to see her sister alive, all her hopes are dashed when she realizes that her sister, Melanie, has turned into a Wendigo, a cannibalistic mythical creature originating from Algonquian folklore. Although they end up dying for the fourth time, the group decides to stay together and finish the chaos once and for all. But there’s a catch: Megan is missing. Her disappearance suggests many things. It might indicate that Megan’s time is up, and a person gets a specified number of chances to come back to life. The implication adds a deeper level of tension to the narrative because none of the characters know when this game might end for them.
This means Megan has probably died, and now, it is up to the remaining four members of the group to decide what they have to do. Nonetheless, they don’t let Megan go and decide to look for her. So now, they have to find their friend, kill Dr. Hill and his accomplices, and not die until dawn. Going through the tunnels, Clover, Max, Abe, and Nina comprehend that it won’t be easy for them to find their friend and exit this horror. But things get even worse when the masked killer returns, and Clover has to find Megan alone as the other members of the group cause a distraction. As Clover finally locates where her friend is locked up, she needs to find the keys to that door. The hunt leads her to Dr. Hill’s office. Thus, the latter finally comes face-to-face with Clover and tells her what prompted him to do all of this. Clover understands that Dr. Hill is a maniac and won’t stop until he is killed.
While talking, Hill was having a cup of black coffee that he put on the table. As he moves around, Clover finds a chance to move the cup under the lethal water dripping from a pipe in the ceiling. As such, when he takes a sip of the coffee, it takes no time for him to explode into pieces. Considering how he died, it seemed impossible that he could have survived. Nonetheless, in the end, we hear someone making an unsettling “whistling” sound while checking the TV screens in their room. It is quite possible that Hill didn’t die that night, and there’s a valid reason for that. Throughout the movie, it is shown that people get revived if they die before the sun comes out. That’s why Clover, along with her friends, died several times and came back to life. In the living area of the Welcome Center, there is an hourglass with sand in it, which represents the night in its entirety, and if people die before the hourglass changes its sides, they are revived. This means Hill could have survived his ordeal because he is the creator of everything that’s been happening and would have given himself infinite chances to survive the horrors.
Whose Car Arrives at the Cabin in the End?
The ending moments of ‘Until Dawn’ see a person watching the TV screens at the cabin while making a well-known whistling sound. As mentioned earlier, Dr. Alan Hill, who might not be dead, could be this person. Moreover, the season has changed, and it looks like the setting has changed too. The cabin seems to be different than what we originally see throughout the story. The movie concludes with a black car stopping in front of the cabin. Now, it’s quite an ambiguous ending, which could mean a lot of things. The arrival of the car means that Dr. Hill might be ready for his next victims and opens up room for a sequel. Although there is a chance that Hill didn’t die, he might have a partner who isn’t shown in the movie. Thus, after Hill’s death, they could have taken over the operations of this chaotic game.
This makes sense because they have decided to change the entire atmosphere now, and it might be a good way to introduce a new villain in the upcoming sequels. Now, it’s yet to be seen who is in that car because the screen turns black before anyone comes out of the car. For those who have not played the video game, the arrival of the black car would mean that there are more stories to tell. However, for fans of the overarching franchise, the scene could indicate that the makers are trying to connect the movie to the game in an intriguing way. As such, the black car stopping in front of the cabin could mark the beginning of the ‘Until Dawn’ game, which means the movie is reportedly a direct prequel to the game, and Hill’s next targets might turn out to be the central characters of the game. In the ending moments of the movie, when Clover is talking to Hill about what’s happening, the camera pans to a patient’s file named Joshua Washington, who is one of the game’s central characters. By giving this movie an ambiguous ending like this, the makers have implied that Hill might not just be a regular nemesis, but a dark supernatural force that could pose serious threats in the future.
Why is Dr. Hill Doing This Experiment?
When Clover confronts Hill about the entire chaos, he tells her that he did all this because that’s what he does as a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating mental health. However, for treating, they should know every little detail about their patients, especially their trauma, insecurities, and fears. Hill, being a psychiatrist, takes a lot of joy when he gets to know that he has met someone with a traumatic past. But whatever happened to those who have come to the Welcome Center in the past takes Hill’s curiosity to a whole new level. For him, mixing people with trauma in a traumatic place like Glore Valley ignites sparks. Even though Clover learns about Dr. Hill’s involvement in the entire madness, the group learns more about what’s happening when they come across a VHS tape. Before playing the tape, the group reads a newspaper heading about the Mining Collapse incident that took place in Glore Valley. A lot of people died, and Dr. Hill was brought to the town to see the medical condition of the residents.
That’s when Hill started his experiment by trapping people and putting them through the same experience as Clover and the others. As time passed, the patient started to show signs of anxiety and intense fear. Hill began doing these experiments on the backdrop of the mining accident, which affected the survivors and the visitors. As his patients spent more and more time in isolation, those emotions consumed them and transformed them into dangerous creatures named Wendigo. Moreover, it also shows that people can turn into something truly unrecognizable when they spend too much time in isolation. Upon watching the tape, the group realizes that Hill is doing the same to them. After all, they haven’t eaten anything, and their past traumas and fears might be making them weak from the inside. In a way, they are turning into a Wendigo, and if they don’t stop Hill, they are just going to be remembered as people who just vanished. There’s no concrete reasoning for why he did this, but what he told Clover about his experiment suggests that his sole motivation is his twisted obsession with how humans behave in adverse conditions. There could be many reasons for that; maybe he’s dealing with psychological issues of his own or has completely lost his mind after an unfortunate accident. Regardless of the reasons, his methods blur the line between science and inhumanity.
How Do Clover and Her Friends Survive the Night?
The most important aspect of the storyline is to survive the night and the time loop, which keeps reviving the teenagers and prompting them to think about their next steps. When they first arrive at the Welcome Center, Clover and her friends find it empty. However, the lights are working, everything seems to be in place, and the guest register is being filled out, too. Intriguingly enough, when Nina checks the ledger, she sees multiple entries of the same name, and the more time they spend at the center, their writing becomes increasingly unclear. Till then, they don’t feel that something is wrong, but everything changes when Abe finds out about the missing people. What happens next is absolute carnage, and one by one, the members of the group begin to die. However, they come back and relive the night again. Interestingly, they retain their memories and know that they were killed.
On their second night at the cabin, Clover hears the sound of her sister at the door. Naturally, she opens the door only to find that a graffiti-filled home has suddenly popped up. Something pulls Clover to that house, and when she gets up, she realizes that the home belongs to a witch. This is where she learns about the cursed town for the first time. Moreover, she also learns that the group has to survive the night if they want to get out. As the night moves ahead, they encounter dangerous situations, which lead them to their death multiple times. In one of the instances, they drink tap water, and in a few moments, they start to explode. Nevertheless, after knowing what Hill has been doing in Glore Valley, Clover decides to tell him so that she can ask about her sister. Abe says yes to this, while others are not in favor of Clover going alone in the woods to meet him. Eventually, she leaves and comes in front of the Wendigo version of her sister. This makes her realize that her sister can’t be saved.
After dying for over 13 nights, Abe finds out that he has recordings of what happened to them every single time and how they died. But when they see that Megan is missing, they stitch a plan to find her and get out of this place. In the final moments of the movie, the group gets distracted by the masked killer, which separates Clover from the group. Eventually, she finds Megan, and after killing Dr. Hill, she takes the keys to the chamber from him and gets her out. At the same time, the other members of the group showed unity and killed the masked killer. In the end, Megan and Clover managed to claw out of the ground and save themselves. Meanwhile, the other members – Abe, Nina, and Max – also survive the night and leave the place. The ending means that the story is finished for these characters, and by showing unity, they are able to escape the Glore Valley.
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