You'll Never See Until Dawn's Best Moment Coming (Until You Do)

This post contains spoilers for "Until Dawn."

There's a moment in "Until Dawn," David F. Sandberg's new film adaptation of the popular video game, where the movie gains a little bit of juice. As the premise of the story is slowly established, the core cast of troubled Clover (Ella Rubin), pining Max (Michael Cimino — no, not that one), aspiring clairvoyant Megan (Ji-young Yoo), tough chick Nina (Odessa A'zion), and her himbo boyfriend Abe (Belmont Cameli) pull into an abandoned welcome center while searching for Clover's missing sister and quickly realize that they're all caught in a time loop where they'll each die in horrifying ways every night unless they can somehow break the cycle. After being murdered and resurrected, they take shelter in the welcome center's bathroom, thinking they can simply wait out the masked killers and unspeakable horrors of the night and survive until morning. Reasonable assumption! 

Unfortunately, being murdered has made these pals very thirsty, and Abe takes a gigantic gulp of water from the bathroom sink before passing a glass of water around the room. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Abe explodes. His entire body just bursts as if he swallowed a live grenade, and his blood and guts go everywhere, leaving his friends covered in viscera and just as stunned as the audience. It's not long before a realization sets in: They drank the water, too. Hilariously, one by one, they also start exploding. It's an audacious, funny, creative moment, and ironically, these deaths are the first time the film feels like it has a little life breathed into it after a rote opening.

After such a burst of energy and fun, there's no way the film would blow the goodwill of that scene, right? Right?

Sigh. Yes, "Until Dawn" eventually lets the proverbial air out of the balloon by returning to that gag several more times throughout the story. The reason the bit works so well in the first place is because of the element of surprise: Since we weren't expecting it, my theater (myself included) vocally reacted when Abe's friends were suddenly coated with his remains. The water-fueled combustion totally works for that bathroom scene, but when it comes back into play again and again, the surprise factor is gone, and each successive time, I found myself thinking more about the specifics of how the exploding water works instead of just appreciating it as a fun, creative gag. 

By the time Clover effectively poisons Dr. Hill with a few drops in his coffee in the climax of the story and then drops a dramatic one-liner in his face, I was no longer amused by the effect. Instead, I was wondering how the heck Clover seemingly knew exactly how long it would take for Hill to explode after drinking it, so she could perfectly time the delivery of her line. And look, I'm not a miserable moviegoer! I didn't want to be thinking about nitpicky nonsense like that. But the film basically forced my hand by taking its best gag and wearing out its welcome. If only the filmmakers could have turned their own time travel hourglass upside down one more time and cooked up a way for the film to retain the fun of that bathroom scene without muting its effect later in the story.

"Until Dawn" is in theaters now.