Condensing a roughly 8-hour immersive video game experience into a passive, under two-hour horror viewing experience is a daunting puzzle to crack, especially for a video game as beloved among horror fans as Until Dawn. It’s a game where your choices as the player and the ability to nail a quick time event directly affect who survives the onslaught of horror threats, both metaphysical and psychological, further complicating adaptation endeavors.

Director David F. Sandberg and screenwriters Gary Dauberman & Blair Butler realize what a fool’s errand it would be to try, at least as a straightforward adaptation, and instead take a kitchen sink approach with the Until Dawn movie

The core narrative thrust of Until Dawn calls the inciting event of the game to mind, in which one sister ventures into the dark wood to console her distraught sister, only for unspeakable horror to befall them both. In this case,...