Cracking the code to adapt any video game into a television show or movie might have a higher success rate than it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Oh sure, super-fast hedgehogs have become box office titans, and successful spore-based stories have once again left us crying over Pedro Pascal. In the case of director David F. Sandberg’s adaptation of “Until Dawn,” however, the difficulty setting might be a little higher.
Initially released in 2015, “Until Dawn” was a cinematic horror game that saw you take control of a group of characters, where every corner you turned around or conversation the player chose to get involved in could impact whether they lived or died, and no single play-through was the same. It made for one of the best horror video game experiences out there. Now, as seen in the first look at Sandberg’s movie (embedded above), it appears a variation of that mechanic is being cleverly implemented in an all-new story and an entirely different setting compared to the game the film is based on.
The original “Until Dawn” game notably boasted motion-captured performances by the likes of Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Peter Stormare, the latter of whom is the only returning cast member confirmed to be starring in the movie version. “Until Dawn” follows a group of friends stranded in a mountain cabin in the snow as different kinds of chills set in. In this promo, though, the footage (which also features interview snippets with Sandberg and co-writer/producer Gary Dauberman) includes what looks like a good old-fashioned home that screams “haunted” with no snow in sight. Of course, just because the location is different now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way.
Could Until Dawn’s nifty movie mechanic send us back to the game’s original setting?
According to Sandberg, who’s returning to the horror genre after helming a pair of “Shazam!” movies, “Until Dawn” has a mechanic “that will see characters die and they get to try again.” So far, so “Happy Death Day,” right? Unlike that exceptional horror-comedy franchise (which mixed “Scream” with “Groundhog Day”), this new movie will include a video game-like trait of having characters get reset not just back to the land of the living but a different experience entirely. “Every time they come back to life, it’s like they’re in a new horror genre. To survive, they’ll have to make it until dawn,” Sandberg added.
That detail suggests that the movie is trying its darndest to match the original game, which blended a host of horror genres and immersed you in them with every character you controlled. While one wandered around a cabin searching for an unidentified stalker, another was lost in the halls of an abandoned psychiatric hospital still very much occupied. With that in mind, don’t be surprised if things do turn cold for the film’s cast (which is also comprised of Maia Mitchell, Odessa A’zion, and Michael Cimino) and, at some point, they all end up in a spot that fans of the original video game will find very familiar.
“Until Dawn” opens in theaters on April 25, 2025.
