Until Dawn | First look at video game film reveals how it adapts the game’s unique mechanic

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Until Dawn still doesn’t have a trailer, but a first look at the film reveals how the crew replaced the video game’s gameplay mechanic.


After releasing a short first look at the new Until Dawn movie, Sony pictures have released a full trailer for the video game adaptation, giving us a better look at the many monsters hunting for our young heroes.

The trailer introduces us to a group of teens trying to find Clover’s older sister. They soon find themselves in a strange time loop where they keep getting killed by various killers before the night resets and they’re destined to die again.

“If we want to survive, we have to make it until dawn,” one of the characters declares. It’s probably easier said than done, but we’ll find out if all of the group makes it until sunrise when Until Dawn premieres in April.

The film has a completely original story and won’t be following the original game’s plot, much to the disappointment of fans, including myself. The trailer does seem to show at least one killer doting a mask from the original game so perhaps director David F. Sandberg and writer Gary Dauberman have included some other elements into the film as well.

Here’s a proper synopsis: One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the nightmare again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.

And the trailer:


Our original story follows…


14th January: If you’re like me, you’ll have been cautiously excited about the Until Dawn movie adaptation since it was announced in early 2024. The game itself, which follows a group of teenagers stuck in a cabin on a snowy mountain, is already very cinematic and largely plays out like a film, especially after its beautiful if unnecessary PlayStation 5 remaster

The gameplay mostly consists of exploring and making choices. Make a bad choice and you’ll likely die. If you’ve invested in good relationships with other characters, they’re more likely to help you later on. In short, there are several different endings to the game; you can kill some, none, or all of the teens. The cast of the game, first released in 2015, includes Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, Jordan Fisher and Peter Stormare, who will also star in David F. Sandberg’s film. 

Sony Pictures has now released a first look video of Until Dawn and it reveals how writer Gary Dauberman and Sandberg took that unique gameplay and turned it into a film where the audience can’t directly influence the events. 

Take a look below:

In the video, Sandberg promises that the film has the “same tone, the same vibe” as Until Dawn the game while also expanding on the overall world. It also seems that the characters keep dying and then coming back to life, reverting back to the same night over and over again, giving them the opportunity to try to stay alive again. 

“The movie has this mechanic where things start over and they get to try again,” Sandberg teases. Sandberg also says that each time the characters come back, they’re in a “new horror genre”. To paraphrase Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained, Until Dawn had our curiosity, but it now has at least this writer’s attention. 

The video also promises a full trailer soon, so hopefully we’ll get a proper look at the movie sooner rather than later. 

Until Dawn is in UK cinemas 25th April. 

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