Till Dawn Trailer brings the wild and gritty horror video game to the big screen

For those of you old enough to remember the 90s, the decade saw a trend in video games that led to the rise of what was known as the “interactive movie.” It was a concept that had been in development since at least the days of producer William Castle and Mr. Sardonicus, if not earlier, where Hollywood had tried and failed to bring the idea to theaters (see 1995 experiment “Mr. Payback”), the gaming industry fared much better by combining the rich narrative and emotional experience of cinema with the personalization and immediacy of video games. However, the format was inelegant; even watershed games like “Phantasmagoria” and “Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger” featured cutscenes with professional actors that included non-cinematic gameplay moments. In other words, the best “interactive movie” games were still just games with movie bits mixed in.

For my money, the dream of an interactive movie didn't come true until 2015, when Supermassive Games' Until Dawn came out (and I am not alone in this feeling). Written by indie horror veterans Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick, the horror game follows a group of young adults who decide to party in a snow lodge on the anniversary of their friends' untimely deaths, leading to classic slasher shenanigans and an eventual supernatural twist. The game became a bestseller, received many awards and even got a remake, which was released only last October. Now, the circle between the game and the movie is closing even further, as the first trailer for Until Dawn has just dropped. However, it doesn't look like a copy of a video game; the movie is set in the same world as the game, but apparently has an original, standalone narrative. If the filmmakers have indeed done what they set out to do, could 'Until Dawn' do for the film/video game crossover what the game did for the interactive film and fulfill the promise of a shared universe between the mediums?

Like Fessenden and Reznick in the video game, Until Dawn. there are some horror vets behind it: screenwriter Gary Dauberman (most famous for writing most of the “The Conjuring” universe) and director David F. Sandberg, who returns to the genre after the DCEU with his “Shazam” duology. Similarly, while the game featured some notable actors who had already ventured into genre projects (such as Hayden Panettiere, Brett Dalton and Rami Malek), this film featured some up-and-coming young actors such as Ella Rubina (“Anora”), Michael Cimino (“Annabelle Comes Home”) and Odesa A'zion (“Hellraiser” 2022). All of that, and the fact that the film is carrying the video game torch in an attempt to pay a well-rounded homage to the horror genre, it looks like 'Until Dawn' could become a franchise to rival. “Scream” in its genre status.

It remains to be seen what the “Until Dawn” franchise actually looks like. This trailer gives us some clues, but there are still a lot of questions, the main one being just what is going on with Peter Stormar becoming a completely different character than the one he portrayed in the game, Dr. Alan J. Hill? Given that Until Dawn's story involves characters who are twins, could Stormare be playing HIlla's relative? Or is there a new supernatural twist? Will Until Dawn become a horror anthology that tries to incorporate different elements and subgenres into each new installment? Or, like Scream, will it still be centered around a slasher-meets-creature-feature premise? One thing's for sure: Until Dawn won't have any interactive components, at least not just yelling and screaming at the screen as usual. Go ahead and tell the characters not to come down – you never know, one day they just might hear you.

“Until Dawn” will open on April 25, 2025.