The ‘Until Dawn’ Film Adaptation Proves If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It 

In 2015, Supermassive Games released Until Dawn for the PlayStation 4. Simply put, it was a slasher film in the form of a video game, and a good one too. The game was responsible for hammering the term ‘butterfly effect’ in the minds of everyone who played it.  

Most slasher films follow a formula—a group of young adults being hacked into bits one by one until it reaches the final girl (a trope used in such films for the final survivor of a massacre, who often confronts the killer). While watching these films, it’s often hard not to feel frustrated at the foolish decisions that lead to these characters’ early demise. Sometimes we even find ourselves thinking, “If it was me, I would have never decided to split up. Or open the door without looking to see who was out there. Or get into an argument with a friend while a killer was out and about.” 

That’s where Until Dawn came in. 

Until Dawn gave its player agency over its mechanics, handing them a sense of control in these life-or-death situations, but with a catch:  the butterfly effect. This meant a simple choice or an insignificant remark you chose to make at the beginning of the game, determined the fate of the characters at the end. If you made the right decisions, you just might manage to get everyone out of it alive. And because of the plethora of options to pick from, you could always replay the game to get a different ending.  

That was the novelty with Until Dawn the game—it was a movie you could control. And it really did feel like a full-fledged theatrical experience, with actors like Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere and Peter Stormare playing the characters whose fates lay in your hands.   

Therefore, it came as a surprise when a decade later, Until Dawn returned in the form of a film, instead of a game. Aside from the name, and Peter Stormare reprising his role, the film vastly differs from the source material.  

In the game, a group of eight teenagers converge at a remote lodge owned by their friend Josh Washington (Rami Malek) a year after his sister’s disappearance. The group is then taunted by both natural and supernatural killers and must survive until dawn. Sinister plots and secrets are uncovered throughout the night, and the saying “keep your friends close but enemies closer,” is the best way to describe the antagonist’s motivations.   

Set in the same universe as the game, the film instead focuses on a completely different group. A year after the disappearance of her sister Melanie (Maia Mitchell), Clover (Ella Rubin) and her four friends try to retrace Melanie’s steps. Their search leads them to the mining town of Glore Valley. But on the way, a heavy downpour forces the group to seek shelter at a seemingly abandoned visitor center. Picked off one by one by a masked killer, they discover that the night resets after they die. Stuck in a “Hotel California“-type of situation, the group discovers they have thirteen nights to try and make it out alive. In other words, they need to keep dying if they hope to survive.  

Since David Fredrik Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation) is directing this, the film obviously does not hold back on blood, gore and violence. There’s no shortage of death and dismemberment either. And while there are a lot of fun easter eggs from the games sprinkled in the film, what it lacked was the pure adrenaline and terror of its source material.  

Part of what made the game Until Dawn, or any other titles by Supermassive, so scary, was the fact that the hiding, the running away and the final decisions were made by the player. Failing a quick time event, choosing whose side to pick in an argument or taking the riskier route could lead to a character’s untimely death. The pressure of trying to predict what could possibly go wrong added to the tension and nail-biting anxiety.  

The game was a combination of every single slasher film cliché in the form of a roughly ten-hour interactive movie. Obviously, this can’t be mimicked in a film, and there would be no reason to remake it frame for frame.  

It does, however, beg the question: why slap on the same title for a film that is completely different from the source? It isn’t as if Supermassive Games hasn’t done other projects like Until Dawn. They have The Quarry (2022) and their episodic horror game franchise The Dark Pictures Anthology, all of which are standalone stories which work.  

But translating a film in the form of a game, back into a film, doesn’t work. It defeats the purpose entirely. The reason Until Dawn is a statement horror game is because of the interactive element. The looping feature in the film serves as a placeholder for the viewer to understand which bad decision led to what ending, but it really is no fun when the player is not holding the controller. The film seems to be trying to deliver multiple horror films in 103 minutes, but it is bursting at the seams. Where does one night end and the next begin? How are they making progress? Everything is vague and even with the in-universe knowledge, it’s hard to really understand what’s going on.  

Another thing that gives slasher horror killers an edge is the tensions between the victims. Most often they’re hot-headed, have skeletons in their closet, and are all waiting to take it out on the nearest companion. In a game, there’s plenty of time to expand on the intricacies of interpersonal relationships. But in a film, that kind of nuance is often lost in taking the plotline ahead. There is no proper explanation as to why the characters do what they do. They’re also not as charismatic as the ones in the game. There’s no pressure to keep anyone alive since no one stands out. You won’t find yourself particularly invested in their stories either.    

There are a lot of interesting ideas in the film—the premise itself is intriguing—but the execution is where it goes wrong. Perhaps if this film was a game, it might have worked out better. Giving the player a chance to wind back the clock and get it right isn’t a mechanic they’ve implemented in the games so far.   

But translating a game like Until Dawn into a film fundamentally goes against what makes it fun to play. There are plenty of generic run-of-the-mill slasher flicks. Until Dawn the game built on their foundations and delivered something new. The film, on the other hand, just doesn’t.  

It’s better to just stick to playing the original game or the 2024 remake with its new endings and mechanics.