Summary
TheUntil Dawnmovie adaptation chose a clever gimmick over a direct translation of the game, but failed anyway.Until Dawnis a 2015 PS4 horror game that allows players to experience what it’s like to play a horror movie. The plot follows eight young adults as they visit a remote mountain cabin where one of them had a sibling go missing. This sets a horror film premise with twists and turns, allowing players to make decisions that could influence events in multiple ways.
The movie adaptation showed a lot of promise behind the scenes.Until Dawnwas directed by David F. Sandberg, who had prior success in the horror genre withLights OutandAnnabelle: Creation. The script was also penned by Blair Butler, who wrote 2022’s underrated vampire movieThe Invitation, and Gary Dauberman, who wrote 2017’sItand theAnnabelletrilogy. Peter Stormare returned to the role he played in the game, with the cast including a new group of teens led byFear Street: Prom Queen’sElla Rubin, who are looking for Rubin’s missing sister. While the movie offers a similar setup,Until Dawnchanged how the story playsout, utilizing a clever gimmick for a video game adaptation.
HowUntil Dawn’sGameplay Was Adapted For The Movie
Until Dawnputs players through pulse-pounding situations that force them to make split-second decisions that could see characters they’ve been following meet bloody ends.The unique angleUntil Dawn’sgameplay featured was the ability to change the story every time you playedby making different choices that could save characters, or take new paths that killed someone who made it through the last time. It encouraged gamers to replay the game to seek out new fates, explore areas they couldn’t before due to deceased characters, and even attempt to save everyone.
Tense moments saw players running from monsters, escaping traps, and deciding whether to let potentially infected characters live. While the average horror movie lets you sit back and enjoy it,Until Dawnthrusts players into the story, forcing them to make decisions they often criticize movie characters for. This highlights how panic can cause anyone to make mistakes, which proved to be an intense and enjoyable gaming experience.
Rather than directly adapting the story of the teens in the cabin from the game,Until Dawnbrought in a new group of young adults who find themselves caught in a time loop.These friends find themselves suffering through various fates, including a masked killer, exploding from tap water, and environmental accidents. Each time they die, they start the night again, attempting to survive until dawn.
Why The Time Loop Was A Clever Way To AdaptUntil Dawn
While the game didn’t feature a time loop, it encouraged replays, which is a concept the movie ran with. By embracing the time loop, the movie essentially runs viewers through multiple trips through the game via a movie format. With so many players loving the gameplay conceptsUntil Dawnembraced, the filmmakers attempted to translate that feeling rather than retell a story fans already knew.
While most video game adaptations simply attempt to adapt the story,Until Dawntook a unique approachto capture the gameplay experience.A time loop presented the perfect way to do this, as it was like hitting continue every time your characters died.Story development was delivered through information parsed out through each attempt to survive the night, with the movie even embracing a montage to get quickly through many of the deaths. While a single playthrough of the game may have only seen a character meet a single demise, the movie became a meat grinder. Still, as clever asUntil Dawn’sgimmick was, it also proved to be the movie’s undoing.
Why TheUntil DawnMovie Failed Despite Its Clever Gimmick
Gamers love the experience of making the choices that dictate howUntil Dawnplays out.While a time loop gives fans multiple ways of experiencing a game playthrough, it also takes away the tense decisions they were forced to make.Knowing that each death will only restart the time loop kills any tension that may have been surrounding the initial stakes the movie sets up. Rather than navigating a tense horror movie, fans were treated to a cliché film that suffered from playing into genre tropes. Even with the movie setting the Wendigo story into motion, letting audiences know that the characters can only experience the time loop a limited number of times,Until Dawnstill lacked tension, as the runtime was primarily dedicated to meaningless deaths.
The movie also lacks a satisfying finale, playing it safe regarding surviving characters.While the filmmakers chose to embrace the gameplay experience, they failed to make the hard choices players were forced to make, and the movie ultimately suffered because of it. The unfortunate part is that theUntil Dawnvideo game told an interesting story that had the potential to be retold as a horror film. While numerous video game adaptations have missed the mark,Until Dawnwas bold enough to embrace a clever gimmick, but the movie was still met with failure.
