While the filmmakers say there’s a lot fans of the game will be “very positively surprised about,” the actors open up about playing the choose your own adventure-style game during filming — and “arguments” starting over some “horrible” decisions.
Making movies out of video games can be a tricky task, with more critical misses than hits when it comes to film adaptations released since 1993’s Super Mario Bros.
While a lot of them have pulled in big bucks at the box office, it’s difficult to live up to fan expectations set by the source material. In recent years, however, films like Sonic the Hedgehog, Gran Turismo and Pokémon Detective Pikachu won over reviewers, while TV shows including The Last of Us and Fallout pulled in major Emmy nominations and wins.
The next project hoping to avoid the so-called “video game adaptation curse” is Until Dawn, a film version of the popular choose your own adventure-style horror franchise from Supermassive Games.
Instead of a straightforward adaptation of the game’s storyline — which finds a group of friends running from their lives from a supernatural threat as gamers decide their every move — the movie takes a new approach. Yes, there’s still a group of good-looking friends in the middle of nowhere, but instead of one killer, they find themselves dying and reliving the same night over and over again, with a totally different threat each time.
“I think there are things in there that they are going to be very positively surprised about,” producer Lotta Losten — who is also married to director David F. Sandberg — told TooFab alongside her husband at WonderCon, when asked whether they had a message to gamer purists who may be “hesitant” about the approach.
“I also think the video game is like a 10-hour movie, so making it into two hours would make it something that is very less than the video game is and we didn’t want to do that,” she continued. “That would be hurtful for the video game fans, too, so this is something that gives the audience more Until Dawn rather than less Until Dawn.”
Sandberg also addressed avoiding the video game movie “curse,” crediting screenwriters Blair Butler and Gary Dauberman.
“That’s what the writers Gary and Blair did so brilliantly. It’s an expansion of the game, rather than redo what everybody’s already played and what we already know. It’s something new, even for the fans,” he teased. “While also, it takes place in the same universe as the game. It’s all connected and I love how they captured this thing.”
“The thing with the game is that it’s so fun to play over and over again, make different choices and see different deaths and we’re able to do that in the movie because the night starts over,” he added. “Every time it starts over, it’s a different genre, which I found different.”
Going Practical
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While hyping up their adaptation, the filmmaking duo also praised the practical effects in the film — this after Sandberg teased one of the gory scenes in a recent Instagram video featuring star Ella Rubin.
“It’s fun, but challenging. To me, it’s always been a dream to make a movie like this, but it is a challenge because you only get like one try for most of these things,” Sandberg told TooFab. “I don’t hate CGI or anything and there are visual effects shots in the movie, of course, but we try to take practical as far as we could and I think it really helped the actors as well.”
“Even though it was challenging to be covered in blood … their performances are so much better for it,” he added.
Star Belmont Cameli agreed — telling TooFab, “It’s a gift though, to be able to work with practical effects. [There were] extremely talented artists on this film. I felt very privileged to see their process and become a canvas for them. And it makes it easy when you’re filming a horror film and everything is actually happening.”
Losten also stressed the added commitment required going the practical route, saying it requires additional time to make prosthetics and reset shots. “It’s a big deal and it’s not fast,” she added.
As for their favorite effects, mainly seen on the many threats the hopeful-survivors encounter, Sandberg said he “loves” the wendigos, an element of the video game. “But also, the psycho, the slasher villain. I really like how that turned out,” he teased, adding, “I found a newfound appreciation for slashers, because I enjoyed it so much.”
Playing the Game
TooFab also chatted with the stars of the film at WonderCon about their personal experience playing the video game — something they all did together during filming.
“We definitely gave the game a shot while we were filming and I think my approach to the game was just try to make it as horrible as possible for the people in the game,” said Michael Cimino. “I just wanted to mess it all up really bad.”
“We were fighting over it. It caused some arguments,” added Rubin — who said playing together was not only “a really fun cast bonding activity,” but something during which she said she “learned a lot about Michael and his choices.”
Joked Cimino: “They’re very questionable.”
“We all played in Ella’s hotel room, passed around the controller,” added Ji-young Yoo, who told TooFab she’s “terrible at playing video games,” especially when it comes to quick time events or QTEs, of which Until Dawn has many.
“It was funny because it’s kind of hard to play with an audience of your friends because everybody has an opinion and you only have a second to make a decision,” Cameli interjected. “Some people are listening to what they’re saying and getting flustered, some people are just making a decision and then there’s the peanut gallery … it was stressful.”
Until Dawn hits theaters April 25, 2025.