In Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn, players slowly discovered that they were facing two threats, not one, during their weekend getaway-turned-nightmare. The newly debuted trailer for the film adaptation shakes things up, pitting them against a myriad of supernatural dangers.
Until Dawn arrives in theaters on April 25, 2025.
The film’s synopsis reads, “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.”
“The movie has the same tone and the same vibe but it expands upon the universe,“ director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle Creation) said in a featurette released earlier this week, and the trailer seems to support that promise. To start, actor Peter Stormare (Clown, John Wick 2) played psychiatrist Dr. Hill in the video game, yet here he appears to play a character not unlike The Cabin in the Woods’ creepy gas station attendant.
Interestingly, however, the trailer’s closed captions reveal his character’s name as “Hill.“ Time will tell if that’s simply a nod to his in-game character or if there’s much more to the film’s Hill than meets the eye.
Of course, the game connections don’t end there. The hourglass imagery now appears more integral to the plot, to start. Some of the trailer’s creepier sound cues, like a maniacal laugh, feel lifted straight out of the game. Even the above shot of a character trying to hide from a stalking predator is a direct callback to the game’s terrifying mechanic of holding still to avoid alerting creatures to your presence.
Then there’s the monsters themselves. While Until Dawn’s trailer introduces new monstrous threats to terrorize the characters, it also features the games’ familiar denizens including the unforgettable masked maniac and the feral Wendigo.
We scoured the trailer for clues and glimpses of the horror ahead.
The Psycho
Game fans will recognize the first noticeable threat that emerges in the trailer, as it’s a direct callback to the game’s first antagonist: The Psycho.
Also referred to as The Maniac, The Killer, The Madman, and the Mystery Man in-game, The Psycho stalked and hunted the group early in the night, setting Saw-like traps and taunting his prey. The Psycho acted as an archetypical slasher villain, but game fans will also know that the unmasking of this killer has great significance to the plot.
‘Until Dawn’ Video Game
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Breaking from the game, the trailer gives a glimpse of something monstrous and perhaps not quite corporeal lurking on the horizon. Perhaps it’s a monstrous defense mechanism to keep the characters trapped in the house, or maybe it’s one of the enemies they’ll face in their bid to survive.
The Witch
The Until Dawn movie trailer heavily features what appears to be a witch or a menacing crone as she crawls over a character and puts a grimy oxygen mask over her face. While the video game doesn’t feature any similar threat, the oxygen mask could serve as a clue; The Psycho was prone to hallucinations and gassing his prey.
The Masked Killer
Another figure tormenting the characters in the film yet not featured in the game is this strange masked tormenter. With the characters doomed to die and repeat each night while facing a new threat, it might be safe to assume the group battles multiple masked maniacs.
The Ghost
Another game callback comes in the form of a ghost.
Fans will recall Rami Malek’s Josh, in particular, tormented by ghostly visions of his dead sister. There’s also the matter of the eerie ghost woman who stalks Ashley and Chris in Chapter 6 of the game, revealed later to simply be a puppet in the Psycho’s twisted game.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that this isn’t a nod to the Ghost at all but a character mid-transformation into something worse.
‘Until Dawn’ Video Game
The Parasite
The Until Dawn movie trailer ends on a very unexpected note, with something alive and emerging from a character’s horrific face wound. It rapidly leads to a gnarly infection. It’s definitely a sign to expect some creative and violent deaths.
While there are certainly no parasitic creatures thwarting survival in the game, its spinoff, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, did feature a level that ended in an arachnophobic’s worst nightmare. So creepy crawly things aren’t entirely out of the realm of this bizarre horror universe.
The Wendigo
What would an Until Dawn adaptation be without the game’s secondary and more lethal antagonist: the Wendigo?
Luckily, the trailer delivers when it comes to recreating some of the familiar ways this monster silently stalks and hunts its prey, attacking at unexpected moments for maximum frights.
While the trailer and premise sound like a very different experience, the details revealed in the Until Dawn movie trailer indicate this adaptation might honor the game’s legacy more closely than it appears. We’ll find out for sure when the film releases this April.
The post ‘Until Dawn’ Movie Trailer Breakdown – All the Game Connections and Killer Threats appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
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