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Horror Video Game, Until Dawn, Soon To Hit Cinemas

by Kevyn Gohu
April 10, 2025

Here’s why the adaptation of the horror video game Until Dawn for the silver screen’s getting some gamer parents excited

Whenever we hear about video games being adapted to the silver screen, most of us millennial gamer parents or GenZ gamers are a bit skeptical. Some have flopped; others have done well. At the same time, it’s not something the kids may want to watch. The horror genre already had some representation through Silent Hill and Resident Evil (starring action star Mila Jovovich). While the former two have heavy occult and sci-fi elements, Until Dawn brings several horror movie elements, which is what made the game so beloved in the first place.

But what may get the hopes of many parents who are Until Dawn fans up is that both the director and writer, director-producer David F. Sandberg and writer-producer Gary Dauberman, are fans of the game!

“Every night, the story resets, taking us into a new horror genre,” Sandberg elaborates. “As a lifelong horror fan, it was a dream come true to work in all these subgenres. Every night, the characters undergo what feels like a new chapter in a different story.”

Here's why the adaptation of the horror video game Until Dawn for the silver screen's getting some gamer parents excited — Photo from Columbia Pictures

The Charm of Until Dawn

Many of us, millennial gamer parents, love a good horror game or two. We usually group those horror games into two groups: one we actually play for the story and the other we play for laughs and screams with friends. Until Dawn, however, falls in the former category. As a single-player game, most of us will remember either thinking long and hard or desperately scrolling through the walkthroughs from GameFAQs or any video game website to make the most out of our choices.

But that’s the beauty of Until Dawn: no choice is truly perfect — something that Gary Dauberman wants to emphasize in the movie. “This [the movie] allows us to have ‘the fun of killing off our characters.’ It was both a challenge and tremendous fun because we had the freedom to say, ‘Yeah, let’s just kill him.’”

While Until Dawn may not be for younger kids, the teens in the house may want a movie that’s a little mix of everything. A bit of jumpscare, a bit of the supernatural, a new play of horror movie tropes — some of them may want to watch it over the weekend. Since it’s also an adaptation, playing the game itself isn’t a hard requirement to appreciate the movie.

“Who Gets To Survive Until Dawn?”

The chilling yet charming element of the horror game was that players had to decide who would survive until dawn. Every choice would matter; it would change the ending depending on which character made it. It’s kind of like parenting; there are no resets, only repair, reconnect, or rephrase. The only thing that may have prevented Until Dawn from being close to reality is that the players all had the reset button (from the console) and save point on the Playstation 3 and could “rollback” to make a better choice.

Ready for a psychological horror? Until Dawn hits Philippine theaters on April 25, 2025. But if you’re not sure about it, here’s the trailer: