You’d think after A Minecraft Movie turned cinemas into popcorn battlefields, it would comfortably hold the title for the most controversial video game adaptation of the year.
However, since the first trailer was released a few months ago, fans of the 2015 PlayStation game Until Dawn have been a little baffled that the new film appears to be an entirely different horror story with a familiar brand name attached. A quick glance at the YouTube comments shows that horror fans are generally excited to see the movie – they just can’t quite understand why it’s titled after a game it bears no obvious connection to.
This is something lead stars Ella Rubin and Michael Cimino have heard a lot, and they share the same thoughts as their director, David F. Sandberg; the game is designed as a 10-hour interactive movie, so why tell the same story in a different medium when they all know they could never match it? The Rami Malek-starring game has recently been remastered, which the director has argued is further evidence a straight adaptation would be redundant.
“If I could transform into Rami Malek for the fans, I would!”, Rubin told Zavvi. “But I understand why fans of the video game are invested, especially considering that was a story told in an art form designed to forge a deep connection, which inspires loyalty towards it.
“It’s understandable fans would want to see that story recreated, but I think we’re showing respect and reverence for the game by staying in that world and telling a different story. How could we possibly recreate the game as it is? It’s untouchable and should live on as its own thing.”
Whereas the horror game saw a group of friends return to the remote Alpine cabin a year after two of them vanished (only the player knows they died), almost immediately getting picked off one by one by a plethora of sinister forces, the movie takes a slightly different track. It’s once again about friends returning to the scene of a disappearance – in this case Clover (Rubin) dragging her friends to the valley where her sister vanished a year before – but it’s there that the similarities end.
Instead, after the characters turn into victims here, they wake up and find that they’re caught in a time loop, with a different threat seeking them out each time they come back to life. The only way out of the loop is, you guessed it, to survive until dawn.
Until then, however, director Sandberg has the time of his life riffing on several different horror genres, each more over-the-top than the last. Rubin is confident that some of the goriest kills in the final stretch will be the most talked about amongst horror fans all year.
Like his co-star, Michael Cimino thinks that the divergence from the source material is the best way they can honour it onscreen.
He explained: “The big thing for us was always making sure we weren’t just making a complete carbon copy. I think we do what the Halo series did well, honouring the same backstory, whilst building out a wider world in a fresh way – if we didn’t have a new take on this, nobody would be satisfied.
“The game is so fun, and we wanted to honour it by making sure we had the spirit but go in a different direction so we didn’t take anything away from it. The game is like a movie, the only difference is you’re pushing buttons, which makes a faithful adaptation unnecessary.”
Stepping into so many different horror genres in such a short space of time proved cathartic for Rubin, who has spent her entire life avoiding the genre.
“I used to be too scared to watch horror films, and making Until Dawn gave me a greater appreciation of them; since filming this, I’m actively seeking them and have found many I’ve loved, it’s totally different for me now. I have to thank David for this, as he’s such a talented horror director with a deep understanding of the genre, especially when it comes to timing – he approaches it in the same way any other director would approach a comedy movie, and the specificity of that approach helped me learn so much.”
Often when doing these interviews, you can tell which actors are just saying things to market a movie, but Rubin’s newfound passion for horror felt genuine. She was particularly adamant I give a shout out to practical effects artist Steve Newburn – who has worked on projects ranging from The Suicide Squad to Beau Is Afraid and Sasquatch Sunset – whose designs become increasingly front and centre as the characters transform, Substance-style, after each dealing with death.
“Even now that I’m much more of a horror movie fan, I think this still stands out within the genre right now because of the focus on practical effects”, Rubin continued. “One of the coolest, most unique aspects of the movie is how David really valued the team of artists and put their work at the forefront.
“For me, the creature feature was the most exciting genre to play around in because it meant seeing Steve and the team of artists at the peak of their powers, but everybody will have a different favourite section. The marketing team wanted to film a commercial where Michael named all the different horror genres in the movie, and it didn’t get used because we pay tribute to that many!”
The driving force of the Until Dawn game is the deadly combination of grief and guilt the core group of characters feel over the circumstances that led to the death of their two friends. This idea carries over into the movie, and it's what spoke to Rubin prior to signing on to star, when she didn’t have the affection for the horror genre she does now.
“Grief is a large umbrella which encompasses so many different feelings and difficulties depending on your experiences, and exploring this was the most challenging part of the film for me. There are so many films I love, like Secret Sunshine, Three Colours Blue and now Midsommar, where you can see an actor grieving in a way that invites a universal connection, asking you to relate to the raw feeling even if their circumstances are highly specific.
“Because Clover hasn’t had closure over her sister, she’s not just facing up to the loss of another person, but the loss of herself, as there’s a massive space in her life where the people she loves used to be. It’s one of the biggest themes in the film for me, about a character facing up to that disconnection, and learning how to reconfigure how life now that people who they love has gone.
“Clover’s journey is digging deeper to find herself when the lost pieces she can’t rediscover are still on her mind, knowing that to survive in such intense situations, she’s got no choice but to reconnect to her sense of self.”
Until Dawn is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 25th April.
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