David F. Sandberg and Blair Butler Explain How ‘Until Dawn’ Is a Completely Unique Video Game Adaptation

Summary

• Collider’s Aidan Kelley talks with director David F. Sandberg and writer Blair Butler for their upcoming horror movie Until Dawn.
• The movie is an adaptation of the video game about a group of friends trapped in a nightmarish situation they must replay over and over again to survive until dawn.
• In this interview, Sandberg discusses returning to the genre, the choices they made when adapting the game, combining subgenres, and their horror movie influences.

PlayStation is going all in on adaptations of their beloved video game IPs. Along with upcoming adaptations of Horizon: Zero Dawn, Helldivers, and more, one beloved horror hit is getting a dramatic reimagining with Until Dawn. The original game, which stars huge names like Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Peter Stormare, follows a group of teens as they survive a gauntlet of unique horror subgenres while on a desolate winter retreat. For the film adaptation, director David F. Sandberg and co-writer Blair Butler opted to do something much different for the franchise’s feature film debut.

Until Dawn also represents a return to form for Sandberg, who recently was busy breathing life into the DCU with the Shazam! films. This is familiar territory for Butler, who previously worked on recent horror films like Hell Fest and The Invitation. The trailers for the film have certainly raised some questions for fans of the game, and thankfully, we recently had the incredible opportunity to speak with Sandberg and Butler, and it sounds like Until Dawn is going to be a fascinating expansion of the game’s universe while also telling a wholly original horror tale.

‘Until Dawn’ Will Honor the Original Game While Telling a Unique Story

“Remaking the original beat for beat felt a little blasphemous.”

COLLIDER: Until Dawn has become a fan-favorite for horror fans, particularly video game horror fans, because of how it plays around with different subgenres of horror. For the movie, it definitely seems like it’s keeping that, but it’s also a pretty big departure from the game, at least narratively, and I mean that in the most flattering of terms, as the concept for the movie sounds absolutely fascinating. Still, I’m curious about what led you to the decision to tell a more original horror story as opposed to a beat-for-beat adaptation of the original game.

BLAIR BUTLER: I absolutely love the game. Supermassive, the writers, Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick, basically created the perfect playable horror movie starring an actual Academy Award-winning actor, so that was going to be very difficult to recreate. We also knew that the remaster of the game was going to be coming out around the same time, so remaking the original beat for beat felt a little blasphemous.

Early on, we worked with PlayStation to expand the Until Dawn universe by leaning into the things that make the games so special and so loved: the fact that it is this love letter to horror movies, the idea that with a few exceptions, you can save everybody or get everybody killed, and of course, we also love the way that it starts as one horror genre, a slasher movie, and then turns into something totally different, a supernatural monster movie. Those were the North Stars during the process of working with PlayStation. We really wanted to celebrate this amazing blend of horror genres and the fact that the game lets you try to save everybody or just kill them all off in terrible ways.

DAVID F. SANDBERG: That’s what I loved so much about the script when I read it, was that it didn’t just try to do the game again. Because again, the game is the closest thing that I’ve played to an interactive movie, but it pretty much is already a 10-hour movie. To cut it down to two hours or something, it’s just never going to be the same thing. I thought it was really brilliant to have this resetting thing built into the movie so you can still get that thing you have with the game where you play it over and over again and make different choices so you get to see different deaths. I thought that was a brilliant way to keep that in movie form in a movie that’s not interactive.

Also, what I loved about it is, like you said, it has all these different horror genres in one movie because I’ve been dying to get back to horror after having doing two superhero movies. It was like, “Do I want to do a slasher movie or a supernatural movie or body horror?” In this, it was like, “Oh, I get to do all of it in one movie.” It was perfect.

Blair, you did mention that this is expanding the Until Dawn universe, which [we] really haven’t seen expanded since the original game. Does that mean that the movie is a continuation of the original game, or is it more in its own lane?

SANDBERG: I would say it’s sort of both. It exists in the same universe in some way. It’s sort of a continuation in many ways.

BUTLER: Yeah, what David said.

That actually leads perfectly into my next question because we do see at least one actor is returning for this, that being the great Peter Stormare, who played almost a figment of one of the character’s imagination in the game. How does he play into this one without giving too much away?

SANDBERG: That is hard to answer without giving it away, but he is a key figure in all of this, you could say.

History With Horror Helped Shape This Take on ‘Until Dawn’

“It was just all the horror I’ve watched throughout my life channeled into this.”

David, like you said, this is your big return to horror, and it’s great to see you return to the genre. Lights Out, the short film, which I think I watched in more than half of my filmmaking classes when I was in college.

SANDBERG: I love to hear that. A lot of people say, “We got to watch that in film class,” which is the highest compliment.

I watched it multiple times, and every time I watched it, I loved it. What were some of the lessons you learned from that short film, and how it shaped your career going forward?

SANDBERG: A lot about tension and building up to scares and things like that. I think one thing that works so well in it is that we set it up with a jump scare early on, and then, since you’re prepared for, like, “Okay, that sort of thing can happen here,” then you can just play with the tension because the audience knows that at any point there could be a jump scare. So, things like that.

Blair, you’ve also had plenty of experience writing horror, with Hell Fest and The Invitation being prime examples. How does Until Dawn differ from anything you’ve done before?

BUTLER: It was kind of fantastic to get to, again, meld some of the genres together and also the fact that it’s not a linear narrative is really exciting. So, that was very cool. Then, obviously, Gary Dauberman, who’s a writer and producer on the movie, brought so much of his incredible knowledge to the script. I think Gary was really thrilled to get to play with genres that even he hadn’t been able to explore before.

Since there are so many varying horror subgenres that are present in the film, what were some of the biggest influences you had while making the film, whether it be other horror films or other horror stories, or maybe something that isn’t even horror-related at all?

SANDBERG: To me, it was just all the horror I’ve watched throughout my life channeled into this. It was surprising to find, actually, that, for example, I’ve never been a huge slasher fan. I enjoy slashers, but it just hasn’t been my favorite. But making that part of it, I really enjoyed and I felt like, “Oh, I really need to do more of this.” And the same with even a little part that’s like found footage. Again, I was sort of surprised, like, “This is really fun.” It was, I don’t want to say “easy” to shoot, but you do get a lot of advantages doing found footage where you can cut whenever, and you can do glitches and things like that and get away with so much. So, to me, it was a learning experience to find appreciation for subgenres that I haven’t really paid that much attention to before.

Very cool. Blair, were there any other horror films that you would cite as an inspiration when you were writing it?

BUTLER: To be honest, the interplay of a slasher film that turns into a supernatural horror movie, which is the essence of the Until Dawn game, I think was the biggest inspiration, of just the idea of melding these things and allowing them to play off each other.

David F. Sandberg Is Eyeing This Sci-Fi Horror Adaptation

“Sci-fi horror would be amazing.”

Great answer. David and Blair, you’ve both dipped your toes into the superhero genre a little bit. David, you mentioned the Shazam films; Blair, you’ve worked on Helstrom. Is that a genre you’d ever want to return to, or would you perhaps want to stick with horror or maybe go on to a totally different genre that you haven’t done before? Is there any other genre you would really like to explore in the future after Until Dawn?

SANDBERG: Sci-fi is the big one for me that I’ve always wanted to do, and I haven’t so far. Sci-fi horror would be amazing. Something like that Event Horizon, Dead Space kind of world.

Oh, my ears perked up when I heard Dead Space.

SANDBERG: That’s what I would love to do.

BUTLER: I love Dead Space. The great eyeball-piercing death in that one if you screw up. That quick time event is delightful.

Until Dawn premieres in theaters on April 25, 2025.