The first trailer for Until Dawn is finally here and it's almost certainly going to divide opinions. While it undeniably looks like an edge-of-your-seat, frightening horror movie, Shazam! director David F. Sandberg's big screen adaptation doesn't appear to have much in common with the PlayStation game it shares a name with.
The sneak peek establishes that a group of friends will be forced to live through various horror scenarios each night, with the only way to escape this time loop being to make it...until dawn. However, they only have thirteen tries before it's too late.
That's new, but what does Until Dawn have in common with the game? Well, Peter Stormare shows up as a gas station attendant but, short of a big twist, almost certainly isn't reprising his role as the sinister Dr. Hill. We do, however, catch sight of a Wendigo, confirming the creature will be at least one of the threats these teens face.
Faithfully adapting the PlayStation game was always going to be a challenge but this looks set to be another video game movie which takes major liberties with the source material. Is this approach going to pay off for Until Dawn?
Assuming it delivers decent scares and takes full advantage of an admittedly intriguing premise, it could prove to be one of the year's bigger surprises. We'll have to wait and see.
You can watch the first trailer for Until Dawn in the players below (via GameFragger.com).
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.
Directed by David F. Sandberg and written by Blair Butler and Gary Dauberman, Until Dawn is based on the PlayStation Studios video game and produced by Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, David F. Sandberg, Lotta Losten, Roy Lee, Gary Dauberman, and Mia Maniscalco. Charles Miller and Hermen Hulst executive produce.
Until Dawn stars Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell, and Peter Stormare reprising his role from the games as Dr. Hill. The movie will be released on April 25, later this year.