Star-studded cinematic horror Until Dawn is getting a big screen adaptation, an 'R-rated love letter to the horror genre'

Rami Malek's character in Until Dawn. — (Image credit: Supermassive)

Shazam director David F. Sandberg has decided to take some time off from superhero movies in order to film horrible things happening to some people on a mountain. He's been enlisted to direct an adaptation of Until Dawn, Supermassive's first cinematic horror choose-your-own adventure that was the precursor to things like The Quarry and The Dark Pictures Anthology.

For now at least, Until Dawn is still trapped on PlayStation, but if you've ever played The Quarry you pretty much have the gist of it. The game follows the story of a group of hapless teens stuck on a mountain as a bunch of bloody horror stuff unfolds. In the game, those teens were played by actors like Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere, and it also featured Peter Stormare as the world's most upsetting therapist.

There's no word yet on if any of the game's stars will make a return for the film, but per The Hollywood Reporter, production company Screen Gems is calling the film "an R-rated love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast." Yup, sure sounds like Until Dawn to me.

I rather liked Until Dawn, but I'm not sure how it's going to translate the things it does well over to a movie adaptation. Where The Last of Us was a linear tale that probably wasn't too hard to port over to a TV series, Until Dawn lived and died by the choices you made and the various branching plotlines that were possible as a consequence. Like other Supermassive games, it even had a whole section of its UI dedicated to tracking the decisions you'd made and precisely why they were a really bad idea.

Take that away, and you just have a pretty standard horror movie with a decent twist I won't spoil here. It seems an odd choice to adapt from everything in the Sony catalogue, even if director Sandberg has a record of making horror films like Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation. Then again, they literally made a Gran Turismo movie, so who even knows what's going on there?

There's no word on a release date for the Until Dawn movie, but given that it's only just been announced, we likely have some years to wait.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.