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If the Until Dawn video game was a love letter to Saw and The Cabin in the Woods, Sony's upcoming adaptation is more The Descent meets Evil Dead II. For a minute there, though, it was a little too comedy-leaning, says director David F. Sandberg.
"I have a tendency to do that because I love horror movies that have fun," the filmmaker tells GamesRadar+, when we mention being surprised at how much humor there is in the movie. "I mean, we even had to take it back in some scenes where it was like, 'Well, maybe it needs to be a little bit more serious here to feel the weight of it all.' But I just love making that kind of movie, because it's so satisfying when you see it with an audience and you get those reactions and the laughter and feel the shock, you know?"
Not that it would've made much of a difference to Sandberg if he'd have made a traumatizing nerve-shredder, however. "I mean, I never really have a ton of fun while making a movie, because I'm so stressed out and anxious about everything. The prepping is fun," he laughs. "Watching the results is fun."
Loosely based on the Supermassive Games 2015 title of the same name, Until Dawn sees a group of twentysomethings forced to fight for their lives again and again and again, when they get stuck in a death-defying time loop. If all of them die, the night resets, bringing with it new threats for them to face off against.
Sandberg explains that they purposefully leaned into certain horror tropes to inform each evening's frightening foes – from masked killers and witches to wendigos and blood soaked body horror. But one thing they were keen to switch up from the source material is how stereotypical the protagonists felt. In place of Sam, Hayden Panettiere's de facto final girl, Noah Fleiss's nerdy Chris, alpha-male Mike (Brett Dalton), bimbo-esque Jessica (Meaghan Martin), and more, we've got the more Gen Z, well-rounded Clover (Ella Rubin), Max (Michael Cimino), Nina (Odessa A'zion), Megan (Ji-young Yoo), and Abe (Belmont Cameli).
"I mean, that's a credit to Gary [Dauberman] and Blair [Butler] who created these characters," says Sandberg. "The best kind of horror movies are where you don't really hate the characters and want to see them die. I mean, those can be fun, too, but you want to be a little invested in them.
"It was kind of funny, though, so with the character of Abe, he was actually written as a little bit more someone you kind of hate. There are still elements of that, where he does some questionable things, but he's also, like, a really smart character. He's the one who goes, 'Well, let's just try and get out of here', which is what you should do? So yeah, I really liked how they balanced that, so you don't, you know, hate people," he concludes with a smile.
Until Dawn releases on April 25. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies, or our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
