Why I'm still hopeful after seeing the 'Until Dawn' movie trailer.

Complaining for the sake of complaining? Or do the angry fans have a point?

Don’t ask me how many times I’ve played the 2015 PlayStation game Until Dawn. Actually, I’ll tell you. Eight times. Four on my own, to see different endings, and four with friends and family, where I channelled my inner Dr. Hill and watched them try to solve the mystery of the night and make it out alive.

So when Sony announced that it would be making the coveted game into a film, I was a little nervous. How do you make a game in which everyone who played it received a different ending, tied to the choices (good or bad) they made in the game, into a movie?

Some people (me included) replayed the game until every character was saved, while others intentionally sought out all the gruesome ways your characters can be killed. The choice was yours!

A film, however, is one long cutscene. The player is demoted to a viewer with no control over the events or choices and is forced to sit back and watch it all unfold. This can be frustrating, especially in horror, where people are known for making dumb choices that prolong the danger they’re in.

Until Dawn also featured a really amazing cast, including actors Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Jordan Fisher. However, a lot can change in ten years, and trying to bring back these actors would quickly prove very expensive for Sony. So, they decided not to bring back anyone except Peter Stormare, who played Dr. Hill, the narrator who appears throughout the entire Dark Pictures Anthology franchise.

Retelling the story without including the original actors who made the game so iconic would be criminal. And the poor unfortunate souls stepping into these very big shoes would be automatically compared and dissected against their A-lister counterparts, which would not be fun for anyone.

So, when it was revealed a few weeks ago that this film would be creating a brand new story with brand new characters, I let out a little sigh of relief, but it also made me want to ask some new questions.

Is this really ‘Until Dawn’ if the story is completely different?

Is this ‘Until Dawn’ if the iconic enemies wouldn’t be making a reappearance?

Then the trailer dropped, and so did my jaw.

It’s giving ‘Happy Death Day’ but less iconic.

Unsurprisingly, the comments were overwhelmingly negative.

“Until dawn: A game where one's choices are irreversible. 
This movie: REWIND TIME” - @reefs7386

"The directors: Omg we love the Until Dawn game soo much we wanted to create SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT" - @marcoterres3421

"imagine books being adapted this way. Like a movie titled Harry Potter about a guy named Jeff in Florida." - @davidtheriault1421

"Let['s] steal the Until Dawn title and just make up our own movie" - @mandii91gates

But here’s the thing: after watching the trailer, I’m not that mad about it.

There’s something kind of meta about a game where players would replay chapters to undo their bad decisions and achieve the perfect ending—ensuring everyone’s survival—being turned into a movie where the characters constantly die, only to keep reliving the night and try to save themselves.

This might be a controversial statement, but if you purchased a video game with a shorter-than-average story and only played through it once without going back to see the alternate endings, then you were never invested enough in the game for me to care about your opinion.

Until Dawn is a game that was very clearly intended to be replayed multiple times, where you make different decisions each playthrough to see different endings. Almost all its achievements remain locked after your first playthrough, and it actively encourages you to play again and make other choices.

Film is a different medium, so you need to be able to adapt the way you tell the narrative. If Netflix hadn’t killed its Interactive Special library, where viewers are at the forefront of what happens next (remember Black Mirror: Bandersnatch), then they might have been able to do something fun there. But horror belongs at the cinema, so they decided to make the film into a mini choose-your-own where the characters are the players, and we watch as they learn the rules and try to last before they die forever.

Despite all the negative chatter online, I’m still looking forward to this film. They’ve already teased that certain monsters that appeared throughout the franchise's various games will be returning, which I can’t wait to see, and we get to watch new young actors continue to climb the ranks of stardom and take on bigger roles.

With actors such as Ella Rubin, Odessa A'zion, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, and Maia Mitchell set to appear, this has the potential to be a fun horror adventure.

If it’s terrible, I’ll be the first to say so, but I have my fingers crossed that this will be a campy bloodbath with nods to the source material while still setting off on its own.

Until Dawn will be released in Australia on April 24th.