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In the Teen Slasher ‘Until Dawn’, Everyone Can Die
After a lengthy hiatus, much of which consisted of us wondering whether or not Sony had canned our only hope for a teen slasher game, Until Dawn is back, and it looks fantastic. The game has had a substantial presence at Gamescom, where a gaggle of games journos — not including me, unfortunately — were able to learn more about it during a live presentation helmed by Until Dawn executive producer Pete Samuels and executive creative director Will Byles.
Game Informer was at the event, and it sounds like developer Supermassive Games is doing some really neat things with their horror debut.
For starters, much like in Heavy Rain, if you make enough poor decisions, everyone can die. And when they’re dead, that’s it for them. No pressure.
This comes from the decisions you’ll be forced to make throughout the game — we saw that in the brief video released earlier this week. I’m proud to say that I lost nary a man or woman under my watch in Heavy Rain, and the same goes for the suicide mission in Mass Effect 3. What I’m saying is bring it, Supermassive.
Length is also important, and Game Informer touched on that too in their preview. “At the end of each section, you’ll see your current story path, of which there are hundreds, illuminate on the butterfly. Once you finish the game, you can return to any previous decision point and make a different choice.” So it sounds like the game has an episodic format, similar to Alan Wake. “Each full playthrough will take approximately nine hours, and based on the layout of the butterfly map, there are four key branches early on that lead in different directions.”
From what little we’ve seen of the game so far, it looks like your typical slasher flick, only interactive. This is intentional, and it’s a product of quite a bit of studying on the developer’s part.
“All great terrifying horror is a mix of different types of fear,” Samuels says. “The ratio of the mix varies, but the most effective is terror. What we mean by ‘terror’ is the dread of an overwhelming, but unseen threat, rising and falling in strength, but always there. The second category is horror. Horror is the culmination of terror that happens when you come face to face with the reality and the cause of the terror. The third and least used category is disgust. Disgust is the nauseating, gory reminder of just how fragile human flesh is, how easy it is to tear or cut. It’s a reminder of your vulnerability.”
I’m not sure if it’s new news, but I did just find out that Until Dawn stars Hayden Panettiere (Scream 4). You can find the rest of the preview at Game Informer.
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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