Until Dawn is pretty much a game summed up into horror elements from such films as The Evil Dead, Saw and Scream. Surprisingly enough, the creative team behind this game executed a well thought out story.
shareIt was easy to compile a fake trailer from scenes of well known horror movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3A-7xN1cdw
Dead Snow
The Thing (2011)
My Bloody Valentine 3D
The Awakening
I am Legend
Ouija
House of Wax
The Descent
Amusement
The Dyatlov Pass Incident
Saw 3D
The ones I noticed:
1. Prom Night (1980) - The start of the story with the prank and the death of the twins, as well as Josh's revenge later on in the game, invokes a lot of the beginning of the 1980 slasher film. At the start of that film, there is a cruel prank that is pulled on a girl, who falls to her death from a second story window at an abandoned building. It's revealed in the film later on that the killer who kills off these kids in their teen years was actually the brother of the girl that was murdered. Granted, Josh doesn't kill anyone (especially if you choose not to allow anyone to die), but the set up of Josh getting revenge because of the death of his sisters invoke this similarity from the original film.
2. April Fools Day (1986) - What many fans consider the film to end the slasher genre, when in fact it is a bit of a parody of it, the entire film plays out at first like its a typical slasher film scenario, only to be revealed that the entire thing was an elaborate April Fools Day prank. The whole slasher killing story bit for the game and the revelation that it was a prank is striking similar.
3. Stake Land (2010) - A Larry Fessenden produced film, which its poster is featured in the game in the theater portion of the lodge. The Wendigo may invoke the cave creatures from The Descent (2005), the Wendigo featured in the game invokes the behaviors of the vampires featured in the film (which come off as more animalistic).
4. The Evil Dead (1982) - The originator of the In The Woods horror film.
5. Session 9 (2001) - The asylum in the game reminds me of the abandoned asylum featured in the 2001 film, to which Larry Fessenden also appeared in.
6. Friday The 13th (1980) and Halloween (1978) - Josh's Slasher Film-style prank invokes many of the "masked psycho" slasher films.
7. John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) - The Flamethrower guy's outfit and even the flamethrower itself look as if they're straight out of the 1982 John Carpenter classic.
8. The Shininig (1980) - The lodge itself invokes the feeling that you have when watching the scenes that take place at the Overlook Hotel in the film.
9. The Killing Gene (aka W Delta Z) (2008) - Though many may instantly think of the film Saw (2004) with the whole setup, but the setup with Ashley and Chris appears to be lifted directly from The Killing Gene, having a setup where one person is forced to decide to either kill the person they love or to kill themselves in order to save the person they love (if there wasn't a overhead saw, it'd look like they took the whole setup from the film).
10. Psycho (1960) - The opening of the game, when you play one of the twins, it gives sort of the impression you'd be playing her the rest of the game, only for her to end up dead. This is a "false protagonist" setup that first appeared in the Hitchcock adaptation of the Robert Bloch novel.
11. The Dead Zone (1983) - Whenever you pick up the totems, characters get brief flashes of the future. This invokes a similar trope from the adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Dead Zone, where Johnny Smith is able to see the future by physically touching people.
But this one's eating my popcorn!