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The Dead by Daylight movie adaptation, hailing from Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, has secured two veteran horror writers, with David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick and Alexandre Aja set to pen the adaptation of Behaviour Interactive’s hit asymmetric multiplayer survival horror video game.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, this project marks the first time the pair are working together, with Johnson-McGoldrick well-known in the industry for working with Atomic Monster’s James Wan on several notable titles, including 2016’s The Conjuring 2, 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and 2025’s The Conjuring: Last Rites. Aja, on the other hand, is also known for penning horror flicks, with notable works like 2019’s Crawl, 2010’s Piranha 3D, and 2006’s The Hills Have Eyes.
While the film is still in its early stages, and no plot details have been revealed as of yet, the original 2016 Dead by Daylight video game is centred around a group of four survivors as they try to survive and escape a killer. Played in an asymmetric multiplayer format, the game saw four survivors compete against one killer, with the former having to traverse the maps to find generators to activate and open an escape route, while the latter hunts them down using a variety of killers ranging from original creations to horror icons like Michael Myers, Sadako or even Pyramid Head.
While the game doesn’t feature a traditional storyline, it does provide a wealth of lore from the movie adaptation to tap into, such as the existence of a cosmic, malevolent force known as “The Entity”, which kidnaps killers and survivors from various time periods and universes and forces them into endless trials, which explains how so many familiar faces from iconic IPs can exist in its world at the same time. While managing so many franchises might be a tough ask for the movie, it will be interesting to see if it can at least feature some cameos or at least references to the legendary horror killers.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
