Take Eternal Darkness, Heavy Rain, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and the Saw films, put them all into a blender and it'll spit out Until Dawn , a third-person adventure-horror game running on the Killzone: Shadow Fall engine. This a cinematic thriller that jump-scared me no fewer than three times during a 20-minute playable demo, and I thank it for that.

“ And the Saw influence? Well, Until Dawn has a bit of torture porn in it too.

That I had no idea how Ashley got this bloodied before my demo started only makes Until Dawn creepier. In a good way.

"Dude, wait up!"

Character faces look fantastic, no doubt thanks to Killzone: SF's graphics engine.

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the game first shown two years ago . That's because developer Supermassive Games threw out what they had and brought in Hollywood writers to re-do the story, which, based on what's in the trailer and in the middle-of-the-game segment I played, revolves around a group of eight teenage friends who've started to go missing in the creepy bowels of a cabin during the winter. That there are so many playable characters is where the Eternal Darkness whiffs waft from, while the plot – in my demo, Ashley and Chris discover clues that their eventual clown-masked captors see fit to torture the teens after somehow knowing every exact detail of some terrible, humiliating act they committed against their missing friend Sam the year before – recalls the basic outline of Jennifer Love Hewitt's star-making turn in I Know What You Did Last Summer. You'll encounter vague dialogue choices (i.e. responding as sympathetic or not to Ashley's fears) reminiscent of Heavy Rain. And the Saw influence? Well, Until Dawn has a bit of torture porn in it too.None of these are bad things, to be clear. In fact, they seem to be congealing into a video game that's already memorable, just from my 20-minute slice.My demo began unexpectedly, with an "interactive survey" that would apparently tailor the gameplay based on my responses. For instance, I was asked, "Are you male or female?" and instructed to choose between "I would save my friends" or "I would look out for myself." While some were self-explanatory, others, such as "Movies are more frightening" versus "Games are more frightening" leave me wondering just what effect they'd have on a full playthrough. Future test drives of the same section while making different choices, unless of course the consequences of these picks won't reveal themselves until elsewhere in the bigger picture of the final game. Which, by the way, a Sony rep promises will have multiple endings and a far greater number of branching paths along the way.With player-controlled Ashley and Chris descending down into the depths of their cabin in search of their missing friend Sam, I descended into the basement of the house. Naturally it gets creepier as you go, with only a disturbing dollhouse – complete with disfigured dolls arranged inside to represent the aforementioned humiliating moment that the group's antagonist somehow knows about – giving you the willies on the initial floor. Well, that and the ghostly teenage girl clad in sheer white who wanders the halls.Without spoiling too much (it would be criminal of me to ruin this scare-fest's surprises), Ashley and Chris are eventually abducted by an aggressor wearing a demonic clown mask – despite my brave attempt with Ashley to stab the kidnapper in the chest with a pair of scissors I'd picked up earlier. Both characters awoke, bound to chairs facing each other with a small table between them. On the table is a handgun. A distorted voice interrupts their terror over a speaker to announce that Chris can either kill himself or Ashley, and that the survivor will get to live. The situation is compounded by a pair of large, rotating power-saw blades hanging above their heads that begin slowly descending down (hello, Saw!). Chris tries in vain to shoot at the assembly, but to no avail. I pointed my gun at Ashley and...fade to black. Demo over. But I'm assured that anyone and everyone can die in the game, with the rest of the story being affected.Controls are simple, if yet somehow a bit clunky. Use Sixaxis on the Dual Shock 4 to wave Ashley's flashlight around, while X and R2 interact with objects from afar or up close, respectively. Moving with the left thumbstick and aiming the flashlight where you wanted it to go was a bit strange, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it cumbersome. And fortunately there was nary a meandering Quick-Time Event in sight. A framerate in the 20s is my only other quibble, but with the release date so far away, it's not something I'm going to stress out about at this early stage, but it's worth noting.Now powered by Killzone: Shadow Fall's tech and reinforced by Hollywood screenwriters and motion-captured acting performances by Heroes' Hayden Panettiere and Twilight's Rami Malik, Until Dawn's new direction is certainly a welcome one. I look forward to seeing how many in my party I can keep alive in my first playthrough...and then seeing how few I can complete it with after that.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan , on IGN , catch him on Podcast Unlocked , and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.