Consumed by Guilt: Retribution and Justice in Until Dawn

Abstract

Horror media, as text, film or game, engages with justice, retribution and punishment. Employing the monster to police social boundaries, horror media reflects cultural norms and the threat of transgression. Until Dawn plays into horror conventions but challenges our traditional position as passive voyeur by bringing us into complex encounters with justice. By playing as all eight characters, players engage in both the crimes and punishments of the teenagers trapped on a mountain with human and supernatural threats. Our involvement complicates the dual layers of retribution at play, as the teens are punished for their sins in the tradition of an eye for an eye while the Wendigo embody a supernatural repercussion for breaking the taboo of consuming human flesh. Thus, the game articulates a rational choice approach to transgression and the monstrous retribution that follows. Until Dawn's evocation of the wendigo in tandem with the traditional elements of horror film and participatory elements of the video game brings the player into the system of sin, suffering and punishment.