Survival horror has been around for almost as long as horror cinema itself, but it seems to be going through a particularly popular phase at present. In recent years, dozens of high-concept and low-budget productions have seen the light of day.

It’s not hard to see why. The experiences of the last half-decade or so have seen the impact on nations across the world of increasingly widespread, regular, and catastrophic natural disasters, the emergence of Covid, and now a cost of living crisis affecting dozens of countries. These issues have made the present a singularly difficult time for even the more cossetted sections of the world’s populace to live through.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Against such a bleak backdrop, it’s no wonder survival horror has gained ground. Let’s take a look at recent survival horror movies that drive this point home.

Populations Are Fighting for Vital Resources

     Netflix

The debut feature film of Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urtutia,​​​​​ the 2019 movie The Platform was picked up by Netflix after excellent reviews from critics and offers a chilling exploration of the fine line dividing civilized behavior from barbarism. The protagonist, Goreng, wakes up in a prison-like facility where the two-person cells are stacked on top of one another, with a hole in the floor linking them.

Once a day, a platform filled with food descends through the hole, so all the inmates, in theory, are provided with enough to feed themselves. The catch is that there is no limit to how much those on the higher levels can eat, meaning that for those below them, the pickings get increasingly meager. And for those on the lowest levels, the platform arrives laden only with empty plates. Prisoners are moved randomly once a month, meaning that a spot on one of the higher levels is no assurance of an easy ride in the future.

With brutalist aesthetics borrowed from 1984 and Brazil and philosophical sensibilities that owe as much to Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Samuel Beckett as they do to conventional horror, watching The Platform is a deeply unnerving experience. Gaztelu-Urtutia turns the screw on both Goreng and the audience at every turn, and Goreng’s shocking descent into madness and cannibalism is related in extravagant detail.

With an excellent cast including Spanish actors Iván Massagué and Antonia San Juan (who starred opposite Penelope Cruz in All About My Mother), The Platform can be read as an allegory of the fight over increasingly scarce resources that, though often depicted in science fiction and horror, has never seemed so close to home.

The World Favors Some Over Others

Released on Netflix earlier this year, the British horror flick Choose or Die features Iola Evans, Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Eddie Marsan (The World’s End, The Professor and the Madman). Evans plays Kayla, a student who is learning to code with the help of Isaac (played by The Space Between Us alum Asa Butterfield).

After discovering what purports to be an old-style 1980s text-based video game, Kayla is horrified to find that playing it causes objects in real life to behave oddly and can even kill people.

With a plot including a haunted gamer making copies of the program, Marsan’s everyman-turned-torturer, and a subtext focusing on the possibility of enacting natural justice, Choose or Die pushes hard at social commentary. It never quite transmutes its initial promise into a satisfying conclusion due to the overly intricate plotting makes the final act difficult to follow. However, in showcasing the trials of a group of put-upon, struggling characters, it succeeds in offering a compelling commentary on what it means to survive in a world stacked against the down-at-heel.

The Breakdown of Society Politeness

     Universal Pictures

The fifth installment in the Purge series, The Forever Purge, was released last year. As aficionados will know, “The Purge” refers to a 12-hour period held once a year during which all crimes are temporarily legalized. The plot of The Forever Purge centers around the plight of two Mexican migrants, Adela and Juan, who, after The Purge is supposedly over, find themselves targeted by “purgers” eager to rid the United States of those they consider to be un-American.

Starring screen veterans such as Ana de la Reguera (Nacho Libre, Cowboys & Aliens), Josh Lucas (Ford vs. Ferrari, A Beautiful Mind), and Will Patton (Gone in 60 Seconds, Remember The Titans), The Forever Purge traverses well-trodden ground in its depiction of the breakdown of society in the near future.

In recent years, society has seen the resurgence of racism and nativist schools of thought in the wake of the decline in centrism in politics. The mechanism for that breakdown has a resonance that ought to send a chill down the spine of even the most apolitical viewer.