'Gold' (2022) Movie Review

To call writer/director (and actor) Anthony Hayes’ Gold minimal is a bit of a stretch. Minimal is an overstatement. There are seven acting credits. Of those seven, two are the same person playing different roles. Three appear on screen for one scene each. Of those three, one is a baby and another is a woman with no lines. The bulk of the movie is Zac Efron alone in a post-apocalyptic desert gradually losing his mind, and all things considered, Hayes squeezes a great deal out of this arrangement. 

'Night Raiders' (2021) Movie Review

The near-ish future of Night Raiders, writer/director Danis Goulet’s debut feature, sets up a dystopian society where an oppressive government requires children under 18 be placed in the Academy, a kind of militarized boarding school that brainwashes and programs kids. Niska (Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) lives off the grid in the wilderness, sheltering her daughter, Waseese (Brooklyn Letexier-Hart), from such a fate. When Waseese is taken, Niska falls in with a group of Indigenous resistance fighters led by Ida (Gail Maurice, Trickster) and Leo (Alex Tarrant, NCIS: Hawaii) to liberate her and other children.

'Exiled: The Chosen Ones' Trailer: Hannah Al-Rashid, Sunny Pang, And A Brutal Dystopian Game Show

A corrupt dystopian future, a world ravaged by a man-made virus, a popular game show where contestants fight to the death in an effort to cull the global population. Stop, Exiled: The Chosen Ones, I’m in. So very, very in. Check out this quick teaser trailer and you may well join me.

'Riot Girls' (2019) Movie Review

An alternate 1995 where a mysterious disease kills off all the adults and warring gangs of kids—the poor kids from the East Side of Potter’s Bluff and the preppy jocks from the West Side—battle for turf and survival. With that logline, it’s no wonder Jovanka Vuckovic’s Riot Girls made my top 50 most-anticipated movies of 2019 list. 

'FP2: Beats Of Rage' (2018) Movie Review

The Trost Brothers’ 2011 film The FP is a strange, singular artifact. The saga of a post-apocalyptic future where warring gangs settle beef with a head-to-head dance arcade game, Beat Beat Revelation, is the kind of unhinged mania that shows up, creates an indelible mark, and disappears back into the shadows. Sure, it developed a cult-cult following, a kind of super niche fandom, but it’s not the movie you automatically assume will generate a sequel.

Check Out This Rad Poster For 'Beats Of Rage,' 'The FP' Sequel We've Dreamed Of

If you ask me, and no one did, the Trost Brothers’ 2011 dystopian gang dance off, The FP, doesn’t get nearly the love it should. This should be raised to bona-fide cult status by now. Last year, we heard they’re working to Beat-Beat a sequel into reality, and it sounds like their efforts were successful. The FP 2, titled Beats of Rage, has a badass new poster and a ton of fresh details.

'The Darkest Minds' Trailer: A Little Bit 'X-Men' A Little Bit 'Hunger Games'

Movies franchises based on a series of young adult novels have, let’s just call it a checkered past. For every Harry Potter and Hunger Games, we get a flailing series like Divergent that limped along for a few chapters, and nonstarters like The Fifth Wave and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, that never get off the ground. So, audiences are wary about endeavors of this ilk, but that’s not going to stop Hollywood from trying. The latest attempt is The Darkest Minds. I know nothing about this saga, but I’m actually kind of into the new trailer for the film.

HBO's 'Fahrenheit 451' Trailer Wants To Burn

Lots of people go through a dystopian fiction streak. Mine was in junior high/early high school. (And, to be honest, continues to this day.) We’ve got classics like 1984, Brave New World, and The Handmaid’s Tale. Whole new generations are getting in on the act with things like The Hunger Games and Divergent books, among many others. One of the greatest of this ilk, and one of my favorites, is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Francois Truffaut brought it to the screen in 1966, but now HBO has an impending adaptation with a fresh new trailer.

'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 2 Trailer Lights A Fire

The first season of Hulu’s The Handmaid’sTale was not only grim and timely and captured the attention of audiences and end-of-year awards voters for those very reasons, it also encapsulated the entire narrative from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel. Basically, the young series is in uncharted water from here on out. Where season 2 goes remains to be seen, but we have our first look at the upcoming episodes in this new trailer.

Holy Shit, 'The FP 2' Is Happening And You Can Help

If you haven’t watched the Trost Brothers’ The FP, do yourself a favor, drop whatever you’re doing, and rectify that oversight. It’s a movie I once described as “like watching the hyperactive, sugar-fueled bastard child of The Warriors, Japanese pop culture, and a hillbilly bounce all over the screen.” Well now there’s a sequel, Beats of Rage: The FP 2, in the works, and you can help Beat-Beat this shit into reality.

'It Comes At Night' (2017) Movie Review

Grim, bleak, desolate. These are just a few accurate words to describe It Comes at Night, the moody new slow-burn horror joint from writer/director Trey Edward Shults (Krisha). An unrelenting apocalyptic mood piece about how people cope with the end of the world, vagaries and uncertainty abound, and the oppressive downer nature is certain to crush the spirit and will to live of many a viewer. Which means it’s my kind of bummer.

New 'The Handmaid's Tale' Trailer Is A Damn Scorcher

I cancelled my Hulu subscription recently. There’s great stuff available, but between other services and an increasing lack of free time, I simply didn’t use it enough to justify another expense. But I think I jumped the gun, based largely on The Handmaid’s Tale. Their adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s all-too-plausible dystopian nightmare already had my attention, but holy hell, this new trailer is all of the fire emojis.

'The Handmaid's Tale' Trailer Intends To Survive

Hulu’s upcoming adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, couldn’t be timed any better. Unless maybe it debuted late next week. We’ve seen a few stills, but today brings our first look at actual footage. Check out the first trailer below.

'The Handmaid's Tale': Take A First Look At Hulu's Margaret Atwood Adaptation Starring Elisabeth Moss

Earlier this year I reread Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction masterwork The Handmaid’s Tale. It had been a while, but I was struck by how prescient and immediate and current the 1985 novel felt. People are fond of debating which fictional dystopia we’re going to wind up with—the frontrunners are always George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (though the current landscape certainly feels like a synthesis of the two).

'The Purge: Election Year' (2016) Movie Review

As a franchise, The Purge is steeped in the low-budget exploitation fare of previous generations. The first film was a rote home invasion yarn with a dystopian sci-fi twist thrown in for good measure. A year later, The Purge: Anarchy was a grim, nasty throwback revenge thriller. Produced on the cheap, both were wildly profitable, and two years later we have The Purge: Election Year, which escalates the saga to an absurdist, (il)logical (hopefully) conclusion.

'High-Rise' (2015) Movie Review: Mania, Narcissism, And Power Failure

Cards on the table: I adore J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise. Normally it takes quite a bit to get me excited about an adaptation, especially of a book I love, but the moment I heard Ben Wheatley, the man behind such gonzo, genre defying fare as Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field in England, was on the case, it all just made so much damn sense. I would have kept a close eye on either a new Ben Wheatley film or an adaptation of High-Rise, but the fact that I could do both at the same time was just gravy.

Movie Review: 'The Divergent Series: Allegiant'

There’s a definite hierarchy in the world of dystopian young adult movie adaptations. The Hunger Games obviously ruled the roost for four movies, and The Maze Runner films have found a nice spot in the marketplace. But for every successful franchise there are a handful of nonstarters—I Am Number Four, The Mortal Instruments—that never find an audience, despite the popularity of the source novels. The Divergent Series films are a kind of middle ground. They’re not huge, record-shattering affairs, but they’re popular enough that they keep coming, and while they’ve never been particularly egregious, they’ve been, at best, innocuous. The latest chapter, however, The Divergent Series: Allegiant, takes a precipitous nosedive from bland and forgettable to straight up terrible.

'High-Rise' Trailer Meets With Moderate Resistance

From the early responses at fall film festivals like Toronto and Fantastic Fest last year, it’s abundantly clear that Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise isn’t going to be for everyone, but it certainly appears to be for me. It’s set to finally hit in a month or so, and there’s yet another new trailer to keep you occupied until then.

Tom Hiddleston Is An Excellent Specimen In New 'High-Rise' Trailer

Ben Wheatley’s (Kill List, Sightseers) adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s dystopian classic High-Rise got mixed reviews after it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but this is still near the top of my most anticipated movies of 2016. It’s creeping closer every day, and another great new trailer is here for your perusal.

Movie Review: 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2'

As the title implies, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 is not a movie that tells a complete story. While last year’s Mockingjay—Part 1 was like watching the first half of a to-be-continued TV episode, Part 2 is a lot like picking up a book, opening to the middle, and starting from there. For those of you familiar with the dystopian woes of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and the drama in the near-future world of Panem, this provides a mostly satisfactory conclusion the saga.