When you love spooky movies like I do, it’s easy to think that you’ve seen it all. Dream demons, hockey mask-wearing zombies, killer clowns… what else could directors put onscreen to try to give you a fright? Fear not, horror fiends: The Platform is now streaming on Netflix, and this man-eat-man dystopian thriller will redefine terror for anyone who can make it to the end.
The premise of The Platform is that a man wakes up in a very special prison: a tower where prisoners are kept on different levels. The only way they can eat is by grabbing food that comes down via the titular platform, but they only have two minutes to eat and cannot hold onto any food. And the platform is never restocked on the way down, so the lower the cell, the less these starving jailbirds have to eat.
I’m hardly the first person to point this out, but The Platform functions a bit like a vertical version of The Cube, the famous movie where prisoners of a mysterious prison must navigate lethal puzzles in order to escape. Arguably, The Platform is even scarier because outright escape isn’t an obvious option, forcing the prisoners to find different ways to rebel. It gets even scarier when you see how prisoners treat those below them as completely inhuman based solely on which level they inhabit, even though their place continuously changes at the whims of the jailers.
Obviously, The Platform has had crunchy things to say about classism and the need for the underclass to rise up against their oppressors. But the movie also perfectly illustrates how difficult a revolution would be if everyone thinks they are superior to those below them. In this way, the movie illustrates that the key to solidarity is breaking the mental chains that bind us just as firmly as physical chains ever could.
If all this messaging is making you twitchy, don’t worry: The Platform never lets its politics get in the way of its story. Characters riding the platform down and sending messages back to faceless jailers can certainly be read as revolutionary acts, but they can also be read as the actions of desperate men trying to survive in an impossible situation. One way or another, the characters are doing what any of us would do in this situation: finding a way to fight back when you don’t even know who to punch.
Other Reactions To The Platform
As it turns out, critics were downright hungry for what The Platform has to offer. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a score of 81 percent, with critics praising the film for its unique premise and creepily captivating presentation. I have to agree: this is one of those movies that makes you ask “wait, that’s the whole plot?” and then keeps you glued to your screen from beginning to end.
Released in 2019, The Platform obviously isn’t a pandemic movie. But it gained new attention during the pandemic because of how relatable its terror felt: after all, many of us felt trapped in our own homes the same way our protagonist is seemingly trapped in a single room. But the allegory of the film succeeds mostly because it’s timeless, encouraging audiences to rise up against the powerful forces that control our lives and force us to accept only what they allow us to have. Honestly, isn’t that a message we can all get behind?
Will you agree that The Platform plunges us deeper into a new kind of horror, or is this one scary movie that gets stuck between floors? You won’t know until you press the button on your remote (not to be confused with the button on the nearest elevator) and check out this tower of terror today. If nothing else, you’ll never look at your meals the same way after watching this hunger-powered horror.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
