Squid Game, Netflix’s new survival thriller series, has caught the fancy of digital viewers the world over. The series has stormed the digital space with its unabashed heart-on-its-sleeve storytelling. Action, thrill, drama, emotion and its main selling point – lots of vivid violence, blood and gore. Squid Game is definitely the most compelling thing on streaming right now. The show has climbed up the charts to land at number one on the Netflix Top Ten in most countries of the world. Netflix has scored a huge win by picking up this unique and fascinating show for its platform.
If you’ve watched and loved Squid Game, and want to watch shows or movies on similar lines, we’ve got just the thing for you. Here are ten shows and movies with the dystopian survival theme that you might just like –
1. Alice In Borderland – Series, Netflix
This Japanese survival thriller show has stirred up renewed chatter about it on social media owing to its similarities with Squid Game. In an alternate reality, a jobless, addicted-to-video-games young man and his friends find themselves trapped in an abandoned Tokyo, along with a bunch of other people. Everyone must compete in a set of dangerous games in order to survive. The difficulty levels of the games are decided by the card they choose from a set of sinister playing cards. As the danger and difficult levels rise after each round, players that fail to receive “visas” to the next round are executed by red lasers shot from the sky. The show has received a lot of appreciation from audiences, and counts as a must watch.
2. Cube – Movie, Lionsgate Play
A bunch of strangers, each with a special skill to their personality, find themselves trapped in cubes within a giant cube. The cubic cells are rigged with dangerous booby traps and one false move can cost them their life. The strangers must work together In order to solve the confounding mystery of how to get out of the sinister cubic maze. A former cop, a skilled architect, an autistic savant, a scientist, a maths genius, are among the people trapped. The only way out for them is pooling their skills and finding their way through the danger. Cube is an intriguing, intelligent and pacy thriller that deserves a watch.
3. Panic – Series, Amazon Prime Video
Every summer, fresh graduates compete in a set of dangerous games for considerable prize money – their only way to escape their small Texas town and its inherent drudgery and poverty. The stakes are higher this year, but protagonist Heather realises that there’s something more sinister and evil to the game of “Panic” than meets the eye.
4. 3% – Series, Netflix
3% is a survival thriller set in a dystopian future in a country ridden with poverty. The common population lives in extreme squalor in the ‘Inland’, while a few privileged lot of people live in luxury in the ‘Offshore’. Every year, the 20 year olds of the Inland get a chance to become citizens of the Offshore by passing a series of tests called as the ‘Process’. The limitation is that only the best 3% of the candidates make it to the Offshore. The rest are simply murdered and eliminated. There are 4 seasons of this Brazilian thriller, proving the popularity of the show.
5. Hunger Games – Set of 4 Movies, Lionsgate Play
In the post-apocalyptic future, the country is divided into 12 districts. Every year, one young boy and girl is chosen from each district to participate in a set of dangerous games in a fight to death, until there is only one survivor. All four films in the quartet of films were hits, setting box office records, and establishing lead Jennifer Lawrence as a legit Hollywood superstar.
6. Battle Royale – Movie
A horrific Japanese film that pits 9th graders against each other in a game of life and death. 42 9th grade students are put on a deserted island, with an explosive collar around their neck. Their aim is to kill each other and be the last man standing. If anyone breaks a rule, the collar around their neck explodes. If there is more than one survivor, their collars explodes, killing all of them. The film is full of blood and gore, as the participants meet grisly ends all through the runtime.
7. The Belko Experiment – Movie, YouTube
An ordinary day at the office becomes a horrific quest for survival when 80 employees (John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona) at the Belko Corp. in Bogotá, Colombia, learn that they are pawns in a deadly game. Trapped inside their building, a voice over an intercom tells the frightened staffers that two workers must be killed within 30 minutes. When another ultimatum follows, friends become enemies and new alliances take shape, as only the strongest will remain alive at the end.
8. Escape Room – Movie, YouTube, Apple TV Plus, Google Play
Six people from different walks of life participate in an Escape Room challenge, lured by the huge sum of money as the prize. Once inside the office block consisting of the rooms, there’s no going back for them. They soon discover that the rooms are booby trapped and the only way out of the series of Escape Rooms is dying a painful, grisly death. The participants are killed in various horrific ways – falling from a height or carbon monoxide poisoning or being frozen to death in a room full of ice, and more.
9. Cadaver – Movie, Netflix
It is the aftermath of a nuclear disaster and there’s no food to be found anywhere. However, in the midst of the squalor is a grand hotel that offers sumptuous food to the starving. Lured by the promise of food, a family enters the hotel, only to be caught in a dangerous game of survival or death.
10. Maze Runner – Movie, Disney Plus Hotstar
A teenaged boy (Dylan O’Brien), along with other youngsters, find themselves trapped inside a massive area called the “Glade”, with no memory of their past or how they got there. As they establish a working society inside the Glade, they realise that their only chance to get out is to search for an exit in the sprawling Maze surrounding the Glade. But that has its own dangers, and it soon becomes a fight between survival and death.
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