The Platform on Netflix looks to be another runaway hit for the streaming giant. While the timing of its release is impeccable, its success is probably due to how deeply embedded it is in the current cultural zeitgeist. With Parasite's historic Best Picture win, the English speaking world has never been more receptive to foreign language cinema.
Furthermore, as the world seems more divided than ever, it's not surprising that films that take an allegorical look at the world's problems are also hitting big. The Platform is a Spanish sci-fi/horror film set in the prison of your nightmares, and, if you enjoyed it, here are ten more films to keep you entertained. Warning: some The Platform spoilers ahead.
The Thing (1982)
Let's start with a classic. John Carpenter's The Thing follows a team of arctic researchers when an unknown alien enters their midst. Able to shapeshift into almost any form, the team suddenly realizes that each one of them could be the intruder. A lot of the horror in The Thing comes from friends and colleagues suddenly turning on one another. With each man suddenly only thinking of his own survival, the humans could be just as dangerous as the creature, just as in The Platform when cellmates are moved to levels with no food and quickly turn on each other to survive.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Another great film from director Bong Joon-ho, and his first to feature western castmembers. Chris Evans plays Curtis, a revolutionary stuck in the steerage compartment of a train that contains the entire population of the earth.
As the train moves through a frozen wasteland, so too do Curtis and his revolution move from carriage to carriage, quite literally moving up the classes of society as they do so. Plotwise, it's very similar to The Platform, but much darker in parts, and these movies would make an excellent double-bill.
The Devil's Backbone (2001)
The Devil's Backbone is another Spanish masterpiece, and one of the earliest films Guillermo Del Toro. Set during the Spanish Civil War, a young boy is moved to an isolated orphanage, which is haunted by a ghost, but of more than one kind.
In a similar way to The Platform, Devil's Backbone takes a small story in a single location, but, through metaphor, manages to expand it out to much larger story on human nature, sometimes with sad and wonderful effects. It's an excellent spooky fairytale about both finding and losing yourself in terrible circumstances.
Raw (2016)
Raw is one of the most startling and original horror movies in recent years. If you're a fan of the squeamish and spine-tingling moments of body horror in The Platform, then this is a film almost tailor-made for you. It follows a young woman as she joins an elite veterinarian school in France which her older sister already attends. On one level, it is very much a coming-of-age story and about sibling rivalry and love, it just so happens to tell this story with cannibalism. Both films use gore excellently to explore the darker and stranger aspects of humanity, but they might put you off eating meat forever.
Saw (2004)
It may now be more well known as one of the most bloated and overly-long horror franchises in history, but the first installment still definitely holds up. Kicking off a real trend of torture movies in which captured humans must perform stomach-churning tasks and challenges for the amusement of a maniac, Saw also clearly influenced The Platform, at least in concept. The gore and horror really gets under your skin as an examination of just how far humans can go for their own survival; nobody enjoys being shown something they thought humans would never be capable of.
The Hunt (2020)
Already infamous for being denied a cinema release not once, but twice, this twisty horror satire is finally finding its audience at home. A variant of The Most Dangerous Game, The Hunt combines horror with social commentary as it follows a group of "undesirables" as they are hunted for sport by "liberal" elites.
Like the prison structure in The Platform, this film shows the horror of societal hierarchy, not just for its injustice, but also how it forces humans to treat each other. Luckily, there are more laughs in The Hunt, so it makes a nice alternative if you find The Platform too bleak.
Piercing (2018)
Piercing is a very small, but very interesting horror movie. It follows an awkward man, Reed, as he fantasizes about committing murder. Eventually, he has to give in to temptation, so he hatches a plan, practices, and invites a girl over to his apartment. Unfortunately, as soon as she arrives things start to go wrong.
One of The Platform's great strengths is in the writing; characters use their wits often to survive and to get one over on their cellmates. Similarly, Piercing, while blackly humorous, is also a master class of building tension, and, through the two characters' dialogue, their relationship becomes one of the most interesting elements of the film.
Train To Busan (2016)
For the budding new Korean Cinefile, zombie horror smash hit Train to Busan is an absolute must. As a businessman and his daughter board a train, a zombie apocalypse begins to break out across Korea. As a few infected also board the train soon, it is down to one carriage of people to work together to survive.
Again a film that offers a lot of social commentary within its small premise; the survivors come from all walks of life, and egos and morals clash as different members of society argue over how to handle the situation. A great film that also manages to say a lot while keeping its story entertainingly simple.
Funny Games (1997)
While director Michael Haneke remade his own film in English, the original German version makes the whole affair slightly more surreal. Two young men turn up at an upper-class family home and play on their naivety and ignorant goodwill to eventually kidnap and torture each family member.
Another horror film that focuses on class issues, but with an interesting moral twist. With a thread of black humor, you'll be amazed at what the rich family agrees to, but, also, at one point, the film begins to make you oddly complicit in the violence to very unsettling effect.
Rec/Rec 2 (2007/09)
Finally, a double-billing, and another great Spanish horror series. Firmly within the found footage genre, Rec was a big hit when it was released. Following a documentary crew as they join a fire crew on a callout to a building whose residents have some kind of infection.
Excellently plotted and genuinely scary, these films should come as a double bill, as they both feed into and work off each other. Rec 2 begins seven minutes after the first film ends and is one of the rare sequels that improves on the first film. It will have you on the hiding behind your hands, but the story is good enough that you won't be able to look away.