Thanks to The Next Picture Show Podcast, I watched this incredibly brutal story with a plot similar to the Hunger Games books written by Susan Collins. It was a much more violent movie than I usually watch*, but I appreciated the realistic range of feelings expressed by the teenagers. That said, I’m happy to have watched it, and don’t plan on watching it ever again.
*I needed a palate cleanser after finishing it, but alas it was past my bedtime.
Cost: $3.00 from Videorama
Where watched: at home.
poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/?ref_=nv_sr_1
This has been in my Netflix queue for a long time but I never seem to get around to it. And yet I roll my eyes every time someone complains that The Hunger Games is a “rip off” of it because, apart from the fact that teens are forced to murder each other in a winner-takes-all type situation, from what I read, they aren’t all that similar. And as an author in the 21st century, you pretty much have to accept that somebody, somewhere, at some point in time has had an idea similar to yours, whether you know about it or not.
I agree. That said, there are more than a few things the same. It was kind of weird, watching them.
But someone on the Next Picture Show podcast quoted someone else as saying, “We’re all working from the same myths” And it’s true. Our collective unconscious is right out there in the ether.