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I saw The Platform last night, on Netflix. It is a dark, fascinating movie. Hard to categorize; there are elements of speculative fiction, horror, action and thriller.

Premise: The movie takes place in a vertical, tower-like prison, each level having two inmates. Every day, a platform containing a large amount of food is lowered, stopping briefly on each level to feed the inmates. There is supposed to be enough food for everyone, but no system or incentive to force people to ration how much they eat. Therefore, those on the top levels gorge themselves with the best food, those on the middle levels get the scraps nobody else wanted, and those on the lower levels get nothing at all. Every month, the inmates are moved to a random level: you might eat very well on level 5 one month, only to spend the next month starving on level 117. All inmates curse the ones above them for their selfishness, but when it's their turn to eat, they give no consideration to those below them. The story follows a new inmate as he learns the "rules" of the place and decides there has to be a better way where everyone gets to eat.

Mind, this is definitely not an uplifting movie about people learning to get along. It's extremely dark and violent, and explores some of the ugliest sides of human nature and society. And there is more than one interpretation possible for the allegory of the platform. (Some of them political, so I won't discuss them here.)

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This brief description made me think of Snowpiercer for some reason.

It does have many thematic elements in common with Snowpiercer, but was more different than I expected. It is equally bleak and violent, though less action-focused and very dialogue-heavy. Compared to Snowpiercer, The Platform is more "downwards-looking" (make sure everyone survives) than "upwards-looking" (overthrow the system). The enemy in The Platform seems very remote; not a villain with a face, a name and clear motives, but more of an abstraction. The movie does a good job of showing how oppression can persist when the oppressed are pitted against one another.