How easily can capitalism turn human life into child’s play? Well, Squid Game has opened the eyes of the world to how vulnerable the poorest members of society are and how easily they can be taken advantage of. Before you pick up that phone call to go and “play children’s game for a cash prize,” you should binge on other great films and TV shows that are more exciting. The popularity of survival dramas has only increased with the billions of hours of viewing for Squid Game. If you are looking for other similarly interesting films and TV shows to watch while we wait for season 2 to drop, do give these a try…
3%
The Inland is an impoverished part of society in the near future, where most of humanity lives, and its living conditions are tough. The only way to get a better life is by being selected to join the affluent Offshore and the process is tough. It involves a series of tests and competitions that everyone 20 must participate in yearly. Only 3% of the 20-year-olds make it Offshore, but many don’t survive the tests. The four seasons of this Brazilian survival drama offer lots of entertainment that Squid Game fans will enjoy.
Space Sweepers
This is another Korean film that got international attention in 2021 thanks to its global approach to filming and presentation in different languages. The film is set in 2092 when the Earth becomes polluted and inhabitable, forcing a company called the UTC corporation to start taking a few people it considers favourable to live in the Earth’s Orbit. Getting the ticket to be a UTC citizen is the only way to escape the carnage on Earth, but very few people get to go.
The rest of the poor people have to live through anarchy or survive by collecting the rubble left behind in orbit and selling it back to the UTC corporation for money, and that is how they become space sweepers. The film follows the lives of a group of space sweepers on the Victory Crew, whose financial woes put them in a position almost similar to that of Squid Game players.
Belko Experiment
The Employees of Belko Industries come to work just like any other normal workday, only to find a group of strange-looking soldiers guarding their workplace. Upon entering the building, steel doors shut down on everyone, and a voice tells them that they have an hour to kill at least two of their colleagues or the explosive devices implanted in their heads will explode. It turns into a survival of the fittest game as employees are forced to kill their colleagues with staples and other office equipment until only one survives.
No One Gets Out Alive
The Aztec Goddess of Paradise, made possible by sacrifice, gives people wishes when they give a human sacrifice, and she lives in a boarding house in Cleveland. Red, the owner of the house, takes in undocumented immigrants to the US and sacrifices them one by one to the monster to get his wishes because that way, no one will miss them anyway. He continues with this practice until Ambar, an undocumented Mexican emigrant, finds herself in the Boarding house and on the monster’s sacrificial table.
Jumanji
Jumanji has become one of the most-viewed survival dramas on Netflix thanks to Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson’s performances. It follows different characters who get sucked into a real-life survival struggle when they agree to play a mysterious video game called Jumanji. The players are given three bars on their arms, which represent lives, and if someone loses all three, then they will die in real life, too.
Sweet Home
Hyun-Soo, a regular South Korean teen, moves into an apartment to try and piece his life together after losing his entire family in an accident. Unfortunately, human beings start turning into scary monsters, and now Hyun and his apartment-mates have to struggle to survive and save humanity. It turns bloody as no one seems to be able to survive the strange phenomenon that is intent on wiping out humanity.
Escape Room
Escape Room became a franchise after the producers decided to release the Tournament of Champions in 2021 after the first film’s success in 2019. It follows a group of people targeted by an organization known as Minos who are locked into different stages of tests, and many die until one last person survives and gets out. It started as a test with a $10,000 reward in the first film, but then it turned out to be a death trap in which no one came out alive.
Alice In Borderland
A group of people find themselves trapped in ab abandoned Tokyo and have to compete in different games to stay alive. The level of difficulty is determined by playing cards. If you successfully complete a season’s game, you are given a visa to live for another year. If you fail during the game, you will be killed by dangerous red lasers being shot from the sky.
The Call
What if you found a phone call that receives a phone call through time and connects you to a serial killer who allegedly killed your father? Well, this is another Korean thriller-horror that follows a woman named Kim who travels to her childhood home to find it in ruins and everything destroyed except for a cordless phone. She receives a phone call and finds out that whatever information she gives to the person on the other end will affect the life or death of a serial killer who may kill her family and change her reality in the present.
Alive
Joon-Woo, a video game player, found himself entrapped in an apartment when a virus turned his neighbours into zombies. The smart zombies hunt for him and another survivor in the neighbourhood, seeking to turn all of them into infected zombies. The gamer is forced to listen to his family’s last moments on the phone and watch as zombies maul down one of his neighbours.