Explore eight very different visions of a dark future with these thoughtful and unsettling TV series and films.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Fans who’ve been transfixed by the first four seasons of the brilliant The Handmaid’s Tale will want to check out season 5, currently rolling out weekly . After a dramatic escape and a frenzied act of revenge against her abuser, Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), June (Elisabeth Moss) is locked in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with her enemy – and former co-abuser - Serena Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski). Season 5's dramatic turn of events sees June and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) continue to agitate for the release of their kidnapped daughter, Hannah.
The Handmaid’s Tale is compelling viewing, partly for Moss’s powerhouse performance as June, but also because the show hits an uncomfortable nerve with many of us, in a world where radical conservatism is on the rise.
And remember to listen to SBS Australia's award-winning and essential The Handmaid's Tale companion podcast, for episode recaps and exclusive interviews with stars and creators of The Handmaid's Tale.
War Of The Worlds
Now is the perfect time to catch up on the first two seasons of War Of The Worlds in anticipation of season 3, which can’t come soon enough (stand by for more details soon). HG Wells’ classic 1898 novel has been updated for the 21st century, with the original Martian invaders replaced by genocidal aliens from another galaxy. Where Wells made his Invaders hideous bug-eyed monsters, this version has opted to make the aliens more humanoid in appearance, but no less murderous.
The French- and English-language series stars Gabriel Byrne as neuroscientist Bill Ward, who may be humanity’s last hope in defeating the Invaders… which is why there’s a huge target on his back.
Fear The Walking Dead
What would you do in a zombie outbreak? Flee to a tropical island? Barricade yourself in a shopping mall or underground bunker? These questions are what make series like Fear The Walking Dead so popular. Viewers wonder how they’d survive the apocalypse and to what extremes they’d go to protect themselves and their families. Take the Clarks for example. At the start of season 3 they join a community living on a Texas ranch. But the undead are the least of their problems as they vie with rival communities for the most crucial resource in the desert: water.
Come season 4, the English-language series finally links up time-wise with the show that spawned it, The Walking Dead, with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) entering the scene. But don’t get too comfortable with his arrival. In a zombified world, who knows which cast members will make it to the end of the season alive.
Day Of The Dead
While it also features reanimated corpses, Day Of The Dead is a very different animal to Fear The Walking Dead. There’s plenty of gore and a high body count, but the series also has some fun with the concept. Based loosely on George Romero’s 1985 film of the same name, the English-language series is set in Pennsylvanian town Mawinhaken, where a local fracking operation unearths an ancient masked corpse that turns out to be not as dead as it seems.
When people start getting infected – or eaten – it’s up to gun-happy mayor Paula Bowman (Miranda Frigon) to pull together a ragtag team of survivors to put down the zombie outbreak before it spreads to other towns. Viewers who enjoy a good dose of black humour mixed in with their zombie mayhem will get a kick out of the show.
SF8
Fans of Black Mirror will enjoy this South Korean sci-fi anthology series that explores similar topics such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The poignant opening episode, “The Prayer”, is about robot nurse Gan Ho Jung (Yoo-Young Lee) who begins to develop emotions after spending 10 years looking after a comatose patient. When the patient’s daughter becomes suicidal, the nurse makes a heartrending decision that will radically alter everyone’s lives.
Not all stories focus on our relationship with technology. In “Baby It’s Over Outside”, Earth faces impending destruction via an approaching meteor. Meanwhile, random citizens start revealing to the public that they have superhuman abilities. Lonely rookie cop Nam Woo (Lee Da-wit) is one of these new superheroes and has a power that might save the planet… if only he could remember what it is.
A Scanner Darkly
A strange mix of animation, sci-fi and surreal slacker comedy, A Scanner Darkly is always entertaining, even when the viewer isn’t entirely sure what the hell is going on. The 2006 English-language film – adapted from Philip K. Dick’s 1977 sci-fi novel – is set in a near-future America where 20 per cent of the population is addicted to Substance D, which causes users to hallucinate and eventually suffer complete mental breakdown. Undercover cop Bob (Keanu Reeves) has become a junkie and spends his days tripping with his housemates including the paranoid, scheming Barris (Robert Downey Jr channelling Hunter S. Thompson). Keep an eye out for conspiracy nut Alex Jones in a minor role as a megaphone-wielding rabble-rouser.
Apples
Considering Apples deals with a global pandemic, this Greek-language film from 2020 is a surprisingly sweet and gentle dramedy. In a world only slightly different from ours – where analogue TVs, Polaroid cameras and tape recorders are still in regular use – a strange virus causes some people to suffer sudden amnesia. A young man (Aris Servetalis) wakes on a bus with no ID and no memory of who he is. After weeks in hospital without anyone coming for him, he’s placed in a recovery program designed to help amnesiacs build new lives. The emotionally withdrawn, apple-munching protagonist is initially given simple tasks such as riding a bike and diving into a swimming pool. But as the tasks become more complex and emotionally challenging, will they help him rediscover his past or shatter his already fragile mind?
Dark City
This US-Australian co-production from 1998 is a complex sci-fi noir with dazzling visuals that bears a passing resemblance to Blade Runner and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. When John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens in a bathtub with a dead sex worker lying nearby, he’s forced to flee both the police and a sinister group known as The Strangers. The cops – led by Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) – think John’s a serial killer, but psychiatrist Dr Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) knows the mind-bending truth.
Why is it constantly nighttime in Dark City? Why do all the citizens fall asleep every evening at midnight like clockwork? And why is nobody who they really seem to be?
The English-language film was directed by Australian Alex Proyas, who also gave audiences bleak world views in 1994’s The Crow and 2004’s I, Robot.
More from The Guide
Walk Hadrian's Wall with Robson Green
