The Platform (2019)

The Platform (2019) is a brutal, claustrophobic sci‑fi horror thriller built around a simple, savage premise: a vertical prison with one two-person cell per level and a single food platform that descends from the top, pausing just two minutes at each floor. When people above gorge themselves, those below starve, and the system quickly turns survival into a moral and physical nightmare. You follow Goreng, who awakens in the Pit hoping to better his social standing, and who must navigate shifting cellmates — from the ruthless Trimagasi to the idealistic Imoguiri and the determined Baharat — while encountering the silent, violent Miharu, who rides the platform looking for her child. As months and levels pass, the film alternates tense, often gory set pieces with quieter, disturbing moments of psychological breakdown, bargaining and unexpected solidarity. The story escalates into a desperate plan to change the system, forcing characters to confront cruelty, complicity and the limits of altruism. Viewing experience: expect tense, tightly staged scenes in a single, oppressive environment; stark visual contrasts between abundance and deprivation; harsh, sometimes shocking violence (including cannibalism); and a slow-burn, thought‑provoking tone that mixes social allegory with survival horror. The film is as much a moral fable about inequality, consumption and human nature as it is a visceral thriller — unsettling, sometimes harrowing, and designed to provoke debate rather than offer easy answers. Content warning: explicit violence, gore, strong themes of starvation and cannibalism, and disturbing psychological moments.

Actors: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Runtime: 94 min

Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

6.4 /10 73 /100 7.0 /10 6.9 /10