Who doesn’t love it when a movie transports you into the heart of a crazy setting, a world gone awry? The horrible governments, the terrifying zombies and, best of all, the badasses who get to take them all down…There’s nothing better! That’s why we’re all so excited about the upcoming DVD release of Snowpiercer (releasing October 21st ).
In honor of this awesome movie, we’d like to whet your appetite with some of the other scariest post-apocalyptic worlds that video games, television and literature has to offer!
**Brought to you by Snowpiercer, coming to Blu-ray or DVD October 21st**
Scariest Post-Apoc Worlds
Bioshock
Technically the world doesn’t end in the 1960s (when Bioshock takes place), but if you can imagine a more messed up futuristic, dystopian world than Rapture, you should probably see a psychiatrist. With plenty of psycho plastic surgeons, drugged out socialites and insane little girls wandering around, you would be hard-pressed to find a scarier place than this little gem of a bathysphere.
The Hunger Games
Another authoritarian regime rears its ugly head in this “young adult” novel series. Panem, the name given to a series of districts that are tied together in slavery by the watchful eye of a wealthy caste of elites, is a place of sorrow, misery and horror. What else would you call a state that pits kids against each other in a gladiatorial deathmatch every year? And you know what the winner gets? You guessed it, enough food to survive.
1984
This book invented the creepy dystopian future. And for Orwell, it is characterized by a government that constantly monitors its people and makes sure they abide by its rules. And if you don’t think the world of 1984 is post-apocalyptic, you, my friend, are wrong. In no uncertain terms, Oceania and the two other super-states that exist in this world were formed as a consequence of a global war. Not to mention the fact that, according to Big Brother, Oceania is still in perpetual war with the two other states. That seems like some end-of-the-world type stuff to us.
The Last of Us
This reimagining of the decades old zombie-horror setting is probably one of the most disturbing on this list. With only pockets of humanity left, people, not zombies, have become the true animals in this post-apocalyptic version of the United States. Whether it’s the draconian government that cages its people like rats or the splinter group of freedom fighters that are willing to sacrifice the lives of innocents to pursue their goals, there is nothing redeeming about the world that Joel and Ellie have to traverse in this epic game.
Battlestar Galactica
Man makes robots. Man exiles robots. Robots destroy man… Except for one ship. But that’s not all, the robots continue to chase down that ship and try to exterminate every last human being as punishment for their mistreatment. It’s probably the only time that I’ve ever watched a show about fighter pilots in space and not thought, “Hey, that would be a lot of fun!”
Children of Men
According to this book, the end of the world can be summed up in three words: No more pregnancy. And, oddly enough, with no more kids, the future doesn’t seem so bright. People tend to care a lot less when humanity will cease to exist within the next 80 years. Well, except for the totalitarian government that is…
The Walking Dead
This series of graphic novels and video games is most likely the precursor and inspiration for a lot of the world building that occurs in the Last of Us . There’s a zombie outbreak. Most of the population is wiped out. And the few people who are left to carry on, do so with so much fear, anger and anxiety that they might as well consider themselves dead already.