Ross v Ross

This week sees the release of The Hunger Games, set in a world where people – not necessarily consenting – participate in a tournament in which they are forced to kill the other competitors for the amusement of other people. With that in mind, Ross McD counts down the top five films where people – not necessarily consenting – participate in a tournament in which they are forced to kill the other competitors for the amusement of other people.

5. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

What’s love got to do with it? Nothing! It’s all about control of Bartertown for Tina Turner, who uses the half constructed Millennium Dome to stage scraps between people who piss her off. When Mad Mel does he’s forced to fight the trickier half of the tag team Master Blaster. Best of all, this game is a two-fer, because straight after they play WHEEL…. OF…. FORTUNE!!! You can’t buy a vowel, but you can be disembowelled.

4. The Running Man

Hardened criminals forced to run a gauntlet and avoid death at the hands of the Stalkers… a good deal of people would probably behind a programme like this being commissioned. Obviously, you wouldn’t put Arnie in there, cause he’d just kill all the Stalkers and ruin it for everybody else. Anyway, it’s set in 2017 following the collapse of the global economy… so uh, watch this space.

3. Gladiator

Don’t think all this forcing people to slice each other to bits is reserved for the futuristic dystopias – the guys in ancient Rome were on to this a loooong time ago. Even so, the gladiatorial games boasted plenty of high tech gadgets and wizardry, including the ability to flood arenas for water-based battles and – as poor Maximus Decimus Meridius discovered – tiger hiding trap doors. It wasn’t always good sport – sometimes they simply threw a group of unarmed people into a pit of lions simply because of their religion. Luckily, global society has moved on from such barbaric sectarian practices…

2. Series 7: The Contenders

This perfectly timed film was released just as the reality TV craze was hitting full speed in 2001. Six people are randomly chosen in via social security number lottery and must off each other in a chosen town until one remains. You have to win three times to win your freedom, which in itself seems a little much, and extra tricky if you are eight months pregnant, which Series 7’s two-time champion is. Families and friends can accompany and watch from a distance but are not allowed to interfere, which makes for one particularly harrowing scene when the parents of an 18-year-old student contestant helplessly look on as their daughter is beaten to death by a crutch-wielding pensioner. Big Brother really missed a trick there.

1. Battle Royale

Keeping in mind how mad Japanese schoolchildren are, I’m not quite sure if this was a film or a documentary. Puplis are told they are going on a class trip, are gassed on the bus and dropped off on an island and told to kill each other, lest their tracking collars detonate. Each is issued with a supplies pack with random weapon, and despite this film being as far as you can possibly get from a comedy, you will LOL long and hard when you see some students have been issued the likes of a Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, Micro Uzi 9mm Machine Gun, M870 Pump-Action Shotgun or Crossbow, while others have been issued a pair boxing gloves, a paper fan, a cloth headband or a pot lid.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2012 at 3:08 pm and is filed under TOP FIVES with tags Battle Royale, Movies, The Hunger Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.