The Spanish dystopian sci-fi satire The Platform has been set for a Netflix release for a while. The streaming giant bought the distribution rights when the movie made its US premiere at Fantastic Fest in September 2019, and the plan was always to release it sometime in 2020. But at that stage no one could have predicted how horribly apt the release of a movie in which isolation and food shortage play a key part of the plot would be in March 2020.

Like many of the best dystopian sci-fi movies--from Planet of the Apes to Escape from New York--The Platform takes modern life to a chilling extreme. At some point in the future, prisoners are placed into a narrow skyscraper-like construction consisting of hundreds of levels, known amongst the inmates as the pit. Each level is occupied by two people, with a gap in the center through which a large platform passes daily. At the start of each day, the platform is loaded with an incredible array of food--slowly it descends through the pit, giving the inhabitants at each stage a few minutes to grab what they can. The further the platform descends, the less food there will be for those on the lower levels. Each inmate duo starts every month randomly assigned to a new level--it could be one of the higher levels, where food is plentiful, or down below with only a few scraps.

The Platform is not a subtle movie, and its influences are obvious. The 1997 cult sci-fi favorite Cube is an obvious comparison, with its protagonists trapped in a room in a mysterious futuristic building, as is Snowpiercer, with its inventive take on class and social divisions. Surreal Spanish director Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel is another; this 1962 classic focuses on a group of upper-class dinner guests who find they cannot leave the room and descend into a primal state. And there are also shades of groundbreaking writers JG Ballard and Samuel Beckett, and their dark dystopian visions and absurdist comedy respectively.