The year is 2019. Television is now ruling people’s lives. The most popular “audience participation” game show is “The Running Man” – where convicts can win pardons instead of “parting gifts” by defeating murderous henchmen known as “stalkers.” The stalkers haven’t had much of a challenge lately…until Ben Richards comes along.

Ok, confession, when this film came out in 1987 it scared the holy hell out of me. Well, let’s face it, I was nine, dog farts could have scared me. There are pieces in this film that for me, definitely qualify as horror, even if it doesn’t fit some people’s definition; at least IMDB has it under the thriller category.

The Running Man, based off the novella of the same name by Richard Bachman, takes convicts and drops them into game grid where either they defeat the stalkers coming after them or they die. Even without the stalkers popping out of no where and the cooked corpses in the locker room, this film creates an atmosphere for tension. The score weaves itself beneath the cinematography to heighten the game show race of our lives element.

Perhaps one of the better roles with Schwarzenegger, his one liners are kept to a minimum and a good portion of the film is Conan like fighting, meaning he grunts and throws things or shoots people. Perfect for the Govenator (don’t get me wrong, I actually do like him). Thankfully he’s got people to bail him out in this one, Yaphet Kotto and Richard Dawson specifically.

However, as well as this film has held up in the past twenty years, it holds a new terror that it didn’t have in 1987. Films like this and Escape from New York have a whole new fear to them, they are becoming increasingly likely to happen in real life. Cameras everywhere, the prison system over crowded and failing, a lack of traditional morality among the human race, there’s so much to point at the possibility of executing convicts via live television and while comedians may joke about rating going through the roof, sometimes I wonder if its such a joke anymore.

If you’ve seen it before, give it a watch with that thought in mind. If you haven’t, give it a watch just to enjoy it. It’s a great way to waste some time. One thing’s for certain, what rated an R in ’87 probably wouldn’t rate one today.

I give it: