If Videodrome is cyberpunk, They Live should be, too.
Cyberpunk
What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.
Cyberpunk characteristics include:
- Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
- Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
- Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
- Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
- Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.
Prefixes for posts
- [Art]
- [AI Art]
- [Game]
- [Video]
- [Movie]
- [Book]
Icon created by @[email protected].
Banner generated via AI model.
Videodrome is definitely early cyberpunk, as far as I'm concerned.
Lawnmower Man fits here too but the book was so much better.
Also Virtuosity fits too, Denzel vs Russell Crowe makes for a good action thriller.
Isn't the Lawnmower Man book a short story that has practically nothing to do with the movie?
System Shock, though I mostly know it from the fan novel Free Radical.
I saw some of Signalis in a lets play and really liked it. It's not my kind of gameplay exactly but I'd like to see a more thorough playthrough at some point.
Yeah, Signalis has that fixed camera that reminds me of old Resident Evil games but i wasn't sure if it actually goes horror. I haven't played it either.
And I've never heard of Free Radical, thanks!
It’s definitely full horror, inspired by silent hill and resident evil would be an understatement, and I LOVE it
Signalis seems to be emphasizing the survival horror aspect in their descriptions, but the looks and content are rad, and very cyberpunk I think. It references Lovecraft a few times, so it seems more like they're aiming for a kinda existential horror? I haven't seen all of it and the playthrough I saw unfortunately skipped a lot of the lore stuff I would have dug into.
Free Radical is fun - I think it's very much worth reading, especially for the later stuff around the AI
Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049.
I can't believe I forgot this one, but Morgan was an awesome little quietly-cyberpunk sci-fi horror thing, which turned out to be much more cyberpunk in concepts at least, as it got towards the end. It doesn't go for the aesthetics, but the plot and concepts make it, I think. Is 'Fridge Cyberpunk' a thing? The more you think about it the more cyberpunk it gets? I haven't seen it in a few years but I'm definitely going to watch it again now.
Also, Alien/Aliens has to count right? Lots of cyberpunk stuff takes place in space, but Aliens is one of the few to go as far into space as they did. Still, they've got a lot of the elements, from the evil corporation who treats their employees like replaceable investments, to people explicitly manufactured and owned by those corporations. Aesthetically they set the standard for a lot of the used future technologies stuff too.
DEATH MACHINE