Are You Scared of the U.S. Government Turning on Its Own Citizens? Try 1971’s ‘Punishment Park’

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On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark honors fringe cinema in the streaming age with midnight movies from any moment in film history.

First, the BAIT: a weird genre pick, and why we’re exploring its specific niche right now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled answer to the all-important question, “Is this old cult film actually worth recommending?”

The Bait: 1971’s (Non-Perishable) U.S. Political Apocalypse

Movies about viral pandemics and world-ending health disasters surged in popularity during the COVID-19 lockdown. Not because streaming audiences were craving escape from their dark reality, but because viewers were still quietly seeking recognition from the isolated safety of their homes. Those films didn’t offer “comfort” so much as confirmation, and watching “28 Days Later” or “Contagion” became a way to externalize your dread and exhaustion at a time when real life felt unfathomably apocalyptic.

That’s where 1971’s “Punishment Park” lands with terrifying precision in 2026. As tempers flare across the United States, and the fear of authoritarianism intensifies under a second Trump administration, that same baptism-by-fire instinct has returned to personal film programming. For many, this is not a moment for soothing cinema. It’s a time for artistic work that stares directly into the panic we face.

Directed by British filmmaker Peter Watkins, this 1971 pseudo-documentary imagines an America under a declared state of national emergency — one where Nixon’s martial law has replaced civil liberties and constitutionally protected dissent is treated as a criminal threat. (Sound familiar?) Watkins stages the film as a vérité documentary, shot on raw 16mm with an abrasive immediacy that collapses the distance between historical fiction and urgent journalism.

The result doesn’t feel speculative so much as barely hypothetical, even as its central conceit veers into “Hunger Games” territory. “Punishment Park” tracks two groups of political prisoners, Group 637 and Group 638, both accused of sedition. One group endures a sham tribunal while the other is offered a grotesque alternative to federal incarceration: three days running through the California desert without food or water, hunted by armed authorities, with freedom waiting at an American flag planted 53 miles away. As the prisoners split between pacifistic resistance and violent revolt, the movie becomes a menacing study of oppressive coercion under capitalism.

Half a century on, Watkins’ brilliant dialogue still circulates online, occasionally going viral to this day. Wander into the “r/socialism” subreddit, and you’ll find “Punishment Park” monologues dissected in modern threads that hash out their eerie, contemporary relevance. That timelessness is the most unsettling part of the film, which was widely censored upon release for daring to portray the U.S. government as a fascist aggressor. That’s reminder enough that censorship itself is cyclical.

Proceed with caution, of course. “Punishment Park” offers no relief and no faith in institutional redemption. Watching it before February feels like being trapped in a dystopian Groundhog Day — but in a moment as frightening as this, feeling seen may be the only comfort we have left. —AF

“Punishment Park” is now streaming on Tubi.

The Bite: The More Things Change…

At a time as tumultuous as this, my first instinct is to retreat inward through cinema — to watch something frothy and ridiculous, as far removed from the current circumstances as I can find. (My last movie logged on Letterboxd is “But I’m a Cheerleader,” for example.) So, I must confess that “Punishment Park” felt like a tall order for me to handle at this time, and watching it certainly didn’t offer me any comfort. But what it did provide was a fascinating glimpse into our recent history.

Incredibly prescient and smart in its depiction of power and corruption, Watkins’ work here is more than ahead of its time. Before this, I was aware of his most famous film, “The War Game,” but didn’t fully grasp that the docudrama and mockumentary formats owe their existence to his serious-minded approach to this style of storytelling. It’s easy to spot the DNA of countless later films in this incisive framework from 1971; “The Blair Witch Project,” “The Office,” and even death game stories like “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games” have roots in what Watkins is doing, even operating in its extreme political register.

What’s most impressive and disorienting about Watkins’ filmmaking is how easily it scans as the real deal. Of course, what you’re seeing is fake. The circumstances of Punishment Park are so extreme and frightening that there’s no way an oppressive U.S. government of the 1970s would let a documentary crew film it, and such an event would never escape history books. But recorded with a small skeleton crew of eight people and a single 16mm camera, “Punishment Park” is a convincing, rough-and-tumble simulation.

There are occasional moments of beauty in the scenes on location at the El Mirage Dry Lake, but for the most part, Watkins doesn’t dress things up excessively. The film is shot like the dirty, oppressive wasteland it’s meant to be, and a lot of credit goes to the ensemble assembled here. They nail their roles — be it political protestor or corrupt official — and bring frantic emotion to a tale that’s authentic rather than actorly.

The moment “Punishment Park” dips into full horror comes in its ending, when the crew of men and women who maintain their pacifist ideals under the threat of violence finally reach the American flag that was promised to them as a finish line that would guarantee their freedom, only for police to be waiting to attack them right in front of it. “You think we’d let them reach that flag? You think they deserved that flag?” a police officer snarls at the distressed documentarian. In a rigged system, playing nice doesn’t pay off at all, and as “Punishment Park” tells audiences, who really could use a reminder right now, sometimes the only solution is to escape entirely. —WC

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