Given our current political predicament, no line in cinema feels more relevant than when Bob Hauk, the police commissioner in Escape from New York, says to Snake Plissken, “The president’s gone missing.” To which Plissken coolly responds, “President of what?”
Released in 1981 and directed by John Carpenter, Escape from New York, is arguably the greatest dystopian film of the genre—not so far-fetched as to be pure science fiction, but just real enough to paint a picture of a broken America we can all recognize. Carpenter’s world is one of urban decay, class struggle, and the kind of political fascism that is wrapped in the language of national security. His vision of abandonment and capitulation was just as true then, as it is now.
For those of you who missed this film (or weren’t yet born) the plot is classic high-concept dystopia: In the far-future of 1997, Manhattan has been transformed into a maximum security penitentiary, sealed-off from the rest of the country by a militarized police force who is looking for an excuse to kill. When Air Force One is hijacked by the National Liberation Front of America and crashes inside New York City, the government is forced to turn to ex-special forces solider, turned convict, Snake Plissken—played by a magnificent Kurt Russell— to infiltrate the city and rescue the president.
Plissken’s deal is simple, he either rescues the president within 24 hours, receiving “a full pardon for every criminal act conducted in the United States,” or he’ll die trying. Realizing this isn’t really a choice at all, he deadpans the inevitable, “I guess I go in, one way or another.” From there, the film is pure frenzy, a kinetic bangarang of literal escape sequences where the urban environment relentlessly closes in from all directions, heightening our sense of claustrophobia and anxiety. The once glorious Manhattan skyline is no more than a ramshackle husk, its abandoned buildings and subways teeming with warlords, rival gangs, and sewer-dwelling Crazies. You can figure out the rest.
Escape from New York exists in that late-70s, early 80s sweet spot where films openly defied both studio and audience expectations. The anti-authoritarianism of contemporary films like The Warriors (1979), Mad Max (1979), Blade Runner (1982), and Terminator (1984) weren’t just casual themes that motivated the story’s narrative, they were the entire point of the narrative. But what really tied these films together was their characters—mad bastards, navigating rules that are shaped by chaos and brutality. Like Plissken, the protagonists of this era weren’t heroes with some hidden idealism that emerged in the third-act to save the day— they were anti-heroes, precisely because there was no day worth saving. It might be hard to imagine now, but at the time, this was a huge departure from what a film’s pay-off was expected to deliver.
Shot on a relatively moderate budget of $6 million, primarily in St. Louis, Escape from New York, was Carpenter’s sixth film, following classics like Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, and The Fog. This would also be the first of three films including — Big Trouble in Little China and The Thing — where Carpenter and Russel collaborated to make 1980s cult magic. Yet the real spell-work of Escape from New York lies in its brilliant supporting cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Donald Plesance, Adrienne Barbeau, and of course, legends like Issac Hayes and Lee Van Cleef.
Each character is a stand-in for some aspect of an America gone rogue. Commenting on the nihilism of Escape from New York, Carpenter said, “The whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President” (sounds familiar). He went on to say that no studio wanted to make it, “It was too violent, too scary, too weird.” However, at the time of release, critical reviews were quite positive. Time Magazine’s, Richard Corliss, remarked that the film allowed moviegoers to escape into “the hothouse humidity of their own paranoia,” while Newsweek, commented on Carpenter’s “deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility,” along with the effectiveness of Russel’s performance as Snake Plissken.
The cultural power of Escape from New York persists for a few reasons, the iconic look of Plissken and his breezy coolness, along with the adoption of the film’s aesthetics into classic video games like Metal Gear Solid and Cyberpunk 2077. More so than that, it is the cultural undercurrent that challenges us to distrust authority—the perfect punk parallel for the authoritarianism that Carpenter saw coming as far back as 1981. Carpenter’s brand of defiant, scrappy, independent filmmaking also reminds us of an era when low-budget ingenuity, paired with a razor-sharp script, was worth infinitely more than today’s algorithm-driven content factories that churn out forgettable, focus-grouped drivel.
In summation, we obviously recommend you watch Escape from New York on VHS—grainy, analog, the way Snake Plissken intended. If you lack the required technology let us know and we’ll point you in the right direction (we got a VCR guy). And just to complete your dystopian experience, there’s a VHS Club playlist below: 15 songs from 1981 that will really set the mood for your Escape from New York watch party.
VHS Club is a bi-weekly expedition into the dark alleys and neon-lit backstreets of forgotten cinema history. Every other week we’ll revisit a film that still lurks in the culture, celebrating cult-classics, B-movie brilliance, and exploitation epics that are too métier for the overlords controlling our streaming platforms. These films come from our personal collection, living on those old tapes which can still be found in the back of thrift-stores and antique malls; passed around by cinephiles, horror heads, crime connoisseurs, and action junkies. Some are cinematic masterpieces, while others are just beautiful, glorious trash.
Let us know if there is a film you want reviewed for VHS Club by sending an email to hello@rvamag.com with VHS Club in the subject line.
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