Death Race

In the dystopian vision of Terminal Island, New York, the year is 2020 and the United States penal system is on the brink of collapse. Overcrowding has become a rampant problem, with prisons bursting at the seams. The Weyland Corporation, a massive and ruthless conglomerate with no qualms about exploiting the desperate, has swooped in to take control of the prison system. What was once intended as a means of rehabilitation and safekeeping for the country's most hardened criminals has been transformed into a behemoth of fear and bloodlust. Inside the foreboding walls of this former penitentiary turned theme park, inmates from all corners of the country are rounded up to participate in a sinister game of survival known as the 'Death Race'. A global audience craves the non-stop spectacle of violence, betting, and ultraviolent frenzy that this event promises to deliver, making 'Death Race' the premier destination for bloodthirsty thrill-seekers the world over. At the heart of this tragic production line is Carlin, an ex-FBI sharpshooter on death row who finds himself wrongly accused and sentenced to a one-way ticket to a life of involuntary servitude. Carlin is a seasoned lawman with a background of making life and death calls on the edge of the law, well-versed in hand-to-hand combat and firearms. However, the twisted world of the Death Race forces him to level up his brutal fight skills at an intensity that could push him over the edge. The 'Death Race' production takes no prisoner. Weyland's design for the 'Death Squad' pits ten groups of battered and mentally unstable survivors from across the country in an arena meant for gladiatorial battles of the insane sort. Behind a veil of grandiose pomp and machismo splendor the 'Vengeance of Death', in collaboration with TV stations offering the warring program of brutal excess, drives a business built on the selling of prisoners bodies into this fight for their lives. In the midst of chaos, Carl Hauser emerges as a polarizing figure: a grizzled inmate who has been competing in the Death Race since its conception. Long branded a ruthless killing beast that earned him his ominous reputation and place within the arena - Hauser gains the sympathies of a good sector of the combatants, not least newcomers. A seasoned inmate by comparison to others, veteran inmates warn everyone how close you are to Hauser, how he'll never cease until he has taken down everyone near him, thus the two storylines bring them into conflict when Carl aligns himself directly with Weyland's management with the hopes of securing an early release in return for performing certain tasks during the show, Carl's character of slick bravado quickly unravels when an unnerving confrontation where a raw brutality unfolds leaves him entwined with the gruesome side of 'Death', whose stark grimness he can't escape as he faces his worst nightmares with a group of new, fresh inmates being plunged into this deadly vortex. In an attempt to throw Carlin into the fray at the eleventh hour as a bait for keeping their production healthy to lure viewers without having done much to do, considering him 'weak', Carl incurs Hauser's intense hatred for forcing him to expose himself in a new spin. Trudging forwards with a spirit devoid of hope, a dispirited, Carlin and Carl gradually intertwining into one sole event, though entwined in this unyielding, interlocking fiasco which each stands to endure. Set amongst a global landscape seething in rebellion against a dehumanizing technological regime. Carl offers himself into one desperate escape for all souls at Terminal Island, only to confront the dire dangers inherent to these very entwined forces to protect those and what has quickly come to stand in the face of its long-deteriorating values only to become an avenging spirit, as he uses adrenaline surging force of sheer anguish to pit against all odds the brutal confines of the now world-watched arena, driven by seething dread at its walls closing in on him.