Darkdrive is a 1997 American Cyberpunk B-Movie.
In the near future, criminals are locked up in a virtual prison managed by a corporation called Zircon. When the system controlling the prison starts to malfunction, its former designer Steven Falcon is hired by his ex-employers to travel inside to find out what's wrong.
This film provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Technology hasn't advanced much beyond the invention of virtual reality.
- Badass Longcoat: Falcon wears a slick black longcoat for no other reason than to make him look cool. He doesn't really live up to it, as he's repeatedly beaten up by mooks.
- The Lost Lenore: Falcon's wife Julie was killed in a bombing meant to kill him. Afterwards, he became an alcoholic recluse, until his former employers convince him to do One Last Job. He runs into her virtual ghost in a bar in cyberspace, and falls in love with her again.
- MegaCorp: Zircon not only has the power to sentence prisoners to death, but is also using the virtual prison to dispose of its enemies.
- Mind Prison: Zircon manages such a prison, disposing of people by putting them in cryostasis and projecting their minds into the virtual world. Falcon goes inside the mental prison to track down a specific person. It's not just some illegal experiment, either; with the film's Cyberpunk undertones, it's clear that the company can legally determine life-and-death questions.
