Novel:
- The setting of the novel, which has a very 1984 feel to it. Protesting is pointless, violence is pointless, rebellion is pointless, NOTHING can change the way things are, short of outside forces.
- The deadly game shows that the desperately poor participate in, which involve such engaging concepts as swimming with crocodiles, or walking on a fast treadmill until your heart gives out; the longer you last, the more money your family gets and they only choose candidates who have a heart condition.
- The idea of being pursued by Hunters whose entire lives revolve around tracking and killing their "prey", no matter where they go. You can't run, you can't hide, you can only try to last as long as possible.
- On top of that, the Running Man is RIGGED, the Hunters actually track the Runner by the update videos they send.
- When Richards sets the fire in the basement of the Boston YMCA, he tries to escape through the barely man-sized drainage pipe set in the floor. He makes it down as far as the pipe's elbow-bend....and is stuck there, with the fire roaring above him. Until he finally manages to maneuver his way into the horizontal section of the pipe, the reader can feel the heat of the fire and the intensity of Richards' desperation. And if the reader is particularly claustrophobic, he or she is apt to begin hyperventilating.
1987 Film:
- The whole 1984-esque dystopian society has many very disturbing elements:
- People cheering for the mindless violence and murders happening in the game show. And this and other such deadly game shows being the only source of entertainment, and an economy on its own with all the bets.
- The government's response to food riots is a violent and bloody massacre. And when Ben refuses to participate in the slaughter, the massacre not only happens anyway, but he's framed for it.
- The dystopian society has concentration camps where dissidents are brutalized and tortured.
- Killian is a truly horrific man: he is so soulless, he sees the brutal murders he orchestrates as nothing but things to boost the ratings. He has no conception of morality or honor, being willing to lie and dump defenseless civilians into a slaughterhouse for his own selfish whims.
- During the evasion from the labor camp, Chico doesn't listen and runs straight into the zone where the prisoners' explosive leashes can be triggered, not wanting to wait till the system is disabled by Weiss. Cue Your Head A-Splode.
- Buzzsaw getting killed with his own chainsaw (starting with his genitals), even with a Gory Discretion Shot.
- Dynamo is portrayed like a sexual predator, taking great delight in overpowering Amber after zapping Weiss to death.
- Amber finding the three "winners" of the previous Running Man season... or rather, their charred corpses. Their "victory" videos were edited, they were actually roasted by Fireball.Amber: They're Running Men... last season's winners...Fireball: No. Last season's losers. [ignites flamethrower]
- The brutal fight between the Captain Freedom decoys and the Amber and Richards decoys. The Richards decoy ends up bloodily impaled on a wall of spikes.
- And a background line reveals that the deaths weren't faked: the Captain Freedom decoy really did kill two unsuspecting stunt people. Which makes the fight scene practically a Rewatch Bonus: once you know, you can see the two duplicates' eyes get big when they realize that the Freedom decoy is really trying to kill them. And was probably ordered to do so because the fewer people who know how much Killian's show is faked, the better.
- The news report about Richards' capture at the airport states falsely that Richards killed two airport police officers in his attempt to flee the country. Given how the government seems perfectly willing to murder stunt doubles to make Richards look dead and kill a bunch of starving people to pin it on Richards, it's also plausible that they were also willing to murder some of their own law enforcement personnel to make Richards look even worse.
- For those who have trypanophobia, the scene of Richards being prepped for the game by getting antitoxins via a bunch of very painful injections, especially the needle that gets shoved deep in the joint between his ring and middle fingers, is pure nightmare fuel.
