Bo Mirhosseni’s dystopian horror drama opens with a onscreen text explainer, detailing how in the year 2045 the US became the North American Federation, a fascist state patrolled by roving militia in the name of God and country. There must’ve been some debate among the film-makers over how far into the future the ominous date should be but the vision of the US presented in History of Evil doesn’t feel two decades away. In the film’s first scene, a child is transported in a van through a checkpoint with a tracking device on her ankle, which is inspected by armed men. It’s horrific of course, but the bar is different for dystopian fiction in 2024. The US, after all, was cramming migrant children into freezing, overcrowded cages to sleep on concrete floors five years ago.
