The Thinning

In the near future overpopulation is solved by an examination: a test is held in schools each year and the lowest five per cent are executed. Blake, the governor's son, lowers his own result to save his girlfriend and gets inside the system. There he learns the test itself is rigged. The film is not interested in worldbuilding. It is interested in the choice having been made in advance: the exam is not a measure but a cover for a decision already taken about which children should be removed. The film says so outright and does not walk it back at the end. The form is young-adult dystopia: school corridors, white laboratories, security rooms. The structure follows the template that spread after The Hunger Games. Michael J. Gallagher directed. It was made for YouTube Red as part of the platform's push into original content, and stars Logan Paul, who at the time had reached a very large young audience through YouTube. That choice defined the film's audience directly. Peyton List plays the girlfriend. Who it is for: viewers who like young-adult dystopia and fast thriller structures. Who it is not for: anyone after originality. The screenplay follows a familiar template, the playing is flat and the rules of its world are never convincingly explained.