Television series
Dark Tourist
- Dip in and out
David Farrier visits the world's strangest, darkest tourist attractions—abandoned theme parks, nuclear exclusion zones, sites of tragedy and taboo. It's a travel show that treats morbid curiosity as a legitimate impulse, neither exploitative nor sensationalist. Perfect for people who find conventional tourism boring and aren't squeamish about discomfort.
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Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown2013
Anthony Bourdain travels to overlooked and complex places, interviewing locals and exploring culture through food and history. Like Dark Tourist, it asks uncomfortable questions about how we consume the world.
But Bourdain's death cast a shadow over the series. Some episodes feel uneven, and the celebrity-traveller framing can feel dated now.
VICE News Tonight2016
Short-form international reporting that follows Vice's willingness to go to dangerous and uncomfortable places. It has Dark Tourist's appetite for the world's stranger stories, but with more journalistic rigour.
But It's news, not tourism. The structure is different, and stories can feel rushed. Not designed for leisurely viewing.
The Toys That Made Us2017
Each episode visits the history and current culture around a toy brand. It's oddly nostalgic tourism—exploring how we mythologize familiar objects and why we're drawn to them.
But It's fundamentally optimistic in tone. If you want genuine unease rather than wistfulness, this won't scratch that itch.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Dark Tourist
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Cure1997
Both examine how we're drawn to spectacles we shouldn't be, and what it costs us to look. Dark Tourist documents the pull; Cure shows what happens when that pull turns malevolent.
A Japanese horror film where a detective investigates seemingly unrelated murders committed by ordinary people. It's about how suggestion and psychology can manipulate the unwilling into atrocity. The atmosphere is oppressive and the moral questions brutal.
But It's slow, oblique, and offers no catharsis or explanation. Japanese horror requires patience and tolerance for ambiguity most won't grant it.
More like this (5)
Fyre2019
A documentary about a festival disaster that explores how spectacle and delusion get packaged as tourism. It's a story about consuming the unreal and what that reveals about us.
But The narrative feels familiar now and the subjects are largely unsympathetic. It scratches a schadenfreude itch more than a curiosity one.
High Score2020
A six-part series about video game history, visiting abandoned arcades, forgotten studios, and the obsessives who preserve gaming's strange past. It's Dark Tourist but for nerd culture.
But It's nostalgic and celebratory rather than critical. You're watching fans commemorate, not a skeptic investigate.
Tickled2016
A journalist investigates competitive tickling on the internet, descending into blackmail, obsession, and legal threats. It's a genuine mystery that gets genuinely dark, made by someone who doesn't flinch.
But It gets genuinely disturbing and the subject matter itself is alienating. Not everyone will want to spend ninety minutes here.
The Act of Killing2012
Both use tourism and performance to expose something dark about human nature. Farrier watches people tour dark sites; here, killers tour their own atrocities. Same mechanism, reversed.
An Indonesian documentary where the director films aging death squad leaders as they reenact mass murders they committed. It's unbearably confrontational—not tourism, but asking murderers to perform their crimes for the camera.
But It's morally vertiginous and genuinely difficult. You will question whether documentation like this should exist, and whether watching it makes you complicit.
Koyaanisqatsi1983
Both confront you with the world as it actually is—not curated for comfort. Dark Tourist documents how we tour catastrophe; this shows what catastrophe looks like when we stop turning away.
Ninety minutes of experimental footage set to Philip Glass, showing Earth in states of transformation and decay—no narration, no plot, just images of beauty and horror. It's the visual equivalent of Dark Tourist's discomfort.
But There is no story. If you need narrative to stay engaged, this will feel pretentious and dull. It requires active, meditative watching.
