Like it or not, deadly viruses are back in the news, and appear to be threatening our existence on some level...if you believe what your local news is reporting.
Now, I am in no way an alarmist. I believe that the current state of our news media thrives and subsists on fear mongering, which is patently shameful. But, when your 9-year-old daughter, whose only previous concerns were what nonsense her Sims were up to, comes to you saying that she's now terrified of the Ebola virus, that gives you pause and your mind, like it or not, starts to wander into all kinds of ghoulish territory.
We've seen rampant, apocalyptic disease films by the hundreds over the decades and, unfortunately, things never end well for the human race...but would and/or could things shake out the way events have been depicted on the Silver Screen? Here's a list a films that I believe get it right, deftly balancing the right amounts of science, spectacle, true human drama, and entertainment to craft believable depictions of how we, individually and as a society, would handle a deadly, viral epidemic:
Contagion (2011)
Contagion's plot documents the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and finally, the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative "hyperlink cinema" style, popularized in several of director Steven Soderbergh's films.
Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns previously collaborated on "The Informant!" (2009). Following that film's release, Burns brought up the idea of producing a medical thriller film depicting the rapid spread of a virus, which was inspired by various pandemics such as the 2003 SARS epidemic and the 2009 flu pandemic. To devise an accurate perception of a pandemic event, Burns consulted with representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as noted medical experts such as W. Ian Lipkin and Lawrence "Larry" Brilliant.
The Road (2009)
A father and his son traverse a burned-out American landscape after an unknown "sickness" sweeps the land. Nothing moves on the ravaged countryside, save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones, and, when the snow falls it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing: just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless cannibalistic bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a rusting shopping cart of scavenged food...and each other.
Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel is better, but it never specifies what killed everyone off. The movie clarifies things a bit in that department, and manages to effectively capture the novel's almost relentlessly bleak tone.
28 Days Later (2002)
The plot depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious "Rage" virus, and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the destruction of the life they once knew.
Successful both commercially and critically, the film is widely credited with reinvigorating the zombie genre of horror fiction...because the zombies/infected depicted here were fast, and scary as hell. The film spawned a 2007 sequel, "28 Weeks Later," a graphic novel titled "28 Days Later: The Aftermath," which expands on the timeline of the outbreak, and a 2009 comic book series "28 Days Later."
Outbreak (1995)
This film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. "Outbreak's" plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly contagion.
The film raised various "what-if" scenarios: media outlets began to question what the government would really do in a similar situation, and if the CDC has plans in case an outbreak ever does occur. Unfortunately, a real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus occurred in Zaire only a few months after the film was released.
I Am Legend (2007)
I have to be honest here...I'm not a Will Smith fan in any way, but this is one of the few films I can tolerate him in. This is the third feature film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, following 1964's "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, and 1971's "The Omega Man" starring Charleton Heston. In this version, Smith plays virologist Robert Neville, who is immune to a man-made virus originally created to cure cancer. He works to create a remedy while defending himself in a New York City that is almost entirely populated with nasty mutants created by the virus.
Maybe one day we'll get a film adaptation that is truly faithful to Matheson's brilliant novel. Maybe.
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
This flick is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It's about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting.
I know it doesn't sound like much when you read that simple description, but this was the first film that scared me as I described my daughter as being scared above, and that's why it is on this list.
World War Z (2013)
The world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging, mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, former United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.
The film is certainly scary and tense in places but, again, probably would have been better if they stuck closer to the source material...the 2006 novel of the same name by Max Brooks.
Children of Men (2006)
The film, based on P.D. James's 1992 novel of the same name, takes place in 2027, where two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of extinction and collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom, where the last functioning government imposes oppressive immigration laws on refugees. Clive Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who must help a refugee, most probably the last pregnant human woman on Earth, escape the chaos.
This is an underrated, and little-seen classic that sticks true to the source material and it pays off. Hunt this one down if you have not seen it yet.
12 Monkeys (1995)
An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only one percent of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict, James Cole, reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he's told was spread by a mysterious "Army of the Twelve Monkeys") and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately, Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.
There's a TV series coming on SyFy this year that adapts "12 Monkeys" into serial form. I'm not sure how well that is going to work overall (or without Terry Gilliam's brilliant, visionary direction), but it may be worth checking out. Time will tell...
The Stand (1994)
When a government-run lab accidentally lets loose a deadly virus, most of the population of the world is wiped-out. Survivors begin having dreams about two figures: a mystical old woman, or a foreboding, scary man. As the story tracks various people, we begin to realize that the two figures exemplify basic forces of good and evil, and the stage is set for a final confrontation between the representatives of each.
That is an oversimplification of King's sprawling masterwork, which unedited runs 1152 pages. "The Stand" would be higher in the list, but the TV mini-series adaptation just wasn't that great. There's talk of a new film adaptation from Warner Bros. for 2016 that will be spilt into two films. Here's hoping that lives up to the book's grand design.
