10 Great Movies About Infectious Disease!

10 Great Movies About Infectious Disease! 

         

     

     Well, it looks like Mother Nature may be trying to thin out our heard again with another contagious disease. Will she succeed? Fingers crossed, only time will tell. Infectious disease, and the fear of infectious disease, occupies a special place in our collective consciousness. Sure we fear death but lots of things kill us that we aren’t afraid of.  Cigarettes have killed tens of millions and Clive Barker has yet to write a novel about them. Diabetes will kill way more people this year than Ebola, and yet folks still fail to heed Wilford Brimley’s warnings.

          

      

      Fear of contagion, though certainly ever present today, is not a modern phenomenon. In the Dark Ages, mass hysteria might cause the burning of a local village or the execution of suspected “witches” all in an attempt to stem the tide of disease. In the 19^th century, fear of disease was tied with the fear of foreigners, as seen in Dracula. The silent film Nosferatu depicted this wonderfully with an army of rats serving as the heralds for the coming of their vampire lord. The zombie genre, in particular, plays on the fear of disease.

        

     One teeny tiny organism, invisible to the naked eye, can destroy us. Infection isn’t just a potential death sentence, it also affects our identity. We are now “infected”. Once infected, intimacy with another person becomes perilous. Being untouchable, the next step is unlovable. Isolation, exile, even execution were all potential outcomes in the not so distant past for anyone thought to be carrying a deadly disease.

               

      With this much psychological baggage attached, it’s no wonder that infectious disease has occupied a continued place in horror. Though it doesn’t have the following of slashers or vampires, infectious disease, as a sub-genre, continues to produce entertaining, and sometimes important, movies.

               

     With the latest scare upon us, what better than a list of movies celebrating our age old adversary; the micro-organism. After you’ve cleaned out your local store of respirator masks and stocked up on booze, ammo, and pornography, you may need some entertainment while you wait out the germ infested holocaust that no doubt awaits us. Below is a list of 10 movies that offer different takes on the subject.

               

      (On a side note, you’ll notice I didn’t include any zombie films. I have nothing against the genre. In fact, probably my favorite horror film is Return of the Living Dead. But if I were to include zombie films, this list could be nothing but zombie films, and I figure you probably already have enough of them in your collection, you don’t need me making recommendations. On a side note to the side note, Return of the Living Dead is not actually an infectious disease movie, the contamination being spread through chemical pollution rather than a virus. Day of the Dead, on the other hand, now that’s an infectious disease zombie movie!)

-Outbreak (1995)- This is the infectious disease movie to end all infectious disease movies. An African monkey that is the host of a highly contagious disease is smuggled into America by a guy who wants to make a buck on the black market. He gets infected and the deadly virus spreads rapidly and the small town of Cedar Creek is ravaged.

                

      The military is called in to quarantine the town and keeps it locked down. Dustin Hoffman is a specialist in infectious diseases, looking to find a cure. Meanwhile, an evil Army general (Donald Sutherland) wants to incinerate the town, partly to prevent a pandemic but partly to keep the scientists from finding a cure because he wants to keep the virus as a potential biological weapon.

               

      This film was filled heavy hitters; Dustin Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman. It does a wonderful job of showing just how easily a virus can spread (the movie theatre scene will make you want to stream everything from now on rather than going out). It’s a very intelligent film that provides the blueprint for the medical-disaster subgenre of films. If you’re wanting to ramp up your paranoia, this is a great movie to watch at the beginning stages of an epidemic.

-The Stand (1994)- Based on the giant novel by Stephen King, this was an impressive television mini-series. A military engineered virus wipes out 99% of humanity. The few survivors begIn to fall into one of two camps. Some go to kindly old Mother Abigail, a Moses figure. The others follow The Dark Man, Randall Flagg, a Satanic figure that is gathering all of the bad people left in the world.

                

      Besides It, The Stand may be King’s most beloved work and this mini-series does a good job of adapting the novel. The cast was excellent featuring Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Gary Sinise and many others.  Given that its 6 hours long, The Stand is not light viewing, but if you want something to binge watch while you are holed up in your outbreak bunker, this will do the job. (Full review of The Stand here)

-The Masque of the Red Death (1964)- This Roger Corman /Vincent Price collaboration features Price as a Satanic nobleman in the middle of a plague, The Red Death. He invites the rest of the aristocracy to stay with him in his castle while the disease ravages the peasants. Meanwhile, Price tries to corrupt a peasant girl for fun. The joke is on him though, as the Red Death eventually makes its way into the castle.

               

     Price played a lot of villains but most of them were likable. His character in this film is really dastardly. A gutsy film, especially for its time, Masque of the Red Death is meditation on evil. A good movie to watch while you and your friends celebrate the coming biological Armageddon. (Full review here)

-12 Monkeys (1995)- In the future, a virus has wiped out most of civilization. It is thought that a group calling itself The Army of the 12 Monkeys was responsible for releasing the contagion. A man (Bruce Willis) is sent back through time with the mission of bringing back a sample of the virus.

   However, he overshoots his mark and ends up in the past several years before the outbreak. He ends up in an asylum where he meets a fellow patient (Brad Pitt) who is thought to be a member of the 12 Monkeys.  Bruce Willis has to find out the truth and do what he can to prevent the coming disaster, all while being sucked back and forth through time.

Besides all of the intricacies and paradoxes of a time travel story, this is also a Terry Gilliam film, so you know it’s going to be interesting. It’s the rare Bruce Willis non-action movie and was one of the first films to show that Brad Pitt wasn’t just a pretty face (he got an Oscar nomination out of it). A nice intellectually engaging head scratcher, this movie will give you something to think about while mass hysteria erupts in the streets.

-Shivers (1975)- The first major film from the father of “body horror”, Shivers tells the story of an apartment building infested with a sexually transmitted parasitic organism. Once infected, the victim turns super violent and super horny (a bad combination). Tenants in the building are attacked and sexually assaulted. The lucky ones die. The others turn into lustful maniacs.

                

       Besides being the film that pushed David Cronenberg into the spotlight and helped establish the sub-genre of body horror, this is a great prophylactic. During our impending viral doom, you may be tempted to enjoy one last fling before civilization ends. This film will make you think twice about that.(Full review of Shivers here)

-Doomsday (2008)- A deadly plague ravages Scotland. To protect the rest of the British Isles, Scotland is walled off and the survivors on the inside are left to die. Fast forward 20 years and the plague has returned, this time in England. It is discovered that some people still survive in Scotland. A special agent (the super-hot Rhona Mitra) leads a team into post-apocalyptic Scotland to find out if the survivors have found a cure.

                

     What she finds is a violent punk rock/ medieval society that looks like Mad Max in the Dark Ages. Directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent), this is a great film to watch right before you go fight over the remaining loaf of bread at your local super market.

-The Last Man on Earth (1964)- Vincent Price plays (you guessed it) the last man on Earth. Well he isn’t technically the last. There are plenty of other people too, they just happen to be infected with a disease that has turned them into vampires.

                

       Price’s life is an endless monotonous struggle for survival. At night, he defends his home against the horde. During the day he ventures out, gathering up those creatures that have fallen, hauling them off to the massive, ever smoldering pit, and dumping their bodies into the flames, all the while maintaining the wit and decorum that one would expect of Vincent Price.

               

    It was the first adaptation of the novel I am Legend. This movie really explores the grim psychology of isolation.  Another adaptation, The Omega Man, was pretty good too. It starred virile Charlton Heston and had more of an action slant, but Last Man is the one I prefer. Another version came out with Will Smith.

                

      OK, I said no zombie movies and technically I have stuck with that. This is not a zombie movie but it was the prototype for the zombie genre; the post-apocalyptic setting, the one verses the horde conflict, and the daily fight to stay alive.  After everyone you know has succumbed to whatever microorganism does us all in, The Last Man on Earth can serve as your how to guide for life in your new, lonely world.

-Rabid (1977)-  Marilyn Chambers is injured in a terrible motorcycle accident. Using “neutral field tissue” (a kind of stem cells) a plastic surgeon repairs the damage that was done to her.

                

     She wakes up after a month in a coma with a voracious sexual appetite. While this sounds like a good thing, she has also grown a mouth in her armpit that shoots out a phallus with a stinger that she uses to suck people’s blood. If having an armpit penis wasn’t bad enough, her victims become infected. They don’t grow any new orifices but they do turn, well, rabid. They foam at the mouth attacking and biting everyone they meet.

                

       After you and your significant other have been holed up in your infection proof bubble for a few weeks, the spark may have gone out of your love life. Beautiful 70’s porn icon Marilyn Chambers is just what you’ll  need to rev up the old sex drive. Just don’t get your junk anywhere near their armpits.

-The Seventh Seal (1957)-  A knight (Max Von Sydow) has returned home from the Crusades. Waiting for him on the shores is Death himself. The knight challenges Death to a chess match. He doesn’t mind dying but before he dies he still needs answers to some of life’s important questions; is there a God, is there any value to leading a “good life”, what is the power of faith, etc.

                

      This isn’t really a movie about disease, but disease, in this case The Black Plague, provides the backdrop for the story. Images of death are everywhere; paintings on a church, actors in a play, and the mournful wails of masochistic zealots who hurt themselves to show their devotion to God in hopes of currying His favor.

                

      A depressing, somber film, The Seventh Seal will encourage you to reflect on your wasted life and moral failings as you wait for The Grim Reaper to come and claim you.

-The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot (2019) - Bigfoot has the super flu. An aging World War 2 secret agent (Sam Elliott), who surreptitiously assassinated Hitler, is brought out of retirement to hunt down the Sasquatch before it can spread the disease.

OK, this film isn’t really about disease, but how many times do you get to talk about a movie and start with the words “Bigfoot has the super flu.” Not that many times.  As civilization crumbles, sit back and marvel at Sam Elliott’s ageless mustache.

So, while you’re hoarding Tamiflu and mapping all of the exits out of town, don’t forget to stock up on some new movies for your post-apocalyptic library. And you better get the hard copies. There won’t be any streaming services once the grid goes down!