Epidemiology
When Virus Movies Attack!
Dennis Lim
Tuesday, June 17th 2003
Most Popular
-
You Can't Escape the Canvasser's Pitch 'Got a minute?' The young bleeding-heart carnivores who hunt you down on your lunch hour
-
The Coen Brothers Make Another Mockery with Burn After Reading Remarkably consistent, there's nothing these boys can't hold up to ridicule
-
No Witness Protection for Mobster Turned Snitch Joe Campy. PS: He's Hiding in Plain Sight. PPS: He has a web site.
-
Mickey Rourke is The Wrestler The onetime Hollywood A-lister climbs back in the ring with Darren Aronofsky's latest
-
Midway Through the Toronto Film Fest, and Things are Looking Bleak Oh, Canada
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (Robert Wise, 1971) Michael Crichton's scenario substitutes laboratory technobabble for gross-out scares, as scientists quietly battle an extraterrestrial bug that turns blood into powder.
THE CRAZIES (George A. Romero, 1973) A biowarfare experiment goes wrong, discharging deadly microbes and prompting a government cover-up. Martial law is imposed and the military resorts to shoot-to-kill measures.
SHIVERS (David Cronenberg, 1975) Or almost anything from the Canadian master's disease-ridden oeuvre. In this seminal early work, a venereally transmitted parasite turns the residents of a Toronto high-rise into erotomanic zombies.
THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (George P. Cosmatos, 1976) The token virus entry in the '70s disaster-movie cycle. A trainload of stars (Loren, Lancaster, Gardner) is exposed to pneumonic plague as a result of a terrorist attack on the "International Health Organization" in Geneva.
VIRUS (Kinji Fukasaku, 1980) Insanely morbid late-Cold War apocalypse howl. Germ warfare decimates the human race, then nuclear weapons blow up the planet.
OUTBREAK (Wolfgang Petersen, 1995) Ebola cash-in with Dustin Hoffman as the virologist hero. An entire movie theater is infected while watching What's Up, Doc?
Return to the main story.
Recent Articles
More by Dennis Lim
Festival Express
More Toronto highlights, from Nazis to anarchists
'The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros'
A Memorial at Once Visceral and Sober
Micro-thriller a Blockbuster at Heart
'Brothers of the Head'
Site Search «
Village Voice Insiders
- Weekly villagevoice.com
- Weekly freebies and Special Offers
- Daily "What To Do in NYC" E-mail
- Information on the Performing Arts
- New York Bites - Restaurants Newsletter
| buy, sell, trade 5,347 | musician 3,108 |
| rentals 15,148 | jobs 5,449 |
| adult entertainment 9,943 | |
| classifieds | backpage.com | Post ads for free! | |
|---|---|
