Feeling worried about the impending swine flu epidemic? Just to make you feel more panicked, we’ve put together a list of 11 movies that show what happens when humanity is attacked by unstoppable viruses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBZnuUZIbBQ
28 Days Later
Disease: Rage virus
Released by: Animal rights activists
Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating
Any humanity left? UK is quarantined and left for dead. Rest of the world survives.
Invasion
Disease: Space fungus
Released by: It clings to the outside of the space shuttle, and when the shuttle crashes people pick up pieces of it and bring the disease into towns, where it spreads.
Symptoms: Lack of emotion, desire for world peace.
Any humanity left? Many people are infected but we’re saved by an airborne antidote. We know the world has returned to normal when everybody starts going back to war again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4B7FW8b5qI
I Am Legend
Disease: Gene therapy delivered via virus gone wrong
Released by: Well-meaning liberal doctor trying to do good
Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating, fear of light.
Any humanity left? Just Will Smith, and (spoilers!) a tiny walled town in New England
Outbreak
Disease: Motaba virus (a fictional version of Ebola)
Released by: Bad guys selling illegal African monkeys to Americans
Symptoms: Barfy bloody death
Any humanity left? Sadly, almost all of humanity survives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWUa_Epr6E
Rabid
Disease: Plastic surgery-induced armpit penis that drinks blood (did we mention this was directed by David Cronenberg in the 70s?)
Released by: Mad surgeon Dr. Keloid, operating on the main character (played by porn star Marilyn Chambers)
Symptoms: Growing a penis-shaped thing under your arm that drinks other people’s blood, erases their memories, and turns them into zombies
Any humanity left? Disease is contained within the city.
Andromeda Strain (the miniseries)
Disease: Nano space virus thing
Released by: Fallen satellite
Symptoms: Totally disgusting bloody barfy skin covered in insta-bumps
Any humanity left? Saved by the CDC, but just barely
Doomsday
Disease: Reaper virus
Released by: Unknown, but centered in Scotland, which the UK walls off in a nation-wide quarantine
Symptoms: Death
Any humanity left? Yes, the immune. They have turned into cannibalistic punk rockers, medieval knights, and racecar drivers. Which makes the Reaper virus basically the most awesome thing to ever happen in the UK.
Doom
Disease: A 24th chromosome from Mars
Released by: Union Aerospace Corporation
Symptoms: If you are “good,” you are made superhuman with mega-healing, and if you are “bad” you become a flesh-eating toothface with the ability to shoot your tongue at victims to infect them.
Any humanity left? Not on Mars.
World War Z
Disease: African rabies
Released by: Unknown – but thought to have begun in China
Symptoms: Undeath
Any humanity left? Yes, and the shattered survivors of the zombie wars are the subject of the novel, which is being made into a much-anticipated movie right now.
The Signal
Disease: Mind-altering signal sent via television and telephone in an Atlanta-like unnamed city
Released by: Unknown evil media conglomerate
Symptoms: Psychotic, murderous rage; hallucinations
Any humanity left? A few survive in the city; unknown how many more were affected in the world
Quarantine
Disease: Bioweapon
Released by: Doomsday cult
Symptoms: Foaming at the mouth, vampiric quest to bite people
Any humanity left: We see the disease spread rapidly through an apartment building, which is quarantined. There is a hint that the disease has already gotten out and cannot be stopped.
