INSTANT EXPERT
Viral phenomena…
BLAST FROM THE PAST
Devastating diseases have afflicted humans since the dawn of time, providing fertile ground for filmmakers seeking dramatic historical backdrops for their musings on mortality. Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), set during the 14thcentury Black Death, and Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971), which concerns a 1911 cholera outbreak, show that nothing says the bad ol’ days like a pox on the house…
THE ‘Z’ WORD
Early cine-zombies were the result of voodoo (1932’s White Zombie) or radiation (1968’s Night of the Living Dead), but they inspired thematically similar stories in which an (often scientifically created) outbreak brings out the worst in people. Though arguably peaking around the turn of the millennium with the rage virus in 28 Days Later (2002) and [REC]’s (2007) demon-derived version, this subgenre continues to survive endless mutations.
BODY HORROR
Fear of death and decay is one of the basic tenets of body horror, and infections have been responsible for all sorts of imaginative movie awfulness, from the flesh-eating virus in Cabin Fever (2002) to the STIinspired ick of Contracted (2013). David Cronenberg reigns supreme here, with early works such as Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977) seeming to take the side of diseases which are, after all, only doing their jobs.
IDEAS THAT SPREAD
Being sick strips people back to their essentials, so it’s no wonder that filmmakers at the artier end of the spectrum have used infection as a metaphor to explore what really makes us human. In Blindness (2008) it’s all wrapped up in what we see; in Pontypool (2008) it’s to do with how we use language; and in She Dies Tomorrow (2020) it’s a sense of existential dread that’s catching.
