Living in a B-Movie? The thing about being locked away for any length of time, is that it tends to mess with your top-deck's wiring. Coupled with the need to while away countless evenings, we’ve collectively turned to the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime, to take our minds off the current Coronavirus conundrum. But what do we find? A whole host of movies and shows that instead of whisking us away from the real pandemic crisis, lands us slap bang into a screenwriter’s version of our current situation!
Homadamus? The Simpsons have for years been accused of having a crystal ball, allowing them to predict events with uncanny accuracy. Matt Groening’s creation has nailed Trump’s tenure in the White House, Smart Watches, FaceTime, Autocorrect Fails, even Lady Gaga’s half-time Superbowl entrance. They’re no stranger to predicting Viruses either, with them spooking America during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Marge is seen reading Bart a book entitled ‘Curious George and the Ebola Virus’. That was way back in a 1997. Four years earlier, Springfield was also in the grip of a global pandemic, christened Osaka Flu. OK the geography’s a bit out of whack but what’s a couple of 1000 miles between viruses?
A Tangled Web of Extreme Social Distancing?Disney’s Tangled, the 2010 re-telling of The Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale, Repunzel, has social distancing at it’s very heart. A Princess with super-natural luxurious locks, is isolated from the outside world by an over protective parent, for 18 years. More of a Quarantine Queen then a mere Princess, the tower she’s isolated in for her own good, is on the island of Corona! Is there something out there she needs to be protected from? Walt only knows!
Coronavirus Debut? Social Media recently lit up with clips of the 2018, South Korean TV show ‘My Secret Terrius’. This was the first time for many that the word ‘coronavirus’ had been uttered out loud. Making the subtitles, the first time it had been spelt out in English to the general public. In episode 10 a female doctor spookily whispers her concerns about a flu-like virus that attacks the human respiratory system. She goes on to say, ‘We have to do more research but it looks like a mutant coronavirus.’ It was even implied the clips were Chinese rather than Korean, giving them an extra bioweapon spin. There’s even a scene where kids are taught to meticulously wash their hands to help stop infection. The only solace we can take is that the word coronavirus has actually been around for decades and is a common medical term used to describe many strains of viruses. The viral clips obviously failed to mention that.
1000s of film cans of worms! Movie execs always return to tried and trusted plot formulas. A staple of which is the Zombie Apocalypse. From 1932’s White Zombie, we’ve been served up (bad choice of words), a steady stream of global pandemics gone bad. Some notable brain eating fests have been The Omega Man, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Re-Animator, Evil Dead and 28 Days Later. Hell, there’s been dead funny ones too. Zombieland, Z Nation and Shaun of the Dead have all tickled film goers funny bones. But my personal fav is Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead. Where a smart cop-chomping zombie, radios back to the police station, ‘Send more cops’.
In 2013’s World War Z, Brad Pitt tries to find a cure for a fast-spreading feral flu virus. This resembles our present pandemic predicament the closest, as Zombie movies go. First appearing in China before infecting the world. Turning ordinary guys and gals into zombie super athletes, who’d give Usain Bolt a run for his money. There’s even a thing called the ‘The Great Panic’, involving stockpiling and quarantining. Spooky!
Did the World catch Contagion’s plot? The 50s and 60s saw movies embrace the nuclear age, manifesting on screen as Blobs, Giant Spiders and city levelling monsters. In the 70s, storylines matured with threats only seen under microscopes. The Andromeda Strain, warns technology can have fatal consequences. In 12 Monkeys, we time travel back to stop a devastating plague.
In Outbreak, we race against time to stop a US President from annihilating his fellow Americans, in an attempt to stop the spread of a deadly airborne virus. But it’s the strange illness portrayed in 2011s Contagion, that bears the closest resemblance to what the real world has caught. Causing Contagion to rocket up the streaming charts, as the pandemic movie of choice in a world that’s actually suffering one. * As a footnote to this blogpost, Elliot Gould’s pandemic expert in Contagion, says to Jude Law’s digital journo, ‘Blogging isn’t writing, it’s Graffiti with punctuation!’ Ouch!
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