As the coronavirus cases increase daily across the globe, movies about viruses spreading and threatening global communities are going viral on streaming services.
Afriupdate reports that Interest in movies like Contagion, Pontypool, 93 Days, Monkeys, doomsdays, pandemics, epidemics, and other related movies have surged alongside the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, according to what people are Googling.
Google trends indicate that searches for “pandemic movies” started slightly rising in December, when coronavirus concerns first emerged. By March, the numbers skyrocketed. Washington state ranks among the top 10 locations where the most people are searching for this phrase.
The results are quite similar for related phrases, such as “virus movies” or “epidemic movies.” Washington was recently top of the list when it comes to interests in “doomsday movies.”
There is, of course, a difference between Hollywood and reality. So far, Brad Pitt or Dustin Hoffman have not landed in a helicopter to save us from COVID-19.
When it comes to these two worlds, I like to turn to Dr. Tara Smith. She’s an epidemiologist at Kent State who sometimes likes to explain the topic of zoonotic and infectious diseases within the framework of a zombie apocalypse — so she speaks my language.
Running through some of my favorite pandemic films — “World War Z,” “Outbreak,” and “Contagion” — Dr. Smith offered a few points about the difference between the reality we face, and the films we watch.
“Contagion” is the most accurate portrayal
The 2011 film “Contagion” may be a little much during this time. Given current events, it now has an extra frightening layer. Not only because the premise is strikingly similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because the response to it is also a fair representation of how society would operate.
Here’s what Dr. Smith had to say:
(Contagion) is probably the most on target. Of course, it is still fictionalized and there are still plenty of things that epidemiologists can nit pick. But I think it’s more realistic than others.
It’s also on the nose in that the virus came from a zoonotic origin — from a bat to a pig to a person — and then globe trotted to spread it … those are the kinds of things that scientists have been warning about for 30 or 40 years. It’s not too surprising that it’s a scenario that they chose.
Pontypool
A thriller taking place almost entirely within a radio station recording room, this has a sci-fi twist on the outbreak genre. The contagion (a sort of rage zombie disease) is spread not by physical contact, but the spoken word. The result is a tense game of trying to talk around certain ideas, lest the characters get infected by the mind-virus.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4EoVxwJecM&w=310&h=338]
93 Days
This is the only fiction film on this list that’s based on real events — namely, the 2014 Ebola outbreak, a situation which has been compared and contrasted with COVID in various ways. It tells the true story of the doctors who worked to contain Ebola when it spread to Nigeria. Crucially, as a Nigerian production, it firmly eschews any white savior narrative one might expect from a Hollywood film.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YOYHCBQn9g&w=310&h=338]
Why are these films so thrilling to wide audiences and why do people re-watch many of these classics during the coronavirus epidemic? Leave a comment below
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