Virus Horror

[@mepollack]

Speaking as a microbiologist who has done a lot of work on viruses, I love seeing them used as means of generating horror when they’re accurate. I was hooked early from reading The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (which has a really good short series adaptation in recent memory), and the gold standard right now is Contagion, which did an excellent job on the science. Andromeda Strain is great as well, and the real world horror of it really stands out. They’re mystery stories with a built in ticking clock, and the villain is literally inhuman.

[@herecomemacOnTT]

Oh my GOD I remember my mom reading The Hot Zone when I was younger after she got the position of our county's Communicable Disease Coordinator! This was YEARS ago, but what a blast from the past for me to see that title!

[@Fightingforthelost]

I grew up with the Andromeda Strain and the TV Adaptation of Steven King's The Stand, and remember being just horrified by them. In the case of the Stand, the first episode gave me nightmares after I watched it. Outbreak was much more action centered. Then, 2020 happened and I got around to watching Contagion and it was so much more horrifying because of what was happening and how real everything felt in comparison.

[@SCP-173peanut]

I honestly want to see a movie about prions, imagine the horror of your own chemistry taking over and the hopelessness of an assured death through starvation and loss of your Memories.

[@mepollack]

@@SCP-173peanut that would be amazing. It helps that they’re just the very alien form of “infection” compared with a virus, bacteria or parasite.

[@voidjackalope3133]

The Hot Zone is hands down one of my favourite books ever. It's captivating and so well written that it genuinely made me squirm. I LOVE microbiology and disease research, so getting to read about all the steps taken during an outbreak was really entertaining.

[@Javaskulls]

Shout out to when Covid was breaking out and my dad thought that watching “Contagion” would be a good idea to prepare me for it

[@ComputerVHS]

That’s rough, buddy.

[@jimmyjon9970]

I mean.....look at how people reacted....was he wrong?

[@Javaskulls]

@@jimmyjon9970 yes, i had a panic attack and i thought everyone was going to die 😭

[@gnarwhal7562]

Lmao same. I made my gf at the time watch it with me in February 2020 and we were both unbelievably paranoid after that. It was made worse by the fact that I was following the initial outbreak in Wuhan in 2019 obsessively

[@matthewwynn3025]

​@gnarwhal7562 Dude me too, I was completely obsessed with it starting in late January 2020. The long incubation time, that case in germany that looked like possible aerosol transmission and low enough death rate. My experience playing plague Inc told me it was going to spread everywhere lol. I was damn near possessed by lazer focused paranoia/fear/terrible fascination. I remember thinking, damn we are living in contagion. That fear/excitement/driven curiosity was like a drug.

[@hnb.mertonna]

I remember watching Contagion on TV with my mom some years ago. And watching the ending made me so upset. Not that it was bad, but seeing all the little “what ifs” that could’ve prevented this. If the bat never dropped what it was eating. If the pig never ate what had been dropped. If the pig was not sent to be cooked, if the chef had just washed his freaking hands before shaking hands with someone. It’s a really good movie, I gotta watch it again. Especially after 2020.

[@steampunk-llama]

We watched it in my high school science class back around 2015-ish and I ended up getting insane deja-vu for the initial ‘what is happening’ days of the 2020 pandemic bc of how similarly a lot of it played out. I also remember losing it over seeing one of the infected people just get slammed into by a truck purely bc it was so out of nowhere, to the point it became something of an inside joke between my friends and I lol

[@Jarochito-]

Sad part is how delicate our world is. Alot of people think we need turbo advanced methods just to prevent things and all it takes is some WATER and SOAP. I work in restaurants and i always nearlt start barking if i catch people fucking with food.

[@gritngrindstudios]

My dad put on Contagion not much longer after everything shut down March 2020

[@sonicpsycho13]

Jude Law's character was straight-up every misinformation peddler to come out of COVID. Someone who sold a fake cure, spread conspiracy theories, and caused mass panic and anti-vaccine, anti-medical establishment sentiments.

[@goldoaksilveroakbroz]

I showed it to my friends when lockdowns and curfews in our country started 😂 they did not have a good time, but i did 😂

[@Ultrasound700]

I recently watched Infection, a Japanese horror movie about a strange outbreak in an underfunded, understaffed hospital. It seems like a zombie movie since the virus not only kills people but makes them reanimate and attack people to spread the infection, but the horror focuses far more on trying to prevent the spread of this mysterious disease.

[@merriquelynn]

Do you remember where you watched it?

[@Ultrasound700]

@merriquelynn866 I couldn't find it anywhere, so I just bought a DVD copy on ebay.

[@merriquelynn]

@@Ultrasound700 Thank you. I’ll have to do that too.

[@allyspencer02]

omg I watched this when I was about 10, it scarred me 😭 never run into anyone else who's seen it or even heard of it!! it's a banger imo

[@QueenOfPessimism]

Is this the movie where the blood or something turns a bright green?

[@ozarkharshnoisescene]

recession era virus horror was built different. the bleakness is palpable

[@jacobhiatt2022]

A surprising idea is how close the chernobyl mini series comes to a vires horror

[@hondaguy9153]

Yep, something "invisible" that's misunderstood and deadly makes great horror.

[@Wetcamerainc]

Never watched it

[@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

@@Wetcamerainc It's pretty good

[@Wetcamerainc]

@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan i needed something to watch thanks for the reminder haha

[@TristanLane520]

​@@Wetcameraincdid you like it/the first episode of it? I did 🤷 it was weird how they got the bit about the divers wrong considering they're still alive today, but it isn't as egregious as all the mistakes in Band of Brothers and people seem to praise that like it is chronicling the second coming of Christ... edit: ignore the above, Chernobyl didn't get the bit about the divers wrong, I just thought they did for some reason. It is pretty much historically spot on, other than in some places the description of radiation death actually being "nicer" on screen than it is in reality. Something about the firefighter's wife who loses her unborn baby due to radiation (the show claims the baby absorbed it and so she survived, based on a book by someone who met her, although she is definitely still alive so reality is she maybe would have died but science says that a baby can't "save" you by absorbing radiation....but its not like there's been loads of tests on that to find out so maybe she was and science doesn't fully understand that yet.) Indeed Soviet advice after Chernobyl was for people within a radius to get abortions, lest their children be born with defects and the state have to support them (that's the USSR for you) and this supposedly resulted in a million abortions thought to be scientifically unnecessary these days as current thinking is that radiation which isn't sufficient to kill the mother presents presumably...no threat? That doesn't sound likely to me, but then I'm not a doctor or nuclear physicist. I don't know, I found some Forbes article which seems to glaze the whole disaster like it was "no threat at all" and suggests the average person nearby to Pripyat only got the equivalent to 3 full body CT scans worth of radiation which is "not enough to have any known effect on health" but I don't think that is accurate either, and surely the whole point of the series IS that people didn't have it worse BECAUSE of the work done by the clean up crews and divers and pilots and scientists and so on. The only other bits I've seen called "inaccurate" are found in a New Yorker article where they make sweeping claims about the way certain characters act or talk to each other like "Sherbina wouldn't need to threaten to have Legasov killed, Legasov would never question Sherbina or the system because he would have known how it worked or he wouldn't have had the position he had" and "a shoe maker from the factory floor could never have become the apparatchik that we see and he would never drink during the day, nor in front of someone he didn't know" which just again sounds like the New Yorker is trying to defend Communism, I think it is very reasonable to suggest that people acted and talked slightly differently privately than they may admit, and that an apparatchik would drink in front of her because he doesn't fear her because he doesn't believe she is KGB, because by that point she has shown she is a scientist who doesn't respect him (albeit that this moment didn't happen because she is actually a fictional character to represent about 50 different scientists throughout the USSR) essentially to say that "this could never have ever happened or anything like it" seems like a stretch. TLDR there's minor moments of character dialogue that are possibly/probably "not how it really happened" but rather a "dramatic" version and there's some slight over-exaggeration of the dangers of how destructive a meltdown would have been (although they seem to be accurate to what was thought at the time, because after all we don't know what would have happened had they not cleaned up the river pollution or not drained the tanks...because they did, and this hasn't happened again somewhere else where they didn't...) *so Chernobyl still remains far more accurate than Band of Brothers which wrote a whole episode "about a guy who died" which was later watched by his granddaughters no he didn't have children before he went to war... yes he did go to the first 101st reunion and they just forgot about him... he even went on to fight in Korea with the 101st and they still forgot about him...*

[@ithinkimaybelosingit]

I tend to consider this genre alongside side Nuclear War horror, which is also based in reality but also terrifying. I'm not talking post-apocalyptic films like Mad Max, I'm talking Threads, the Day After, Miracle Mile, When the Wind Blows. Very real threats to humanity that make them far scarier and harrowing, and interestingly both have body horror elements to them.

[@chada75]

By Dawn's early light was a Badass Nuclear War Movie. And it's on KZbin.

[@weevil_bob]

threads hits hard. if the want something short watch the music video for so long and thanks for all the fish by perfect circle.

[@vedbed]

The divide and Aftermath are both pretty good movies. Not highly realistic but good watches

[@benz4118]

On the beach is an amazing read if you want nuclear horror

[@elliothill3953]

All I know about nuclear war is, the people in the immediate blast zones are the lucky ones.

[@korovuc2699]

"The plague" by Camus really touched me. Even though I read it, so there were no visuals like in those movies, the writing was so good that it pulled me into the world. The thousands of dying rats, the plague looming over the city, the lockdown and it's psychologic effect on the people separated from their loved ones...chefs kiss

[@lamas93866]

While one can read it as a "virus horror" story it most definitely isnt. Camus wrote it in nazi occupied france and its primary about facism and resistance to it, while you are losing to it.

[@korovuc2699]

@@lamas93866 fair but I feel like it still fits the themes of this youtube video, that's why I chose to comment about it. While it is primarily about facism the basic reading of the text offers a deal of dread about the plague in the story :)

[@asha4736]

I picked up The Plague in 2020 during our first lockdown and while the story isn't meant to be a true commentary on disease or anything, there were certain passages that really captured the idiocy of many people in my country; "The people of our town merely forgot to be modest and thought that everything was still possible for them, which implied that pestilence was impossible. They continued with business, with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions. Why should they have thought about the plague, which negates the future, negates journeys and debate? They considered themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there is plague, pestilence and famine."

[@meloncholywitch9979]

God, these kinds of films scratch that innate fear I possess over the health of a body. I ain't a germaphobe, but viruses/diseases sure bring that out tenfold

[@no_peace]

All of this has made me so much more cavalier. I have OCD and used to have pretty bad germ/contamination OCD but... Not anymore. We have been shown our lives have no value, i can't afford rent, i take so many risks now. I'm cured

[@iheartblock3792]

I can’t remember the name of the novel, but I still remember it to this day. The chapter follows a child finding a dying dog, seemingly hit by a car, and trying to help it. The next chapter follows a hazard crew coming in to a building where most everyone is dead, with the few still alive pleading for a quick death while their flesh falls off. the notable example being a man who’s flesh fall off so fast he was unable to get off of the toilet and is stuck there, still alive, his entire lower half decayed as his innards slowly dribble into the toilet bowl. I read it maybe 7 years ago and still remember that scene so vividly,

[@oliviabees]

This sounds really interesting, if you ever remember the title, I’d love to know!

[@hostile_brat2450]

............. He got dat dawg in him

[@user-ve4hd7cs1k]

It's Plague Land by Alex Scarrow

[@oliviabees]

@@user-ve4hd7cs1k Wow, thanks so much! I’ll definitely be giving this a read.

[@user-ve4hd7cs1k]

@@oliviabees Np! Enjoy the book ^_^

[@TiredTief]

Outbreak literally caused me to develop lifelong germaphobia after seeing it in middle school so you know it's a strong movie for that lol If you like this genre, highly recommend The Bay. It's a parasite movie instead of a virus movie but has similar concepts you discussed and is one of my favorite movies of all time. Also, a fun fact - Gothic literature actually does make a distinction between “terror” and “horror.” Terror is the sense of dread and apprehension that *precedes* an experience, horror is the sense of revulsion *after* an experience. Curious if this is partially the reason behind the distinction between thrillers and horror movies somewhat!

[@mikadopen4809]

this

[@lindboknifeandtool]

Thrill isn’t terror. Thrill implies fun. I think a more appropriate thing would be to call it all horror, and when it’s a person or entity just killing, a slasher. A thriller usually is pretty cerebral or tries to be. I don’t know it’s all arbitrary

[@Shaviine]

What about movies that transcend the concept of pestilence? Pontypool is one of my favorite virus horror movies.

[@no_peace]

Yeah a thrill does have a lot of anticipation lol

[@o_o8203]

That scene of the guy puking in his suit is burned in my mind. I haven't seen it since I was a child but I still remember that scene 😭 great movie tho

[@dr.pepperbiggestfan]

i have a deep love for science based horror. everything from infections to climate change, science and nature are such deep wells for inspiration when it comes to horror. with infection stories in particular their realness make them powerful and frightening. contagion became a sort of comfort movie for me during the pandemic. seeing mine and the lives of others put to film made me feel seen. the desperation, fear, and chaos on film helped me process those things in my life. it also helped humanize the people in charge during the pandemic, sometimes i would get so so frustrated with them. some of them absolutely deserved my ire but many were doing their best with what they had, contagion reminded me that even people with authority can be just as lost and frightened as i am. it made me more forgiving. i believe the power of film is the mirror it holds to our faces, forcing us to confront real world problems within ourselves and society. i think infection horror is a fantastic example of the power of film

[@rainbowdragonflies1134]

I feel like the 2006 Alfonso Cuarón movie Children Of Men hits a lot of the same notes as a virus horror piece, even if the circumstances are slightly different. The human species is in danger of dying out completely because no one can have children anymore... save for the last fertile woman in the world who needs to be escorted to a safe place.

[@orterves]

A world in which the cry of a baby can stop two warring sides in their tracks... for about 30 seconds

[@LostGirlAt22]

I was fully bawling while watching this scene lollll

[@eriknervik9003]

Meh it’s a crappy movie. Alfonso Cuarón took a political novel and replaced the politics. PD James was a Christian and wrote the novel as a way to criticize the culture of increasing childlessness of modern society.

[@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

A common theme in Crichton stories. No matter how prepared you are things will eventually go wrong. The robots will go nuts, the dinos will escape, etc “Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.”

[@herecomemacOnTT]

I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes in theaters with my mom, and she was the Communicable Disease Coordinator of my home county, and the ending of it shook her to her core with the way the disease spread via planes. She compared it to legit CDC models, and told me back then that she didn't want to scare me, but that we were DUE for a massive disease outbreak. I was later the first person in my family to contract COVID before there was much information out about it and MONTHS before the lock downs. It was the most sick my mom had ever seen me, and she told me after the fact that she thought I might have been dying 😅 didn't have insurance, so I was CHUGGING cold & flu medicine because I couldn't go to a hospital, but I WAS missing work. It was fucking terrible and terrifying that she told me that after.

[@fishfinn2204]

i had pretty much the exact same experience with my mom after watching rise of the planet of the apes too, except she's a virologist crazy how the world works lol

[@SuperCakeKing]

when i got coronavirus i kept smoking and vaping and was good within a week

[@herecomemacOnTT]

@SuperCakeKing man, I went onto nicotine withdrawal the first time. I generally wasn't well enough to make it out of bed, outside, and down our stairs 🥲

[@SuperCakeKing]

@@herecomemacOnTT when i coughed i eventually got a lil bit of blood in my mucus but not enough to worry about it, and basically just got better. idk why but i took it like a champ whenever i get sick if its vomiting or nausea though i turn into a big baby

[@herecomemacOnTT]

@SuperCakeKing haha I feel that. With basically any illness my body decides to hard shut down, and then with puking I'll be fine, and my fiancé is the opposite

[@Anthony-ye3uv]

Containment (2016) is a really good watch. It's a TV series about a viral outbreak in Atlanta and does a good job at showing the initial containment and lockdown, how the hospital and police respond to it, and how the citizens handle it, from day 1 onwards as it develops. I love this kind of media. I think in another lifetime I would have been a virologist.

[@derektorres8322]

I remember watching Contagion in my highschool biology class back in december of 2019 and just feeling really off about that movie. Little did I know lol

[@mish5898]

"Medical disaster" has always had a strong effect on me. This might sound silly, but it was Resident Evil 2 that put that fear into me. When i think even now what is really scary about those early Virus based RE games it is what you are talking about in this video. Exactly this. Humanoid monsters are creepy, gore is hard to look at but it's the unstoppable Virus and how it finds us where we can't run away from (our own bodies) that really scares me.

[@t1ll316]

“The Crazies” OG and remake and “Return of the living dead” (the exact name is important cause there are many, also good ones) are great horror examples with a very visceral component. The crazies in itself is pretty realistic with weaponized rabies as the cause and ROTLD is partly inspired by rainbow defoliants used in Vietnam, with a relatively believable scenario as well and some of the greatest practical effects I’ve ever seen

[@justacrittic1578]

Have you watched Station 11? It's a nice little HBO miniseries that came out in 2021 that depicts the world after pandemic that decimates most of the human population. And while the show is mostly about the post apocalypse, serving as a very nuanced take on post-pandemic trauma, there are a lot of flashbacks and episodes detailing the pandemic itself. One of the most interesting episodes are the first episode; which is about a man and a little girl who just happen to be at the same place (a stageplay of King Lear) as the pandemic hits, and there's this strong melancholy felt as the man is struggling to get the girl home as the rest of the world is quietly unraveling. It's not an over the top action scene of people rioting, but just this lingering uncertainty as everyone is trying to understand what's happening and get home. It reminds me of the night the closedown was announced. The other excellent episode is episode 5; taking place at an airport over the next 20 years. The main characters lands at an airport as a layover because of the disease, and without any proper place to go just stays there waiting for the disease to end. It depicts how people react to disaster as society quietly falls apart, and slowly the people in the airport must start their own little culture. They become too transfixed on rebuilding and remembering what was, rather than seeing this as as blank slate, a chance to fix the problems of the world that has now passed. Both episodes can be watched on their own, but the whole show is great. It's 10 episodes lasting between 40 to 60 minutes each. It all really fits the subject of this video, it hits well as a late/post-covid vent session for those of us who "remember damage."

[@eliotharrell6061]

station eleven is peak

[@Dog-lg5ju]

Yeah I remember reading half of the book in my high school sophomore English class. Good read

[@thesquadofficial2516]

I’m so comically germaphobic (and emetophobic, which just tends to come along with the genre) that I literally had to skip forward every time a clip played out of extreme caution 😭 The genre is not for me at all, but I love hearing people’s takes on it because it’s sort of a way to microdose on a genre I really *wish* I could get into. This is just a long way to say this is a great video

[@poindextertunes]

i believe its called exposure therapy 👌🏻

[@lindboknifeandtool]

Sounds rational to me…😂

[@raine7598]

My lockdown watch wasn't Contagion, as it was a little too realistic, but the Stephen King series The Stand. Thankfully it dives hard into standard Kingism so it was a decent distraction. Great video as always!

[@c.d.rstudios4691]

The opening of dawn of the planet of the apes fucked me up. Seeing the spread of the virus over the globe whilst news clips of the ever dire situation. And then all of the lights start to dim and dissapear. Messed me up for ages. And that fear is coming back with the monkey pox wave across the pond

[@toffeefeathers]

I was worried you were going to skip over Contagion and talk about the more “exciting” movies. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen tbh

[@davidm6329]

Cabin Fever fucked me up as a kid. Very few horror movies scared me, but an invisible disease that could come from anywhere, and would lead to dying an extremely painful and disfiguring death, made me into a hypochondriac for a while. The funny thing is that now I work in healthcare, and I'm probably less concerned with transmission of disease than many would expect. In the controlled environment of my job, we take significant precautions to prevent transmission of dangerous pathogens. We do this because those pathogens are known to be there in abundance, or because we are dealing with vulnerable people. But, out in day to day life, I don't feel the need to obsessively wash my hands, or use strong hand sanitizers. I don't use heavy duty cleaners on every surface. My behavior differs because it's actually normal and healthy for your body to be exposed to small levels of pathogens in your environment. Getting a cold is not a problem, it's like updating the software of your immune system. The big, scary pathogens that we are trying to avoid with our overly enthusiastic hygiene are fairly rare, and I don't believe we are doing more good than harm by avoiding natural exposure to every day pathogens in our fear of the big ones. A great example is the theory that the increase of prevalence of allergies and autoimmune disease might be linked to our eradication of parasites in the western world. The theory goes that parasites have a calming effect on our immune systems, and without them we become more sensitive to the environment. In relation to the software update analogy, this is like if you avoid updates for a few years, so instead of getting a minor computer virus, you leave a crippling back door open in your computer that allows someone to steal all of your personal information. The software updates are important.

[@Snapdragon0112]

I love outbreak but I adore the book it is loosely based on. The Hot Zone is a retelling of Ebola Reston in the U.S. It’s an amazing book and some of the descriptions of the actually deadly strains of Ebola is terrifying. One that will never leave me was this little boy that was bloated and body puffy because of all the internal bleeding made him expand like a balloon.

[@elliothill3953]

I remember the same people who freaked out about the Ebola scare under Obama were the very same people who said COVID was a lie.

[@pressurewave973]

Picked The Hot Zone up at a retail store when i was like 13. Scared me sooooooooo much haha

[@teyianneful]

​@pressurewave973 omg i was fascinated by ebola and marburg. I still am. When we had those scares all my middle school & HS friends were coming at the woodwork cuz I was the unofficial expert and they all wanted to know how worried they should b 😂😂😂

[@reverendweiner]

i really liked the fact you focused on labels in the beginning. ive always always thought of the horror genre as being much broader than people think

[@hails1136]

that shaving scene from cabin fever was so horrifying it caught me off guard. i know the point was to show the horror of the flesh-eating bacteria - and it does! - but as a woman it also struck me as a potent, if unintentional, commentary on the horror of performative femininity in the most grotesque way possible. taking a sharp blade to your skin, risking blood and injury, purely for the sake of beauty is scary enough, but for her skin to peel away, unleashing a tidal wave of blood, underscores how harmful these performances can be both for audience and performer. obviously that wasn't the point but i find it interesting nonetheless. great video!!!

[@Snormite]

As someone who shaves every five days out of comfort, this is such a stretch... You can just not shave if you want, but to treat it like a "great sacrifice" you're doing for the sake of looking good and comparing it to a flesh eating bacteria is just delusional.

[@ky1ethedestroyer]

@@Snormite To be fair, there is a stigma around women who don't shave, even today. I do like the idea of gravitating toward beauty standards being morphed and contorted into a sort of horror--I'm not sure if that's what the OP is trying to say but there's something to be said about it. That, and simply going about your daily duties, participating in your own hygiene, only to be met with a *nightmare*. That's crazy.

[@Snormite]

@@ky1ethedestroyer Well, Bioshock kind of did that with Dr. Steiman treating "uglyness" like a sickness and trying to turn real people into works of art through plastic surgery... "Imagine if I could do with a scalpel, what Picasso did with a brush". Besides, shaven or not, people will always judge your body for whatever even if you do shave, so you shouldn't care about that.

[@GruntoSkunko]

Hairlessness is not feminine, it's childlike.

[@alfsleftnut9224]

Theres a lot of subtle social commentary. The sex scene between paul and marcy is intercut with shots of karen rotting, symbalizing the degredation of society.

[@HeyItsNovalee]

“Virus horror” is one of my absolute favourite genres of scary movies. I don’t know what it is about it exactly but it terrifies me and yet I love watching them, like a car crash I can’t look away from. I think I’m especially fascinated by the build up, the slow dread of knowing there’s a sickness spreading but none of the characters are aware of it yet. It’s sick, but so addictive. But as you said movies that fit this exact type scenario are kinda hard to find, especially good ones that get really scientific. This video is an actual godsend, I can’t wait to check these movies out. I love it when KZbin recommends me something that is to my EXACT taste lol

[@unitywesker]

Fun fact: outbreak and contagion come as a set in those $5 bargain bins in Walmart. Bought both of them after taking a final in 2016 where we had to watch contagion and analyze it

[@audrey-pichu222]

I’m an aspiring medical researcher. I want to study exactly this - infectious disease. Funnily enough, this stemmed despite my crippling hypochondria and fear of contamination/viruses. Virus horror is absolutely terrifying, but so effective (early 2020 was a testament to that). Great vid!

[@SL4PSH0CK]

man i love how you laid out and how well paced how "horror" plays in each films, like each branch/sug-genre culminated for the sole purpose of freighting the audience 👏 bravo body horror, suspense, thriller, psychology, etc..

[@Megalon-qc8pf]

Just saying “viral horror” has a WAY better ring to it

[@saltwatermammal6751]

This is my favorite genre of horror because it’s the one that actually scares me. Monsters and killers and such can be, and often are, very cool and entertaining, but the realistic bleakness and tense anxiety of virus horror movies has always been the thing that has truly scared me. Contagion especially, is a great movie imo

[@TheMaskedFox288]

As someone who has been in and out of hospitals alot throughout their life, virus horror, and by extension, medical horror haunts me in a more personal way.

[@zacshaheen8286]

medical horror is probably the most disturbing kind of horror because of how relatable it is. All of us have been scared in a waiting room because a loved one is facing something horrible. The sterile white lights and clean room with someone suffering or a horribly disfigured body.

[@THEEMan]

As a genre-studies focused film scholar, this is the kind of video essay I really enjoy. A solid, evidence based argument without an over reliance on pseudo-philosophy. Great video, really liked the points you made!

[@Michael1777-1]

I'm not a microbiologist, but I stayed at a Holiday Express one weekend, and I recommend this video.

[@Esztibaba5]

These virus horrors scare me so much that I couldn't watch this video at night when it came out (0:06 AM in Hungary when I clicked on it). And still, one of my favorit "never watch it in the dark" movies is Contagion. It falls under the same cathegory as the Chernobyl HBO series. The realness and it's anxiety cut very deep in both cases.

[@ExØtic_Ton1c]

19:12 what happened to the audio here?

[@bluesteno64]

Copyright avoid?

[@larrytale3401]

I love the mask of the red plague. And I truly believe if it's implemented as a short theater play, it would scare more than anything. Not narration, not even a single line of dialog, just the motions and sounds of a cheerful hedonistic party, cut short by an unexpected thief.

[@benphish]

The cold open for episode 2 of the last of us on HBO was my favorite scene of the series so far for this reason. It was a perfect distillation of the "viral horror" you're talking about.

[@bluesteno64]

Thank you for putting that in quotes!

[@rocketterrier]

This video is perfect to me. For a long time I've told people that medical horror is one of my favorite genres, but I've never been able to explain how or why. I remember being a kid, binge-watching medical shows like Mystery Diagnosis and Monsters Inside Me and being absolutely OBSESSED. I watched Contagion in 2017 with my Biology II class, which had run short on time because of weather, and so we were also doing what I think was a mini unit on how bacteria is used to make cheese at the time. I was in-and-out of classes because of surgery anyways, but I happened to be in class when my teacher put on the movie. I was the only one who sat and intently watched; I even ate some of the food the teacher brought for snacks while nobody else did. I rewatched it in the dead of the night a couple years ago, post-pandemic, and I remember loving it just as much while also sitting back and taking a lot of time to process it. I feel like the pandemic, which is still ongoing by the way no matter what the government says, get vaccinated, has been very traumatic for everyone no matter if you've lost someone, or caught it yourself, or any of that.

[@ludiprice]

I watched Outbreak when it first came out and it scared the living daylights out of me. There's no no viscerally terrifying horror than viral horror, because it's something that could so easily happen in real life.

[@ek0221]

Contagion is my all time favorite. Watched it before the pandemic and now I still I believe it’s the most realistic. How it spread how people plotted to combat it and how each character played a role in showing how different ilks of people handled it. It was bittersweet but down to earth.

[@lauravampire1276]

I first watched Contagion in 7th grade for a project and rewatched it when my sophomore year was abruptly paused bc of Covid. The way I reacted those times are so different that it’s eerie. Who knew one day I’d be watching this film again to understand why the world is acting the way it is.

[@soshowme9405]

the sadness is partly virus and body horror. great movie, would never watch it again

[@RedFawcett]

Been a while since I last saw it, but 'The Cassandra Crossing' from 1978 might be up your alley. It deals with a virus breaking out on a train full of passengers on its way to a major city, and follows those on board and the ones at the top who argue over how best to stop it from reaching its destination.

[@therealverse9982]

Definitely a personal favorite of mine from this genre is the Tangi Virus. Easily one of the most well made analog horror series I’ve seen, and with the added virus factor it’s just all the more terrifying

[@Toshiro93]

The concept of invisible death, in addition to being much more mundane than a monster or a serial killer, accentuates human vulnerability: monstrous figures aside (which are totally imaginary), the intended victims of a killer in a horror film have the ability to escape the killer and even fight him. Most of the time, this possibility is offered only to the designated survivor (more rarely, to a small group), but these threats are physical, tangible and can be defeated... not surprisingly, the serial killers of horror fiction are almost all of them being supernatural, demons or mutants who can be brought back to life to create economically exploitable sagas. Virus, however, are real threats, which have had an impact on human history and which must be treated very seriously: for dramatic reasons, viruses are almost always exaggerated in their speed of spread, dangerousness and ability to alter bodies and minds of the infected. However, they are much more rooted in reality than any zombie or vampire of any kind, and, as said by the author of the video, they bring with them a whole series of social and economic consequences that are perhaps even scarier than the fear of contagion. . I would like to point out a catastrophist book with a "contagion" theme, even if it talks about an infection that affects plants, namely Death of the Grass, by John Christopher.

[@joyg2526]

Contagion was what people HOPED the authorities would do, instead of all the lying and incompetence that actually occurred.

[@Kaiserboo1871]

Good thing Covid was not where near as deadly as the virus in Contagion.

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

Contagion has pretty much turned into a black comedy after Covid with how wildly optimistic and trusting of the system it was.

[@moonbound6478]

​@@l0lLorenzol0lWhat are you talking about?

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

@@moonbound6478 the entire thing is wildly optimistic about scientists being Superhuman competent and unbiased, politics plays no part on the pandemic, media prettt much does nothing wrong, it's all solved in less than a year. A joke.

[@moonbound6478]

@@l0lLorenzol0l the scientists were competent and for the most part unbiased. Scientists from around the world came together to help make a vaccine. Politics played a big part but mostly on the public official side of things

[@a.m.4607]

I'm surprised you didn't mention "The Crazies" in this essay, especially the 1973 original. It's largely about how attempts to contain a virus spiral wildly out of control, but goes to great lengths to show characters at every level of the process and it clear how everyone involved at evry level is suffering from the outbreak.

[@theonlycatonice]

Watching Contagion and playing Plague Inc. way before Covid happened, prepped me for Covid. Not even joking. I already knew what was to come and how important it was to do all the things recommended. Things I wasn't prepared for was that I got allergic reactions to hand sanitizer and I got Covid in Germany anyways last year, even though I had a vaccination. The strains development is still cause for concern and now the Mpox resurgence is also problematic. Contagion is one of the best movies I've ever seen because of its realism. Was bizarre watching all the parallels. Plague Inc stages of humanity fighting back against infections also was so freaky to see irl. The alerts rapidly escalating until borders are closed, airplane travel stopped. Freaking wild! Oh and then I watched an old documentary that basically predicted covids outbreak after covid and was further surprised that we had anticipated this and yet never truly prepared for it.

[@GaTraCos]

Common misconception - the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting it, it preps your body for when you do get it. 2 shots, got covid months later, felt like I was dying. Probably would have if I didn't, if not hospitalised at least.

[@AlmaBuru]

First part of The Stand is an absolute delight that describes a collapse of human civilization over a summer.

[@Sigismund697]

In fairness Andromeda Strain is simply doing what the book did The book is amazing until the last 3 or so chapters where the focus swifts towards the bomb and the virus essentially cures itself taking relatively few people with it I remember when I first read the novel I was so perplexed by how abruptly it ends, it joined my list of books where it feels the author wanted to keep going for a while and then suddenly remembered they have to wrap up the story in 20 pages

[@avery2041]

Something about cabin fever that aways boggled me is who the fuck gets water they're gonna drink/use for a drink from a creek? I grew up with one as a kid and even we didn't drink it!!

[@Arcain321]

Realistic virus movies are the only horror movies that actually scare me and stay in my mind for a week or two. Maybe not now after living through the couf years but contagion got me for a while when it came out

[@brigitteespenschied5420]

I was surprised that The Stand didn't make an appearance here!

[@bluesteno64]

YES

[@GhostOwl24]

I remember during lockdown in 2020 I would get onto streaming platforms and see these kinds of movies were trending. “Carriers” was one I hadn’t heard of but I kinda liked it because it was bleak and ambiguous.

[@juliaphillips9862]

I would have happily sat through 45 more minutes of this. Mine eyes doth be blessed

[@TraafikLight]

Wowowow. I love this video, I genuinely love medical horror so much, it’s awesome to see my favorite sub genre get some attention:)

[@keo3000]

i think the sadness is my favorite "virus" movie, it was a pretty gory watch but i enjoyed the story

[@bluesteno64]

YES! I’ve only seen Roanoke Gaming’s video on it!

[@keo3000]

@@bluesteno64 try watching mista GGs video on it!

[@mikydicy2565]

I hate to say it, but the Book "World war Z" Made this perfectly. I know, i know, the movie was utterly Garbage, and rightfully so! However the Sourcematerial, the Book, is still one of my Favorit ones on Viruses and Zombies. The Narrative follows the Outbreak (i think China, dont quote me on that😅) through the Eyes of several different People, the Horror and Panic that ensures as No Cure or Vaccine can be Made, Organ Transplantation with infected Organs, Mass Panic, etc. So many good Stories in it, that would have been great to See in Action in a Movie. Some examples: - The Clearing of 250.000 Undead in the Paris Catacombs and the roughly 15.000 People tasked with doing it, without firearms, because of flammable gasses from the rotting bodies there. - At the verry Beginning, The Special Forces Guy in Greece, tasked with fighting a Smuggling Organisation, that turned Out to be utterly DESTROYED by Zombies. The Desparation, as one seems to be alive under rubble, only to have IT be a Surprise Zombie. - The Pandemonium of New York, as frantic survivors stormed the Holdout of the Moviestars and the Rich with Satchelcharges and Ladders. - The great Move North and the following Waves, where " by Christmas, those surviving Had enough Food again" And, and, and. Yes, the Zombievirus is overdone and too often used, but how IT was portrayed there, the uncertainty, the Hope for a Vaccine that turned Out to BE Not working, the Panic, one day from Bitte to Zombie, the Suggling of infected relatives, etc. If you havent, try reafing it. 150 Sites or so and a good View of the Virus. Sorry für my Bad Englisch, im a Native German speaker 😅🇩🇪. Take Care 👋☺️👋

[@ethanmcfarland8240]

Gotta love the audiobook where mark hamill is the soldier at Yonkers

[@Loptr177]

I love thee book. There's so many different scenarios. The girl that escaped with her parents up north and the community that had to commit cannibalism. The man that hated dogs until he had to work with trained dogs to fight the zombies. The japanese guy that had to climb down his building. Such a good book

[@hkmrsrg1367]

Yeah. The book was so good. I hate the movie with a passion.

[@samsniper2000]

Book is terrible, battle of Yonkers was one of the worst written things that desperately tried to seem informed, but max brooks is a hack that thinks a wall of IFVs wouldn't automatically stop all of the zombies.

[@agord7591]

​@samsniper2000 There are some really big stretches of your imagination, but in general the book is good.

[@gwenerator7288]

the stand is such a good example of a preapocalypse. I love/hate how king used vignettes to show the cross-country contagion of the virus.

[@MrGul]

A little disappointed that Ebola Syndrome (1996) wasn't even mentioned. It's by FAR my favorite virus horror movie.

[@TopsyTriceratops]

Funny how these films demonstrate how quickly humanity sucks with disease control are completely ignored and forgotten just before the real thing happens and everyone is somehow shocked.

[@aalllllllexx]

We had to watch contagion in high school when we had a substitute teacher and it is genuinely amazing cinema and underrated. I think the marketing fucked it over

[@skittstuff]

Left a like maybe 20 seconds in. Virus Horror is hands down my FAVORITE subgenre and pretty much exclusively the only one I pay attention to. LOVE LOVE to see people talk about it more. I'm not even fully through the video and I know I agree with your points already lol! EDIT: made it to the end. Here's my incomplete list of faves! (because I have brain fog.) -ANY book by Richard Preston. (The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event (fiction, but still good), The Demon in the Freezer, etc.) -The Nat Geo adaptation of The Hot Zone was also really good, as well as the original(?) second season about amerithrax -Right At Your Door is a good British? film iirc, i think it's not too well known either. -Train to Busan is also really good, while it is more of a zombie thing. -While not about viruses, HBO's Chernobyl has a similar feel in tension and formality to a virus horror. -Warning Sign - another pretty good movie (imo. it got mixed reviews but I am easily entertained LMAO) -Anything else listed in the video honestly. All peak. again, REALLY happy to see someone else talking about this! going in the video essay playlist for reals

[@MrGul]

If you haven't seen Ebola Syndrome (1996) I highly suggest you do so.

[@Cupcakes76]

Finally someone else who adores this genre! I SCREAMED when you mentioned Masque of The Red Death!! It's my favorite Poe story!!! Most of my writing is inspired by it. I'm studying biology and forensic pathology, but I also write horror. I've always said that pestilence is the strongest horseman. Growing up a sickly child, virus horror has always struck a coord with me. But now that I'm studying physiology and biology, I realized how horrifying it is. It's a faceless enemy that pretty much everyone faces at one point or another. It's scary because there is nobody to blame, nobody to kill, nobody to curse at, nobody to identify; Our years of evolution turn on us, our beloved white blood cells give up, our reliance on science dissipates as fear takes over. If pride is the mother of all vices, then pestilence is the father of all vices. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong when everybody is at risk. The true horror of virus horror is really just about our fellow humans. I really really have been waiting for someone to highlight how much of a gem the genre is. Some good more recent sources of virus horror include The Tangi Virus (analog horror), The Itch (analog horror), and What Lies Below (Fringe Season 2 Episode 13). I so wish I could include more, but I haven't seen many tbh

[@flipphone4755]

My two favorite things: viruses and horror movies. 🥰

[@incredibleflameboy]

I see jaws as a horror but the silence of the lambs and its related media are definitely thrillers. There's no overt horror aspects that threaten the protagonists directly. Hannibal lecter is never going to hurt Clarice starling personally and arguably advances her career, Francis dolarhyde only directly interferes in Will Graham's life in revenge and to complete his cycle of killings but the fear he creates in the story doesn't come from WHAT he does but WHY he does it. I guess what im saying is the "what" is what defines a horror or thriller.

[@26th_Primarch]

I'm a big fan of the sympathetic monster/alien idea as depicted by the monster from Watchers by Dean Koontz, or what I'd refer to as an "empathy test," the biggest example in recent years being the choice to spare or kill the last Rachni queen from the first Mass Effect game.

[@afilthypeasant9646]

7:32 i think the first movie about the trixie virus does the best job of showing the government and military trying to get a cure for a disease

[@alexkane001]

Have you seen/read Station Eleven? I feel like you may really enjoy (at least half of) it. Especially the TV show. It's currently available on HBO/Max

[@sl0oth842]

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear is a great read for anyone interested in this genre.

[@t1ll316]

I’m actually really baffled that the red death castle movie didn’t get a remake yet. The story concept is fn awesome

[@Maxgooner]

Perfect video to watch while I’m sick, thanks youtube

[@wilpennington1819]

I remember watching Contagion again right after the lockdown began. Scary how on the mark they were with many elements. Would love to see more content about virus horror, plague, post-apocalyptic films, etc.

[@TheKyGuy109]

These type of movies always got to me for the idea of unable to escape it’s effect. Body horror is truly terrifying.

[@teyianneful]

Ahhhh yesssss! EAP! that is my FAVORITE piece of his. ❤❤❤ Never saw the film but very much so overanalyzed it during literature class and again with my own kids

[@way2dead4u]

I started reading a book called 'The Troop' in December of 2019. It's about the convergence of two stories on a single North Lake island: a boy scout troop going on a camping trip and an escaped military-run experiment gone wrong, who contains a deadly tape worn-like parasite designed to eat all the fat and muscle off your body in a matter of hours. It's like if Lord of the Flies and body horror had a very contagious baby. Seriously, every sentence in that book inadvertently sounds disgusting, even when it isn't

[@carlosangel9404]

Contagion is genuinely the scariest movie I have ever seen in my life. That shit gave me literal nightmares.

[@eliasrodriguez5042]

Would be very curious to hear your thoughts on The Bay - it checked all the right boxes for me even though it's not strictly a virus. One of my favorites.

[@bluesteno64]

YES! Same with The Last of Us! One is a sea-louse and the other is a fungus

[@mirandar8933]

Virus movies are the great! Thank you for the awesome video covering it. :) Viral was one I picked up because I thought it’d fit this genre, but I was pleasantly surprised and disappointed at the same time. It’s a fun, tense horror, that leads into a sub genre that is picking up more recognition due to the popularity of The Last of Us. Parasitic horror would make for an interesting commentary as it shares a lot of similarities to virus horror but is riddled with its own complexities.

[@jesterspit]

one of my favs in this subgenre isnt actually a virus movie, but it is an outbreak movie (parasites specifically) that feels very similar to the virus movies you talked about, its called the bay. its found footage style and it follows an amateur reporter that accidentally ends up documenting a parasitic outbreak/biological disaster unfolding over a holiday weekend. its full of absolutely disgusting body horror, and i think the whole parasite thing is a pretty unique angle. its not the highest quality, but its found footage and those rarely are so i give it a fair amount of grace.

[@wtfsamusidk7574]

The Stand

[@emilykaneshiro2894]

Late to the party but this got me thinking about the korean drama happiness. It follows a building on lockdown after an outbreak of a zombie virus. It was made shortly after covid lockdowns ended so it uses that context as a backdrop. Its more about the people in the building than it is the zombie virus, its a good watch

[@PatPauloMMA]

Cabin Fever was one of my favorite movie-going experiences up there with the original Blair Witch Project.

[@jamesabernethy7896]

This is the first time I've seen your channel and this is a great video. You compare and contrast the elements of these various movies. Movies are often of their day but this makes them a fascinating rewatch. Technology like social media or taking a step back to when the fascination with space technology was in its infancy. The culture and concerns of the day also adds greatly to what that movie is forged from and to. I love movies and Outbreak and even Contagion were prime viewing for me in terms of era. They aren't ones which I find rewatchable but this is just me. Andromeda Strain was made before I was born but it is the best of these movies. Before typing my comment I also watched your Dune Part 2 reaction. I did like both parts but get why people think the first was slow. I grew up watching the 1984 version and for me it's still my favourite. I have read (or rather listened to) the first Dune novel. Although Chalamet is probably closer to the book. I like the MacLachlan Paul better. A little older, educated but has little worldly experience. I didn't like Zendaya's Chani but it is more down to direction. Scowl seems to be her default setting. I also like the worms in 1984, it might seem silly but I think it's because they were puppeteered. They had life and personality rather than simply being a force of nature. Best Gurney and Bulter's Feyd was amazing. The trailer showed him as a silent but violent protagonist, but he has personality and presence in the movie. Very effective.

[@RadiantBleu]

Maybe not the best to watch while I have a fever

[@TorricRoma]

15:04 only issue i have here is that the issue wasnt that Senator Cruz went on vacation (lot of people did) It's that the media made it seem like he was in charge of the State

[@villainousthoughts]

I've always been scared of super bugs, and as soon as I saw contagion it went in my top 5 'horror' films ever just because of the genuine fear I felt gripping me as soon as it started ramping up. 2020 onwards was a road trip through hell without aircon to say the least

[@mannco9458]

Lmao KZbin just has to put a note under the video about Covid vaccines

[@dangerouslypink2394]

I feel like thrillers usually come with the guarantee that the main character not only survives but fulfills their goal within the story or fixes the problem. Horrors often leave you feeling that the population in that world is hopeless or doomed

[@Biffting93]

Contagion was one of the films i had to study when i was studying film in college. I was pleasantly surprised and i think it made alot of people consider how easy it actually is to spread disease

[@HUEEY]

I love these type of horror movies, recently got back into them this week. I’m glad I stumbled on this video :D

[@LynshereeEastman]

Great great great great video, you drew me in!

[@PunishedBeerCanBennyIV]

Contagion is one of my favorite movies of all time, 2020 was absolutely surreal having watched it beforehand, and the movie is even more surreal watching it after

[@zettokuzuuya6844]

I am trying to remember this...late 90s early 2000s horror movie, I think this metoer lands underground in a town and it changes people, and they quarantine the town and send it some goofy hazmat guys and I remember some key parts an attack inside a church with some dogs? or bats? of some creatures that crash in the windows after they take shelter the alien or creature takes the form of a dog, and a girl (some dudes daughter I think?) one of the hazmat guys gets killed by a giant tentacle bursting from underground and the sheriff, one of the supposed good guys just turns out to be one of the creatures too and his whole lower body just comes off and he's a mass of tentacles and he's making comedic limbo jokes as he chases people like im talking hes chasing some girl and hes like 1/5 her height and he goes HOW LOW CAN YA GO and starts bending his upper body below some fallen pipes

[@kasteran6355]

ahhh i missed having the time to sit and enjoy your videos THEYRE SO GOOD