10 Deadly Movie Epidemics

Holy crap, guys! The world may officially be in apocalyptic mode with what I’m about to tell you: Hollywood has finally come up with a creative, never-before-seen concept for a horror movie! Alright, that’s a little drastic, I know, since there actually have been a very, very small handful of horror flicks to come out in the last few years, but when I read about and saw the trailer for Splinter, which hits theaters in a limited release tomorrow, I thought it actually sounded good.

Splinter is essentially about a couple who’s going camping to have a weekend of getting their freak on when another couple kidnaps them and holds them hostage in a gas station convenient store. Apparently, a porcupine-esque virus breaks out among the people who are trying to get it, and it’s deadly as hell. Sounds sort of cool, right? I thought so.

So after thinking about deadly viruses, or as I like to call them “the banes of my existence”, I freaked myself out. Instead, I turned to fiction (since it’s way easier to handle and won’t turn me into a hypochondriac) and scraped up a little list of some crazy but unreal diseases I’ve seen on screen that equally scare the crap out of me. Tell me your scariest favorites below…mostly so I don’t feel like a germaphobe.


10. The Signal

Acting as a virus to the brain that chances the receptors that promote rational thought, The Signal (via phone and television) makes people go absolutely crazy. Throughout the film, we see people decapitated, people shooting other people, people running each other over…basically pure insanity. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m glad this doesn’t exist otherwise we’d all be screwed.


9. Children of Men

Whether it was some sort of virus that essentially changed human evolution or what, the thought of being part of an infertile world is sort of scary. Knowing you’re among the last people to ever live…that’s sort of terrifying (and blissfully nice as well) and almost too intense for me to really comprehend. It’s an oddly satisfying feeling to know that crack heads and teenage girls alike can pop one out whenever they please, and I’d like to keep it that way.


8. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The epidemic comes as alien form in this film, when an alien virus learns how to recode human DNA. What starts off as a harmless little experiment goes completely berserk when one by one each person is turned into a drone, completely disregarding her or his former self. This, along with another movie I’ll mention later, is the only reasons why I never hope evil aliens inhabit the Earth.


7. Shivers

Honestly, as much as this is terrifying, I also think this could be fun to have. One could be a slut without feeling the guilt of banging random dudes. Oh, who am I kidding? This shit is repulsive! A Venereal Disease/aphrodisiac-filled parasite that makes you do the deed in as many ways and to as many people as possible? Well, that’s one way to make the kids of America abstain and crap their pants at the same time.


6. Blindness

You all and I can agree on one thing…being blind would suck. We wouldn’t be able to use the Internet to the fullest to talk (and sometimes abuse) one another. We would only be able to hear movies versus seeing them…which is the entire point to film. So, what if you just woke up one morning and you were blind for no reason? Then everyone else started going blind too? That’s some scary shit if you ask me.


5. The Crazies

Before The Signal and The Happening, there was The Crazies. The movie centers around the spread of an untested biological weapon called “Trixie” that takes over a Pennsylvanian town after a plane holding a container of it crashes. If “Trixie” doesn’t kill you, it makes you kill…hence giving the town “the crazies.” I don’t want it, they can have it.


4. The Andromeda Strain

Those damn aliens again, geez. This time, they’re bringing us a strain of disease which makes make you sort of breathe funny, tweak out and die, turning your blood to powder. Just as the doctors started thinking it was containable, it totally mutates, causing the lovely process of death all over again. If this hasn’t totally freaked you out by now, you ought to become a doctor. Seriously.


3. Doomsday

This movie made me thankful for two things: 1) I’m glad I don’t live in Great Britain (although I want to secretly) and 2) Thank [Fill in the Blank] that this virus doesn’t exist. It looks truly brutal. It starts out just like anything else, flu-like symptoms, but by the end, you’re a deformed, infected body of blisters and have strange liquids coming from all orifices. I’ll pass.


2. 28 Days Later...

Zombies are truly horrifying creatures. Until this movie came out, people sort of started laughing at the thought of zombies because they moved so slowly from decay and rigor mortis that they’d never catch up with you. Now, with these movies, not only is the zombie plague spreadable by means of just biting (i.e. a drop of blood in the eyeball), but the infected are some fast fuckers! You can’t escape that, which is why the “Rage” virus sucks…a lot.


1. The Thing

Again, we have the crazy-ass aliens. However, this time around it’s just so balls-out scary that I’m glad this movie is pure fiction. If word ever got out about a disease like this one, people would be offing themselves left and right, myself included. Not only do you have no idea you’re infected, but you can blow at any moment, releasing a creature that is so horrifying and disgusting that it’s almost unimaginable, killing those around you in equally as horrific fashions.