I decided to do a search for the number of mainstream movies that have portrayed pandemics over the last fifty years. I came up with a large list which I winnowed down to 34. I wanted to research them to see what themes they contained and how prevalent they were among them. I also wanted to see if there were any hints that were in them that could provide insight into the current Corona Virus "plandemic".
I did this because I have been studying quite a bit lately about the subject of "predictive programming", and how effective visual cues can become when implanted into the subconscious mind - especially when relentlessly repeated and when done so upon hundreds of millions of people over many years. I have provided the movies I studied below, along with short explanations of their plots and themes and short comments I made for each.
All of the plot information I quoted directly from Wikipedia entries. I will provide a summary on the bottom - this stuff is just here for posterity and for anyone else who wants to study these movies in depth. I decided to focus on movies alone because they have the greatest ability to elicit fear responses in the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time, especially in this day and age where reading has taken a back seat to video entertainment.
(There may be some movies that I missed. If anyone is interested and thinks them important for this discussion, please post a comment. Thank you.)
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The Andromeda Strain (1971) - After a U.S. government satellite crashes near the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico, almost all of the town's residents die. A military recovery team tries to recover the satellite, but is unsuccessful. Suspecting that the satellite has brought back an alien organism, the military activates an elite scientific team. The film ends by showing Andromeda dissolving in seawater and then forming the number 601, the Wildfire computer signal for information coming in too fast for the computer to analyze. (There are some interesting clues in this movie, including the fact that people who maintained an alkaline blood pH could not be infected by the Andromeda Strain. Alien origin. Enforced quarantine, soldiers, potential use of nukes to kill virus.)
The Omega Man (1971) - In March, 1975, a Sino-Soviet border conflict escalates. When American anti-ballistic missiles break up warheads carrying biological warfare material, most of the world's population is killed. U.S. Army Col. Robert Neville, M.D., is a scientist based in Los Angeles. As he begins to succumb to the plague, he injects himself with an experimental vaccine, rendering himself immune. (In this movie, many survivors become basically zombies. This, and infectious agents infecting people from space, are recurring themes in these movies. A cure is developed using serum from Neville's blood.)
The Crazies (1973) - Heavily armed U.S. troops in NBC suits and gas masks arrive in the town, and are being led by Major Ryder, who takes over Dr. Brookmyre's office. Days earlier, an Army plane carrying a bioweapon had crash-landed near the town, infecting the water supply with a virus code-named "Trixie" which is highly contagious and causes victims to either die or become hysterical and homicidally insane. Martial law is declared in Evans City and a quarantine is placed on the town. Army soldiers forcibly move the townspeople into a high school, rousting many from their homes, and shoot anyone attempting to escape. Bombers armed with nuclear weapons are dispatched to destroy the town if necessary. (Again the zombie theme. The disease is a bioweapon. The army is involved. Potential vaccines to cure the disease are destroyed in the end.)
Rabid (1977) - Marilyn Chambers plays a woman who, after being injured in a motorcycle accident and undergoing a surgical operation, develops an orifice under one of her armpits. The orifice hides a phallic/clitoral stinger that she uses to feed on people's blood. Those she feeds upon become infected. Their bite spreads the disease, and they cause massive chaos starting in the Quebec countryside and ending up in Montreal. (Origin unclear. More zombies that feed on blood and infect their prey. The military is again involved. A cure is supposedly developed but is not deployed.)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - a remake of the original from 1956. The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect copy of the person replaced, only devoid of human emotion. A race of gelatinous creatures abandon their dying planet and travel to Earth, landing in San Francisco. They take the form of small pods with pink flowers. Elizabeth Driscoll, a laboratory scientist at the San Francisco Health Department, brings one of the flowers to her home with the thought that it's an exceptionally rare species. Leaving it at her bedside, she awakens the next morning to discover her boyfriend, Geoffrey Howell, acting cold and distant. (Extraterrestrial origin and invasion. Creation of a race of non-emotional humans who spread by duplicating their host and destroying the original. Police and military are infected. No cure; it is assumed the entire human race is eventually Borged.)
The Stand (TV miniseries, 1994) - Based on Stephen Kings book of the same name. The plot centers on a pandemic of a weaponized strain of influenza that kills almost the entire world population. The few survivors, united in groups, establish a new social system and engage in confrontation with each other. An extremely contagious and lethal strain of influenza, resistant to antibodies and vaccines, is developed as a biological weapon within a secret U.S. Department of Defense laboratory, and is accidentally released. (More soldiers that try to wipe entire towns out and impose martial law. There is no cure.)
12 Monkeys (1995) - A deadly virus, released in 1996, wipes out almost all of humanity; forcing survivors to live underground. A group known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is believed to have released the virus. In 2035, James Cole is a prisoner living in a subterranean compound beneath the ruins of Philadelphia. Cole is selected to be trained and sent back in time to find the original virus, in order to help scientists develop a cure. In 1996, Railly gives a lecture about the Cassandra complex to a group of scientists. At the post-lecture book signing, Railly meets Dr. Peters (who spreads the virus) who tells her that apocalypse alarmists represent the sane vision while humanity's gradual destruction of the environment is the real lunacy. (The virus is spread via airports by a "Greta Thunberg" doctor. No cure. Involves a time loop.)
Outbreak (1995) - The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like Motaba virus, in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. It is primarily set in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak's plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease. The film, released on March 10, 1995, was a box-office success and Kevin Spacey won two awards for his performance. A real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus was occurring in Zaire when the film was released. (More military and martial law, including plans to nuke a city. Biological weapons. A cure is developed using blood serum.)
Mimic (1997) - In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly "Strickler's disease" that is claiming hundreds of the city's children. Dr. Peter Mann, Deputy Director of the CDC, recruits entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who uses genetic engineering to create what she calls the Judas breed, a large insect that releases an enzyme which accelerates the roaches' metabolism and causes them to starve to death faster than they can take in nourishment. It doesn't ultimately work; instead, the mutations enabled the roaches to accelerate their evolution to where they could appear human and they fed on people. They are eventually destroyed. (More genetic intervention gone awry.)
28 Days Later (2002) - The plot depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors (Murphy, Harris, Burns, and Gleeson) to cope with the destruction of the life they once knew while evading those infected by the virus. (More zombies and evil soldiers. Bioweapon. Animal liberation activists releasing infected monkeys. No cure.)
Resident Evil (2002) - Adapted from a video game, underneath Raccoon City exists a genetic research facility called the Hive, owned by the Umbrella Corporation. A thief steals the genetically engineered T-virus and contaminates the Hive with it. In response, the facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen, seals the Hive and kills everyone inside. (More zombies. Soldiers. Environmental activists. Scientist creating evil bioweapons. An anti-virus cure is developed but not used.)
Cabin Fever (2002) - The story follows a group of college graduates who rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a flesh-eating virus. The inspiration for the film's story came from a real-life experience during a trip to Iceland when Roth developed a skin infection. (Origin of infection unknown. Some of those infected turn on others and infect them like rabid zombies. Police ordered to kill infected on sight. Infection contaminates water supply, infecting many. No cure.)
Dream Catcher (2003) - Based on another Stephen King novel. The film stars four friends who encounter an invasion of parasitic aliens. (Another movie with origin of infection coming from outer space. Larva breed in infected people, meaning infected people are the reservoir for further infections. An elite military unit is tasked with destroying the threat. Enforced quarantine. The aliens try to infect the water supply. There is no cure, but the infection is ended by killing the alien final parasite.)
Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004) - Resident Evil: Apocalypse is set directly after the events of the first film, where Alice escaped from an underground facility overrun by zombies. In the previous film, former security operative Alice and environmental activist Matt Addison fought to escape an underground genetic research facility called the Hive, the source of a zombie outbreak. The pair were part of an attempt to expose illegal experiments being performed there by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation. The film ended as Alice and Addison were taken into custody by Umbrella. She now bands together with other survivors to escape the zombie outbreak which has spread to the nearby Raccoon City. The film borrows elements from several games in the Resident Evil series. (Corporations involved. City quarantined, eventually nuked to destroy the virus and hide corporation's involvement with creating the virus. More zombies spreading infection. Mutant supersoldiers created to deal with those threatening to expose the corporation's involvement. An anti-virus cure exists. More militarism. More activists.)
Dawn of the Dead (2004) - This is a remake of a 1978 film. A handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall located in the fictional town of Everett, Wisconsin, are surrounded by swarms of zombies. (Zombies galore. Their bites and scratches infect others. No cure and possibly no survivors. No indication of where the infection came from.)
Children of Men (2006) - In 2027, after 18 years of global human infertility and depression, the world is on the brink of collapse and humanity faces extinction. The United Kingdom, one of the few nations with a functioning government (the only other known functioning government is Angola), is deluged by asylum seekers fleeing radiation and plague. In response, the UK has become a police state as the British Army rounds up and executes immigrants. Theo Faron, a former activist turned cynical bureaucrat, is kidnapped by the Fishes, a militant immigrants' rights group. They are led by Theo's estranged wife, Julian Taylor, from whom he separated after their son's death during a 2008 flu pandemic. (Police state. Immigrants. Infertility. World-wide collapse after war and plague/pandemic that started in 2008. And the movie ends with this: "As the credits roll, the sound of children laughing and playing can be heard in the background." Unknown origin. No cure. Pretty creepy...)
I Am Legend (2007) - A remake of a "The Last Man on Earth" from 1964 and "The Omega Man" from 1971, all adaptations from the book "I am Legend" written by Richard Matheson in 1954. Set in New York City after a virus, which was originally created to cure cancer, has wiped out most of mankind, leaving Neville as the last human in New York, other than nocturnal mutants. Neville is immune to the virus and he works to develop a cure while defending himself against the hostile mutants. In 2009, a genetically re-engineered measles virus, originally created as a cure for cancer, turns lethal. The virus kills 90% (5.4 billion out of 6 billion) of the world's population and turns 9.8% (588 million) into vampiric, Albino Zombie like cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. The remaining 0.2% (12 million) of the population are immune to the virus and are the prey of the mutant Darkseekers. (More cannibalistic vampire zombies. More militarism. Bioweapon. Quarantine of all of Manhattan island. A cure is developed and released.)
The Invasion (2007) - The Invasion is the fourth film adaptation of the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, following Don Siegel's 1956 film, Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake, and Abel Ferrara's 1993 Body Snatchers. After the Space Shuttle Patriot crashes on Earth, a fungus-like alien lifeform is discovered on the remaining parts scattered widely over the United States. Once people come into contact with the organism, they are controlled by it when they enter REM sleep. One of the first people infected is Tucker Kaufman, a CDC director investigating the crash. ... Tucker uses the CDC to spread the disease further, disguising the spores as flu vaccine. When Carol arrives at Tucker's house, he and several colleagues close in on her. ... He explains that the changed humans, devoid of irrational emotions, are offering a better world, and asks her to join them. ... Eventually, a vaccine is created, inoculations are made world-wide, and within a year the alien virus is eliminated. Carol and Ben are together again, and society reverts to its normal emotional and violent ways. (Another extra-terrestrial origin of disease. More zombies as spreaders of disease. Mind control. Assimilation into the Borg collective, to form a "better world". A cure is developed and given. Military. The CDC is complicit in spreading the disease via vaccines.)
REC (2007) - REC is short for "record". Spanish film. The film centers on a reporter and her cameraman covering a firefighter intervention in an apartment building in Barcelona. As the situation escalates, after some of the building's occupants show animalistic and murderous behavior, the reporter and cameraman find themselves confined inside the perilous building. A health inspector in a hazmat suit arrives and attempts to treat the injured until they suddenly become preternaturally aggressive. ... After the injured are locked in the building's textile warehouse, the health inspector explains that they are infected with a virus similar to rabies... They discover a tape recorder which explains that the penthouse owner, an agent of the Vatican, was charged with the task of isolating an enzyme carried by a young Portuguese girl named Tristana Medeiros, whose symptoms suggest a demonic possession. (Zombie aggression and disease-spreading behavior. Police. Demonic possession. Vatican involvement. An enzyme is agent of infection. No cure.)
28 Weeks Later (2007) - A sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later. It is set after the events of the first film, depicting the efforts of NATO military forces to salvage a safe zone in London, the consequence of two young siblings breaking protocol to find their infected mother, and the resulting reintroduction of the Rage Virus to the safe zone. (Zombies spreading disease violently again. NATO involvement with quarantine and heavy police state. No cure, but immune people exist. The disease spreads off to Continental Europe.)
The Happening (2008) - The film follows a group of four as they try to escape an inexplicable natural disaster. In New York City's Central Park, people begin dying by mass suicide. Initially believed to be caused by a bio-terrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin, the behavior quickly spreads across the northeastern United States. ... The nurseryman theorizes that plant life has developed a defense mechanism against humans consisting of an airborne toxin that stimulates neurotransmitters and causes humans to kill themselves. His hypothesis is confirmed when the group is joined by other survivors... On television, an expert, comparing the event to a red tide, warns that the epidemic may have only been a harbinger of an impending global disaster... (Plant origin. No Zombies! Impending global disaster hinted at. No cure. Film ends with: "another wave of suicides is initiated in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France.")
Pontypool (2008) - In the small town of Pontypool, Ontario, radio announcer Grant Mazzy is accosted by a nonsensical woman who repeats the word "blood" several times before staggering away. At the radio station, Grant's shock jock style and on-air persona irritate his technical assistant, Laurel-Ann, and station manager, Sydney. Helicopter reporter Ken Loney calls in with a report about a riot at the office of Dr. Joe Mendez that has resulted in numerous deaths. After Ken is unexpectedly cut off, the group tries to confirm his report, but their witnesses are disconnected before being put on the airwaves. After they are contacted by the BBC for breaking the story, Ken calls back and says he has taken refuge in a grain silo. He describes the rioters as trying to eat one another or even themselves. When one of the rioters attacks the silo, Ken's call is interrupted by an audio transmission in French. Laurel-Ann translates the transmission, which is an instruction to remain indoors, not to use terms of endearment, rhetorical discourse, or the English language and not to translate the message. Pontypool is declared to be under quarantine. (Origin of disease indeterminant. Infected show zombie-like mindless behavior. Method of tramsmission is actually certain words in the English language itself! Attempts to stop spread of virus by using radio to spout a series of self-contradicting and confusing phrases fails. No cure.)
Blindness (2008) - a 2008 English-language thriller film and an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by Portuguese author José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. A young Japanese professional suddenly goes blind in his car at an intersection, his field of vision turning white. A passerby offers to drive him home, then steals his car. His wife returns home and takes him to an ophthalmologist who can identify nothing wrong and refers him for further evaluation. The next day, the doctor goes blind, and recognizes that it must be caused by a communicable disease. Around the city, more citizens are struck blind, causing widespread panic, and the government organizes a quarantine for the blind in a derelict asylum. (More zombie behavior. Forced quarantines. Police. One woman is immune. Origin of virus not given. Societal collapse along with food riots. No cure, but the disease suddenly disappears.)
Quarantine (2008) - an American remake of the Spanish film REC, above. In comparison to REC, it features several differences such as added and excluded scenes and characters, dialogue, and a different explanation for the virus. ... Rather than making their way to the basement, the pair are forced upstairs to the attic apartment by the remaining infected, where they find lab equipment and newspaper clippings about a doomsday cult and a break-in at a chemical weapons lab where a virus was stolen. (As REC above, except the virus was stolen from a weapons lab and spread by a doomsday cult.)
Carriers (2009) - four survivors of a viral pandemic attempting to avoid the looming threat of becoming infected. An infectious virus has spread worldwide, killing most of the population. Two brothers, Brian and Danny, along with Brian's girlfriend Bobby and Danny's friend Kate, are heading to Turtle Beach in the southwestern United States, a secluded beach motel where they believe they can wait for the viral pandemic to die out and eventually start a new life. To help them survive, they follow a set of rules created by Brian. (No origin of virus given. No cure. Survivalists in apocalyptic setting.)
The Crazies (2010) - The film is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name. It focuses on a fictional Iowa town that becomes afflicted by a military virus that turns those infected into violent killers.
Contagion (2011) - The plot concerns the spread of a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic,[2] and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. Following their collaboration on The Informant! (2009), Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns discussed a film depicting the rapid spread of a virus, inspired by epidemics such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic. Burns consulted with representatives of the World Health Organization as well as medical experts such as W. Ian Lipkin and Larry Brilliant.
This movie deserves to have the entire plot posted - from Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org
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"Returning from a business trip in Hong Kong, Beth Emhoff meets with a former lover during a layover in Chicago. Two days later, back home in suburban Minneapolis, she collapses with seizures. Her husband, Mitch Emhoff, rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause. Mitch returns home and finds that his stepson, Clark, has also fallen ill and died. Mitch is placed in isolation for testing but is later found to be naturally immune; he returns home to his teenage daughter Jory, who he keeps quarantined from boyfriend and other friends.
In Atlanta, Department of Homeland Security representatives meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with concerns that the disease is a bioweapon intended to cause terror over the Thanksgiving weekend. Cheever dispatches Dr. Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis to investigate. Mears traces the outbreak back to Beth. She negotiates with local bureaucrats, who are reluctant to commit resources for a public health response. Mears later becomes infected and dies. As the novel virus spreads, several cities are placed under quarantine, causing wide-spread looting and violence.
At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall determines the virus is a combination of genetic material from pig- and bat-borne viruses. Research on a cure stalls because scientists are unable to discover a cell culture within which to grow the newly identified MEV-1. Dr. Cheever determines the virus is too dangerous to be researched at multiple labs and restricts all work to the one government site. Dr. Hextall then orders University of California professor, Dr. Ian Sussman to destroy his samples. Believing he is close to finding a viable cell culture, Sussman violates Cheever's order to destroy his samples and eventually identifies a usable MEV-1 cell culture using bat cells. Hextall uses the breakthrough to begin research on a vaccine. Other scientists determine the virus is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 of the world population will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate.
Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede posts videos about the virus on his blog. In one video, he claims to have cured himself of the virus using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. People seeking forsythia overwhelm pharmacies. During a television interview, Krumwiede discloses that Cheever secretly informed his fiancée to leave Chicago before quarantine was declared. Cheever is informed he will be investigated. Krumwiede, having faked being infected to boost sales of forsythia, is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud.
Using an attenuated virus, Hextall identifies a potential vaccine. To shorten the lengthy time needed to obtain informed consent from test subjects, Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and visits her infected father. She does not contract MEV-1 and the vaccine is declared a success.
The CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birthdates. By this time, the death toll has reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. Earlier, in Hong Kong, World Health Organization epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes and public health officials combed through security video tapes of Beth's contacts in a Macau casino and identify her as the index case. Government official Sun Feng kidnaps Orantes as leverage to obtain MEV-1 vaccine doses for his village, holding her for months. WHO officials provide the village with vaccines and she is released. When Orantes learns the village vaccines were placebos, she runs to warn them.
In a flashback, a bulldozer razes palm trees while clearing a rainforest in China that disturbs the natural habitat of some bats. One bat finds shelter in a pig farm and drops an infected piece of banana, which is eaten by a pig. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who transmits the virus to Beth in a handshake"
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(Pretty much everything going on with the current Corona Virus epidemic is here: Origin of virus from bats, turned into a bioweapon; wide-spread military quarantines, resulting eventually in food riots; virus spread by respiratory droplets with a high RO number; a vaccine is hastily developed and determined to be a success; vilification of natural cures - it's all here.)
Contracted (2013) - stars Najarra Townsend as a young woman (Samantha) that finds herself suffering from a mysterious sexually transmitted disease after a rape. In a morgue, a man with an Abaddon tattoo has sex with a corpse that has a biohazard symbol on the toe tag; afterward, he handles an empty test tube while washing up. After she becomes heavily inebriated, Samantha is approached by BJ, who offers her a drink. Even though she tells him that she is a lesbian, when she begins to black out, BJ takes her to his car and rapes her. (Unknown origin of disease, but is sexually transmitted. Turns Samantha into a zombie.)
Flu (2013) - a 2013 South Korean disaster film written and directed by Kim Sung-su, about an outbreak of a deadly strain of H5N1 that kills its victims within 36 hours, throwing the district of Bundang in Seongnam, which has a population of nearly half a million people, into chaos. Brothers Ju Byung-woo and Ju Byung-ki are smugglers in Seoul who find that illegal immigrants have died in a shipping container from an unknown illness. They take sole survivor Monssai and cellphone video of the bodies to show their boss in Bundang, but Byung-woo becomes sick and Monssai escapes. The brothers go to a clinic where the contagion is passed on to others who spread it throughout the city. ... The next day, many more people show pronounced symptoms. With help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Korea (KCDC), the hospital staff locate and incinerate the shipping container. However, rats that had been feeding on the corpses escape into the city. The staff determine that the aggressive virus is a mutated H5N1 strain that can kill within 36 hours, and call to quarantine the city. ... While disparaging the need for a quarantine, administrators and politicians are confronted with a catastrophic situation as
people collapse in the street, including drivers who cause a series of violent crashes. Hospitals and communications systems become overwhelmed, and the quarantine is initiated. ... At night, the Bundang quarantine is reinforced by the Republic of Korea Army, reserve forces, United States Forces Korea and the KCDC. ... . Pressure from Leo Snyder as the Director-General of the World Health Organization and several South Korean politicians force the President to break a promise to release all those citizens who prove uninfected after 48 hours. Riots break out. When an infected soldier is fatally shot by an officer, a mob becomes enraged and storms the IQZ. They see Ji-goo rescuing Mi-reu from an enormous pile of bodies that are being burned. The industrial scale of the mass incineration and the insinuation that some of the infected are burned while still alive creates a shock wave. ... The movie echoes both Outbreak and Contagion but is considerably closer to Petersen's earlier movie in that the symptoms of the supposedly Avian Flu strain look more like Ebola, and both the incubation period, the mortality rate, the attempt at containment by blocking off a whole city using the military, and the break-neck adventure ending are clearly modelled on the 1995 box office success. (This movie also has it all, just like Contagion, but was filmed for a South Korean audience. Involves the CDC (Korean), WHO, military, quarantines, discussion of destruction of a city, mutated H5N1 origin of the flu, societal collapse, communications blackouts, killing of infected and mass burning of bodies as in China. A person who survives the infection is used to create a vaccine.)
World War Z (2013) - The film stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie pandemic. Former UN employee Gerry Lane, his wife Karin and their two daughters are in heavy Philadelphia traffic when the city is overrun by zombies that are attracted to sound. As chaos spreads, the Lanes escape to Newark, New Jersey and take refuge in an apartment, home to a couple with a young son, Tommy.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni, an old friend of Gerry, sends a helicopter that extracts the Lanes and Tommy to a U.S. Navy vessel in the Atlantic Ocean where scientists and military personnel are analyzing the worldwide outbreaks. Andrew Fassbach, a young virologist, posits that the plague is a virus and that development of a vaccine depends on finding the origin. (This movie also has a lot of interesting material. Virus introduced by a doctor, thus a bioweapon. Mossad involved, but supposedly in a 'helpful' manner. WHO makes an appearance. Zombies to the max. "Cure" involves purposefully infecting with pathogens to make zombies ignore them as useful propogation vehicles. CIA operatives. United Nations.)
Contracted Phase Two (2015) - a zombie body horror film and the sequel to the 2013 film Contracted. After the events in the previous film, Riley (Matt Mercer) has begun showing symptoms of the same illness that caused Samantha (Najarra Townsend) to turn into a zombie. Panicking, Riley decides that he needs to track down the person who first infected Samantha, BJ (Morgan Peter Brown), in the hopes of gaining a cure. ... BJ has his own agenda, he is more than willing to continue to spread the disease to other victims. He is immune to the virus and continues to spread it to other victims like Samantha... ...Eventually, he sends threat tapes to the special agent to orchestrate the end of the world with a zombie apocalypse. As Riley decided to cooperate with Detective Young, he succumbs to the disease and is killed by BJ, who was at the hospital where Harper died of seizure to detonate a bomb to create a massive apocalypse by releasing other victims hospitalized there. As Riley is fully transformed into a zombie, he kills BJ before Detective Young shoots him in the head. (Zombies, with a planned apocalypse by a demented person immune to the virus. Police. Origin unknown. No cure.)
Containment (2015) - The film is set in a 1970s era council block in Weston, Southampton set in the present-day United Kingdom. Mark, an artist, wakes to find that he has been sealed into his flat with no way out. There is no electricity, no water and no communications with the outside world apart from a voice over the intercom, repeating the phrase, "please remain calm, the situation is under control". Strange figures in Hazmat suits patrol the grounds outside and set up a military tent. Mark's neighbour, Sergei, breaks down the wall between their flats in order to discover why they have been sealed in and try to find a way to escape. Along the way, they team up with their fellow residents, Enid, Sally and Aiden. When young Nicu is taken, Mark and Sergei rescue him and take a Hazmat nurse hostage. (Not much here. Unknown situation resulting in forced quarantine. People sealed into a building, as happened in China recently due to corona virus. Military. No food or water. Hazmat suits.)
The Girl With All The Gifts (2016) - It deals with a dystopian future in which most of humanity is wiped out by a fungal infection. Twenty years ago humanity was infected by a variant of the fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. The infected, referred to as "hungries", quickly lose their mental powers and feed on the flesh of healthy humans. The disease spreads through blood and saliva, but can also spread through spores created by the fungus. In England, the few surviving uninfected humans either live in heavily guarded areas such as Beacon, or roam in packs of hostile, scavenging "junkers". (Zombies. No cure or vaccine. Only those who get infected by the fungus will eventually live, if altered into cannibals. Military base. A new race of cannibal humans eventually is created.)
It Comes At Night (2017) - A highly contagious outbreak ravages the planet. Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis are secluded in their home deep in the woods in an undisclosed location. (No origin of the virus. Complete disruption of society. No cure.)
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Now I will present some of the themes present in the above movies and attempt to summarize what I found.
Out of the 34 movies above, the number of those containing the themes below is given.
Apocalyptic, fear-inducing setting: All 34.
Number of movies with "zombies" or zombie-like behavior: 21.
Military or police involvement: 26.
Alien origin of disease: 5.
Origin of pandemic is a bioweapon: 15.
Forced quarantines/martial law: 20.
Use of military and/or nukes to eliminate source of pandemic or kill everyone in a city to contain it: 10.
Number of times almost entire population of world, or area focused on in film, are killed off: 21.
Number of times a cure is found or just 'happens' (several movies have cures developed but they aren't deployed for various reasons): 14.
Number of times agent of pandemic is intentionally released (not counting "alien" invasions): 5.
Vaccines/blood serums developed as a cure (not always deployed before disaster hits): 11.
Other noteworthy comments:
- (Andromeda Strain): people who maintained an alkaline blood pH could not be infected by the Andromeda Strain.
- (Invasion of the Body Snatchers): Creation of a race of non-emotional humans who spread by duplicating their host and destroying the original.
- (The Stand): The few survivors, united in groups, establish a new social system and engage in confrontation with each other.
- (12 Monkeys): Apocalypse alarmists represent the sane vision while humanity's gradual destruction of the environment is the real lunacy.
- (Outbreak): Speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease.
- (Resident Evil Apocalypse): Mutant supersoldiers created to deal with those threatening to expose a corporation's involvement.
- (Children of Men): In 2027, after 18 years of global human infertility and depression, the world is on the brink of collapse and humanity faces extinction.
- (Children of Men): The United Kingdom, one of the few nations with a functioning government is deluged by asylum seekers fleeing radiation and plague. In response, the UK has become a police state as the British Army rounds up and executes immigrants.
- (I Am Legend): In 2009, a genetically re-engineered measles virus, originally created as a cure for cancer, turns lethal.
- (The Invasion): A CDC director investigating the crash uses the CDC to spread the disease further, disguising the spores as flu vaccine.
- (REC): An agent of the Vatican was charged with the task of isolating an enzyme carried by a woman whose symptoms suggest a demonic possession.
- (The Happening): In New York City's Central Park, people begin dying by mass suicide. ...plant life has developed a defense mechanism against humans consisting of an airborne toxin that stimulates neurotransmitters and causes humans to kill themselves.
- (Pontypool): The "method of transmission" is actually certain words in the English language itself! Language as infectious agent in Canada.
- (Quarantine): lab equipment and newspaper clippings about a doomsday cult and a break-in at a chemical weapons lab where a virus was stolen were found.
- (Contagion): The plot concerns the spread of a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. This movie, more than any other, mirrors what is going on now in real time.
- (Flu): ...an enormous pile of bodies are being burned. The industrial scale of the mass incineration and the insinuation that some of the infected are burned while still alive creates a shock wave.
- (World War Z): just a quick mention that this movie presents the Mossad as a "saving force". Moving on...
- (Contracted, Phase Two): BJ, a demented man with an Abbadon tattoo (Abbadon means "place of destruction" and "angel of the abyss" - Hebrew Bible) who is immune to the virus, sends threat tapes to a special agent to orchestrate the end of the world with a zombie apocalypse.
All of these movies are apocalyptic in scope, with most of them classified as "horror movies". So they were written and filmed in such a way as to elicit fear in their audiences (which is mostly why people went to see them. I guess some people use fear like a drug). Most of them depicted desolated wastelands that had been created by the effects of horrible infections upon people, resulting in the destruction of the world as they knew it. Most of them focused on the struggles of a few survivors to adapt to their surroundings. Most of them involved infected people acting as mindless zombies that were themselves agents of infection. Most of them involved the use of the military and police to attempt to maintain order, which was done by enforcing quarantines and killing or isolating anyone who tried to escape. Many of these infectious scenarios were created intentionally by nefarious agents using biological methods to create disease.
A lot of this has seemed to come to pass recently. I guess there are still questions about who the zombies really are, but wastelands are being initiated with the "shutdowns" even now. Could it be that governments will decide that those "breaching containment" are the REAL zombies, even when it is proven that this whole crapshow is a HOAX? How much of these movies has been burned into the collective consciousness of people now that this is happening in real time, so that people will react in fearful obedience? How much has the FEAR created by these movies for their audiences who PAID to feel it originally as a lark, now become the dominant emotion of their being? How much has repeatedly watching such movies over time imprinted this crap even deeper into their minds, such that the current reactions of those exposed to it are now completely rote? How much of what has been imprinted upon the collective consciousness in this manner matches what those who control us WANT us to believe?
The "programming is complete", indeed.
THIS IS HOW THEY GIVE US THEIR MIND
