Chris Pine in Carriers
According to Hollywood, we’re all going to die. At once. Of a very bad cold. With a few pretty people left to mill around in the ruins. But Hollywood’s been wrong before.
The release of Carriers this week, which sees Chris Pine (Star Trek) and a small band of survivors trekking across an abandoned America, marks the release of yet another film making the most out of concerns global diseases.
The post-apocalypse virus movie has been all the trend over the last few years, but its origins go back further than that.
Stretching all the way back to 1968, George A Romero single handily started the ‘epidemic’ style of film with Night of The Living Dead.
Even though it’s known as the mother of all zombie films, the leap between brain munching and all the illnesses seen in films such as Carriers was only a small one to make.
It only took three years to make this jump with the release of the first true ‘virus’ film. Based a book by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain preyed upon fears of infections and created an alien virus which killed the infected.
Although getting a mixed reception, it had laid out the guide lines, but few chose to follow. Natural disasters were the flavour of the month back then.
In the mid nineties though, diseases started having a comeback. With the release of Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys (which featured a virus ridden future) and Outbreak, and action thriller starring Dustin Hoffman and a rather poorly monkey, the idea of the disastrous pandemic came back into fashion.
These were only a stop gap before the audience had to put on their masks again.
The way to reignite the ideas of dangerous viruses? Go back to its 1970's horror routes.
The now Oscar winning director Danny Boyle was the true architect behind this new batch of pandemic flicks.
Released in 2002, his low budget Brit-flick 28 Days Later sees an unnamed man, played by Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), wake up in a London hospital to find the city deserted besides groups of mindless, enraged people infected with a virus.
This brilliant thriller not only brought the ‘zombie’ film back to life, gave birth to this new, spin off set of films.
Still thought of as many as the pinnacle of the genre, 28 Days Later, and less so it's highly disappointing (and to be honest pointless) sequel 28 Weeks Later remain to many as a blue-print.
Undoubtedly the most famous entry was 2007’s I Am Legend. Powered by the star power of Will Smith, this saw him as the last man alive in New York, where with only his dog for company, he fought to find a cure for a disease that had turned humanity into creatures of the night.
Although heavily, and rightly, criticised for a ridiculous second half, I Am Legend showed that even though these films take place on enormous scales that the focus is on the person in the middle of it all, the victim of the end of life.
Like any true area of film, the modern-day pandemic feature has been used in many different ways.
While both the recently released Carriers and last year’s Doomsday brought on a more ‘everything’s gone wrong’ Mad Max vibe, Blindness went for a very different and disturbing track, adding further social comment to the mix.
With Quarantine and Cabin Fever taking illness back to its horror routes and Right Outside Your Door bringing fears of terrorism into the works, what was once an offshoot from old monster films now has a full on movie portfolio of it’s own.
But in a similar way to 28 Weeks Later, this year’s most successful virus film yet again traded ideas with zombie films of the past. Zombieland, staring Woody Harrelson (No Country For Old Men) and Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland), takes the idea and runs with it.
A comedy that simply involves the end of the world, Zombieland, a rip roaring laugh-a-thon that sees the end of society by tainted burgers, brings the story back to its beginnings.
Maybe the real reason for this isn’t the great ideas that Danny Boyle had or the the commercial success of any of the films mentioned. Maybe Hollywood is just flat broke when it comes to ideas.
There have always been film adaptations of books. Some of the best films of all time aren’t original (see the Shawshank Redemption for any sort of proof) but with most of the literary world’s grade A titles gone, people are turning to the realm of apocalyptic fiction, which has been around since the 19th century.
Spice up the package with a little bit of the contemporary sniffles and all of a sudden swine flu is the least of your character’s worries.
With Hollywood still not looking particularly full of ideas, don't be suprised to see more infections appearing in your local multiplex.
Female First Cameron Smith