The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Veiwer's Guide
/Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 03 seconds
BORED IN CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE? HERE ARE THE BEST EPIDEMIC MOVIES TO CRANK UP YOUR PANIC!
The best way to prepare for Covid-19 and endure quarantine is obviously to watch as many pandemic related movies as possible. Here is a list of the very best ones to catch.
Coronavirus now seems on the precipice of an outbreak here in the United States. Even before Los Angeles was hit with any cases, here in La La Land we made the decision to preemptively panic.
For example, hand sanitizer is liquid gold in Hollywood right now. Drug stores are stripped so bare that hand sanitizer currently costs more per gram than cocaine…or at least that’s what my cocaine dealer told me.
Since we all seemed destined for quarantine, be it mandated or self-imposed, I thought I would do my part to prepare readers for how to survive the coming Coronapocalypse by putting together a quarantine viewers guide.
Here is a list of pandemic themed movies graded on a scale of one to ten for how similar they are to the real world circumstances of Coronavirus.
OUTBREAK (1995) – Outbreak is a decent movie about an Ebola epidemic, most memorable for a scene where a guy coughs in a movie theatre and infects everyone. That visual is pretty unnerving and will make you glad you are watching in a plastic quarantine bubble and not at the Cineplex.
Coronascore: 4/10 Coughs are really scary these days.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) – Tells the story of a viral based drug meant to treat Alzheimer’s that goes wrong and kills or turns humans mute while making apes super-smart and able to talk.
There has been no news about apes being susceptible to Corona, but they do say that dogs can get it. No word yet on if the infected dogs gain the power of speech…but I wouldn’t be surprised. Thankfully, they lack opposable thumbs so that is a war we can definitely win.
Coronascore: 5/10, the Coronavirus scare has not made anyone smarter yet.
12 MONKEYS (1995) – This mind-bending meditation on time travel and destiny tells the story of a group of eco-terrorists who release a deadly virus into the world in order to eliminate humans, and the band of survivors who travel back in time to stop them.
Corona probably wasn’t released by eco-terrorists, but since China imposed quarantines satellite photos show its pollution has come to a screeching halt…hmmm, makes you wonder.
Coronascore: 6.5/10. Think about it.
28 DAYS LATER (2002) – In 28 Days Later a highly contagious virus is accidentally released upon the world turning people into hyper-kinetic zombies.
Corona may not directly lead to zombie-ism, but the panic around it sure turns people…like me… into mindlessly frantic and fearful beings who attack old ladies in drug stores to obtain a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer!
As for Corona being “accidentally” released into the public, maybe by a biological weapons facility in China, I have heard crazier conspiracy theories…that’s for sure.
Coronascore: 7/10. If the virus doesn’t start a zombie apocalypse, at least it will prepare you for one.
WORLD WAR Z (2013) – Another entry where a virus turns people into zombies…this time who are attracted to sound. In order to overcome the zombie hoards Brad Pitt travels the globe looking for a vaccine. He eventually finds one and hope is restored to humanity. I have considerably more confidence in Brad Pitt solving Corona than the U.S. government.
Coronascore: 7/10…same as above plus Brad Pitt.
ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971) – In this film a satellite falls to earth carrying an alien organism, which upon contact with humans crystallizes their blood. I have yet to read of any blood crystallization regarding Corona…but to be fair I am not a big reader.
Scientists have praised Andromeda Strain because “it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it, and, finally, the work-up on its identification and clarification on why certain persons are immune to it."
For scientific accuracy I give it a Coronascore of 8/10.
CONTAGION (2011) – The gold standard of pandemic movies tells the story of a virus that starts with a bat in China and then spreads across the planet due to an inter-connected global economy. Sound familiar?
Contagion also has the distinction of killing off super annoying actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The filmmakers knew audiences would love Gwyneth’s demise so much they even put it in the trailer.
The superbug in Contagion is much more potent than Corona, but the movie’s depiction of the struggle of health officials to contain and identify the virus and the ensuing collapse of social order all seem to be spot on if Corona gets really bad.
Coronascore: 9/10…It even has a bat!
In conclusion, while I am not “technically” a doctor…here is my very cinematically informed opinion of what will happen with Corona.
I believe some guy will Corona cough in a movie theatre and then Gwyneth Paltrow will fall ill and her Goop inspired vagina scented candles won’t save her.
The virus then mutates and turns people into mute hyper-zombies attracted to sound and gives apes extreme intelligence and the power of speech, which predictably leads to a zombie-ape war.
Then a time traveling space ship, hopefully piloted by Charlton Heston, lands carrying a space virus that wipes out the zombies and apes, leaving behind a rag-tag bunch of surviving humans, led by Brad Pitt, who live in the eco-utopia that is now earth.
Either that or this whole Corona thing blows over and we all live happily ever after…at least until the next pandemic comes along and scares the living hell out of us once again.
A version of this article was originally published at RT.
©2020