Editorials
5 Favorite Virus Outbreak Films On Behalf of ‘Pandeminc’!
XLrator Media’s Pandemic, starring Rachel Nichols (Star Trek, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Continuum), Mekhi Phifer (Insurgent, Divergent, 8 Mile), Missi Pyle (The Artist, Gone Girl, Big Fish), Alfie Allen (John Wick, Atonement, Game of Thrones), Danielle Rose Russell (A Walk Among the Tombstones), Paul Guilfoyle (L.A. Confidential, Air Force One, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and Pat Healy (Rescue Dawn, Magnolia), is now in limited theaters with the first person horror arriving on VOD and iTunes the following Tuesday, April 5th.
Directed by John Suits (The Scribbler), Pandemic features non-stop action from a first person shooter perspective (FPS), putting the audience in the middle of every fight whilst feeling in control of every punch thrown and shot fired.
Bloody Disgusting caught up with Suits and producer Gabe Cowan who share their “5 Favorite Virus Outbreak Films”.
JOHN SUITS
28 Days Later: This film really changed the game in terms of what an outbreak film can be. It was inspiring to me not only because it revolutionized the definition of a zombie, but also because, in a lot of ways, it helped usher in the digital age. When the film came out, I was in film school and had an XL1, so when I heard a studio film was coming out that was shot on that same camera, I was very curious. The result is breathtaking and as an aspiring filmmaker at the time, it really left an impact.
12 Monkeys: This is another film that inspired me. Terry Gilliam has such a unique and powerful voice and I always love the worlds he creates. What I think functioned so well in this particular film is even though the style of the film is fantastical, it creates a believable scenario where civilization is almost entirely wiped out.
Children of Men: This film is in my top five not only for the bleak tone but also for the sheer technical marvel of it. I love films that push boundaries and this film does it in spades. I also appreciate how Couron goes about it in a way that supports the storytelling and most importantly, brings us into the world of the characters, often following along with their journey in real time.
Contagion: This movie seriously freaked me out and probably doubled my hand washing habits for a good while after I first watched it! Soderberg creates what I think is probably the most realistic and true to life end of the world scenario I’ve ever seen. It does an amazing job interweaving stories that span the globe, and I love how it shows how simplistically and seemingly innocently a worldwide outbreak can begin.
The Seventh Seal: My Dad loves this film and I watched it a lot growing up. It’s perhaps the most horrifying of the bunch because it takes place during an outbreak that actually occurred in real life. Its nihilistic perspective in context acts as a sort of a scary reminder of how history can repeat itself. Personally, I’ve always found the film rather haunting, so its stuck with me over the years. Also, I think it has particularly stuck with me as it uses the thematic elements that typically capture my attention.
GABE COWAN
Is the Smurfs an outbreak movie?
The Thing: The John Carpenter version – of course not a traditional outbreak movie but what a wild ride of paranoia and character driven intrigue. I watched it for The first time in my high school film class. I remember thinking how cool it was that I got to spend the middle of the day watching this film in school. After we watched, our teacher explained what was happening within the film sub textually and cinematically and my mind is completely blown. Still is.
Dawn of the Dead: Arguably Zack Snyder’s best film. Dawn of the Dead works so well because it takes typical zombie tropes experienced by three dimensional and relatable characters. An incredible performance by Sarah Polley.
Shaun of the Dead: C’mon – it’s a great cross genre mashup of raucous fun with laughs and scares and gore galore.
World War Z: All that conflict we read about on set ended up creating a joy ride of a movie. Yes… it’s predictable and hits its plot points by the numbers – but that’s what I liked about it. I just got to lean back and be taken away by $150,000,000 worth of popcorn selling fun.
28 Days Later: was one of my favorite outbreak films and from an independent filmmaking perspective is a film worth studying. I believe they shot it on standard definition video and were able to capture London as an abandon city by literally waking up first thing in the morning and shooting before cars and people were moving around.
and The Smurfs. Scariest movie of all.
“Pandemic is set in the near future, where a virus of epic proportions has overtaken the planet. There are more infected than uninfected, and humanity is losing its grip on survival. Its only hope is finding a cure and keeping the infected contained. Lauren (Rachel Nichols) is a doctor, who, after the fall of New York, comes to Los Angeles to lead the charge in the hunt for uninfected civilian survivors.
Lauren’s objective is simple – lead her team into the field and rescue survivors. Lauren and her team: Gunner (tactical command), Denise (navigation), and Wheeler (driver), put on their anti-contamination suits, complete with cameras so their experiences can be used for research, and leave the compound. But nothing could have prepared them for the mayhem they are about to walk into.”
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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