Editorials
In Defense of ‘Virus’: Reflecting Back 20 Years Later
A big budget action horror film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland sounds like a safe bet for the box office. So much so that a line of action figures was developed, and the original comic the movie was based on received an updated release with the movie’s artwork in promotion. But then the movie’s release date was bumped, from a cushy summer Blockbuster slot in 1998 to the following January, a month often considered a dumping ground for releases. Dropping into theaters on January 15, 1999, Virus was panned by critics and a commercial failure. To rub salt in the wound, it’s a movie that Jamie Lee Curtis has consistently rebuked in interviews, often referring to Virus as an “all time piece of shit.” While it’s far from perfect, it’s also undeserving of all the vehement hate.
Released almost exactly one year after Deep Rising, Virus continued the trend of following a ragtag team at sea whose boat is destroyed shortly after discovering a much larger sea vessel. One that’s seemingly deserted. In the case of Virus, it’s a salvage crew captained by Robert Everton (Donald Sutherland). When his crew loses their cargo in the middle of a hurricane and the tugboat starts taking on water, they hop on the nearest ship – a Russian research vessel, Volkov. Unbeknownst to them, the Volkov was struck by an alien energy source emanating from the Mir space station just 7 days prior, and the Volkov’s crew since disappeared. Uncovering what happened to them leads to a fight for survival, and all of humanity is at stake.
The biggest flaw in Virus, the reason it’s been so maligned, is that the character and dialogue work can be downright cringe-worthy. William Baldwin plays engineer turned hero Steve Baker, and he doesn’t really have the range to transcend bad dialogue. He’s established right away as the moral superior to Everton’s manic leader corrupted by greed. But with lines like, “You figure it out,” after threatening Everton to see what happens if he ever pulls a gun on him again, well, it doesn’t make him look like the tough guy he’s supposed to be. Luckily, Virus has two additional heroines alongside Baker. There’s Joanna Pacula’s Nadia, the sole survivor of Volkov’s inciting event, who plays double duty as exposition deliverer and secondary heroine with fighting spirit. Then there’s ex-Navy officer Kelly “Kit” Foster, Curtis’ character. Even when starring in a film she hates, she still gives it her all.
The characters spend a lot of time bickering amongst each other, and doesn’t even attempt to subvert the order in which they’ll die. But it doesn’t matter much when the alien lifeform begins to make its appearance. It’s an electrical presence that inhabits tech and crafts robots out of found objects. What it desires most is to wipe out humanity, deemed a virus, and use their flesh for spare parts. It leads to a lot of gooey, gory bits that painfully blends man with machine.
Directed by prolific visual effects artist John Bruno (Poltergeist, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Batman Returns), with effects handled by award-winning visual effects artist Phil Tippett’s studio, Virus is one of the rare ‘90s spectacles that holds up pretty well. Example: I love Deep Rising, but the climactic CG reveal of the sea creature is very, very dated at this point. But Virus is heavily practical, and the CG work blends in. The manborg-like creatures are gory and grim, making for a few fun jumpscares and a lot of bloody sequences.
Like many action horror films that have come before and after it, Virus borrows from notable films like Aliens, The Thing, Hardware, and Event Horizon. It makes some really wacky choices with its character work and does take a while to really kick into gear. But it’s difficult to be bored when Sutherland is playing Captain Everton with this odd blend of suicidal, greedy, and gleefully sadistic. Or when other characters make equally puzzling decisions amidst a human flesh assimilating robot race. And anytime the robot monsters terrorize victims on screen is a highlight. From a perspective of fun popcorn entertainment that showcases special effects, there’s a lot to like about Virus.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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