Disease Film Recommendations

[ThePlashyBubbler]

This semester I'm taking a class revolving around apocalypse films, and we were recently tasked with doing a group research project in a specific type of apocalypse film - my group being disease. As part of the project we have to view 12 disease-related films, a number of which must be either documentary or foreign, and write up some thoughts placing them within historical and film context yadda yadda yadda.

I was wondering if anybody had some good recommendations for films that somehow revolve around or incorporate disease, other then the repeatedly mentioned Children of Men and 28 Days Later, which everyone else in my group seems to be vying for. Thanks!

[Watashi]

12 Monkeys or La Jetee would be good ones.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stand and Right at Your Door. Especially the latter, which doesn't involve psychic avatars of good and evil.

[Ezee E]

Doomsday. Which is basically 28 Days Later on PCP.

[Winston*]

Doomsday. Which is basically 28 Days Later on PCP.

...meets Mad Max meets Escape from New York meets Lord of the Rings...

[Philosophe_rouge]

It's still in theatres, so it might not be the best choice, but Pontypool is a very strange/unconventional use of a zombie-like disease. It's also Canadian, that's foreign enough right?

Shivers is not really about disease, but the alien creature is spread like a venereal disease. I'm not sure if that helps :/

I am Legend or any adaptations of that maybe?

[Dead & Messed Up]

It's still in theatres, so it might not be the best choice, but Pontypool is a very strange/unconventional use of a zombie-like disease. It's also Canadian, that's foreign enough right?

Shivers is not really about disease, but the alien creature is spread like a venereal disease. I'm not sure if that helps :/

I am Legend or any adaptations of that maybe?

Oh yeah, The Last Man on Earth and Omega Man for that matter.

[Philosophe_rouge]

Oh yeah, The Last Man on Earth and Omega Man for that matter.
Yes, I was far too lazy to look them up, though they were on the tip of my tongue. Thanks :D

[balmakboor]

It may not be quite what you are looking for, but check out Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. It is about a man's rather interesting way of dealing with cystic fibrosis. It's a documentary. It will affect you.

[Qrazy]

Do your disease related films have to be apocalypse films? Since they can be documentary I'm guessing not.

The Andromeda Strain (original)
12 Monkeys
La Jetee
Angels in America
Planet Terror
Panic in the Streets
Night of the living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Safe

Maybe would fit:

Bigger than Life
Gattaca

Films I haven't seen yet:

The Quiet Duel
The Asthenic Syndrome

I guess you could watch but why would you want to:

Outbreak

[Grouchy]

Shivers and Rabid are both good examples, although the latter is not "apocalyptic" - it's like the prologue of an apocalypse... on a very small scale.

[Spinal]

The House is Black

[Sycophant]

Everything I can think of right now has been mentioned already, so I'll just pop in to say that I can't read this thread title as anything but "Diseased Film Recommendations."

[ThePlashyBubbler]

Thanks for the recommendations everybody, this should be great, lots of titles. Those who didn't receive rep shall whenever I am replenished.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

The House is Black

hell yeah...leprosy ftw!

[Watashi]

Thanks for the recommendations everybody, this should be great, lots of titles. Those who didn't receive rep shall whenever I am replenished.
Your rep is useless! Useless I say!

[thefourthwall]

No new movies spring to mind that haven't already been mentioned, but I thought I'd share an article that I'm reading in relationship to my dissertation chapter which includes 28 Days Later and discusses the modern SF genre as reliant on the virus trope, rather than something mechanical for a metaphor:

Cohn, Jesse. "Believing in the Disease: Virologies and Memetics as Models of Power Relations in Contemporary Science Fiction." Culture Machine: Generating Research in Culture and Theory 3 (2001). (http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/289/274)

It comes from an online journal's volume all about viruses (http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/issue/view/16), they're all available...maybe something will be useful.

Of course, if you don't have to do any outside research, this may be merely interesting rather than actually helpful.

[Raiders]

Peter Watkins' pseudo-documentary The War Game is all about the physical effects of a nuclear fallout. It would be an inspired pick I would think.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse is another fringe pick that is not an actual disease or illness, but certainly presents a spreading, apocalyptic epidemic.

Of course, there is also the recent Blindness, which fits pretty perfectly but is not something I could recommend.

[Spinal]

Great choices, Raiders. I was just about to say something similar about Blindness. Not a great film, but it is contemporary and fits the category well. It would be pretty easy to write about.

I also think that Let the Right One In emphasizes vampirism as a 'disease' in ways that might be interesting to explore in an academic paper. There is the scene in which Oskar does not give Eli permission to come in.

There is the hospital scene ....

... a kind of self-euthanasia from a character that does not want to face the ill-effects of her disease.

There is the way that Eli pales and looks sickly when she has not fed. There is the way that Eli must travel with a caretaker, etc. Also, while it is not explicitly apocalyptic, I do think that it positions Oskar in an atmosphere that is essentially hopeless. He is surrounded by a cultural wasteland with bullies, divorced parents, drunkards, etc. Certainly more of a stretch than some of the films mentioned, but perhaps worth exploring because it is a film that many people have been talking about recently.

[Qrazy]

Peter Watkins' pseudo-documentary The War Game is all about the physical effects of a nuclear fallout. It would be an inspired pick I would think.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse is another fringe pick that is not an actual disease or illness, but certainly presents a spreading, apocalyptic epidemic.

Of course, there is also the recent Blindness, which fits pretty perfectly but is not something I could recommend.

On the Beach might also fit similar parameters. I haven't seen the film yet but I have read the book and I think it's partly about that... I mean it's certainly about nuclear fallout, don't remember how large a role illness played... it was more the fear of encroaching illness.

Also The End of August at the Hotel Ozone... did that reference disease much? I can't recall.


http://www.nova-cinema.org/main.php?page=prog/110/05postapo.en.htm

Just found this site, haven't seen many of the films, could be an interesting point of reference.

[Qrazy]

Great choices, Raiders. I was just about to say something similar about Blindness. Not a great film, but it is contemporary and fits the category well. It would be pretty easy to write about.

I also think that Let the Right One In emphasizes vampirism as a 'disease' in ways that might be interesting to explore in an academic paper. There is the scene in which Oskar does not give Eli permission to come in.

There is the hospital scene ....

... a kind of self-euthanasia from a character that does not want to face the ill-effects of her disease.

There is the way that Eli pales and looks sickly when she has not fed. There is the way that Eli must travel with a caretaker, etc. Also, while it is not explicitly apocalyptic, I do think that it positions Oskar in an atmosphere that is essentially hopeless. He is surrounded by a cultural wasteland with bullies, divorced parents, drunkards, etc. Certainly more of a stretch than some of the films mentioned, but perhaps worth exploring because it is a film that many people have been talking about recently.

Yeah a lot of vampire films could probably be included and provide a ton of compelling selections to choose from... Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust for instance.

[Bosco B Thug]

Bubonic plague films like The Seventh Seal and The Masque of the Red Death? 'Masque' is kinda apocalyptic. Neither very scientifically presented at all, though.

[soitgoes...]

On the Beach might also fit similar parameters. I haven't seen the film yet but I have read the book and I think it's partly about that... I mean it's certainly about nuclear fallout, don't remember how large a role illness played... it was more the fear of encroaching illness.
All the action is about impending doom. Also I'm not sure nuclear holocaust falls under disease induced armageddon.

[ThePlashyBubbler]

Your rep is useless! Useless I say!

It's the thought that counts. :cool:

[Qrazy]

All the action is about impending doom. Also I'm not sure nuclear holocaust falls under disease induced armageddon.

Oh fine.

[Dead & Messed Up]

One more: The Screwfly Solution from season 2 of Masters of Horror.

It's about an unknown pathogen that makes men homicidally violent against women. It ends on a severely apocalyptic note.

[SirNewt]

Don't know if anyone mentioned it but 'Panic in the Streets'. Interesting as it's and older film about the subject, also a pretty sober one too.

"Peter Watkins' pseudo-documentary The War Game is all about the physical effects of a nuclear fallout. It would be an inspired pick I would think."

Sweet I still have this. It's on the Culloden DVD I've had from Netflix for five months.

[Qrazy]

Don't know if anyone mentioned it but 'Panic in the Streets'. Interesting as it's and older film about the subject, also a pretty sober one too.

I mentioned it, but it's worth mentioning twice... Kazan is the shit.

[rocus]

Cabin Fever :)

[monolith94]

The Flowers of Saint Francis has a good leper-scene.

[Philosophe_rouge]

Another vampire film that might be interesting would be Herzog's Nosferatu, it works as vampirism as a disease especially in the use of rats as pseudo-carriers. It's been a while since I've seen it, but the film seems to link vampirism with the plague.