Caution: binge-watching pandemic movies can be habit-forming

Stuck inside the house? Experiencing cabin fever yet? Already rewatched Contagion and looking for more? Why not dip into Netflix’s vast reservoir of virus-related content and catch up on the inventive ways Hollywood has dealt with outbreaks in the past?

During this time of social distancing, I took it upon myself the task of watching every virus-related movie and series I could manage. Start by typing “virus,” “pandemic” and “outbreak” into the Netflix search window. Next, weed out the natural disaster entries and about 80 percent of the “zombie apocalypse” entries (too much of the same thing). Then start bingeing.

How many ways can the world end? Many, it turns out. (Side effects: Possible psychosomatic symptoms may arise. Also, may cause Netflix to identify your viewing habits and keep adding “Because You Watched…” recommendations.)

Kingdom. Oddly timely, Netflix’s first original Korean series about a zombie plague in 1500s Hanyang (present-day Seoul) is currently the Philippines’ No. 1 streaming choice (displacing another Korean import, Crash Landing On You) and it’s a doozy: based on a webcomic, it’s a supernatural horror epic set in a countryside in lockdown — there’s political intrigue, questions of how to act in an epidemic, what to sacrifice and what to save, all making Kingdom’s two seasons strangely topical. 

Side effects: Fear of zombies, fear of eating strange soup, curiosity about beef pancakes.

I Am Legend. A modern take on Richard Matheson’s sci-fi novel (first filmed as The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man) featuring Will Smith as scientist Robert Neville, sole survivor of a vampire plague who stays indoors after sundown — social distancing, but also because contagious vampire-zombies are roaming the streets. He observes health protocols that are useful in a pandemic, plus has a sense of humor. A little too attached to that dog, though.

Side effects: May result in fondness for Bob Marley songs and Shrek.

World War Z. Bad Pitt battles hordes of wall-climbing zombies in one of the more high-profile “zombie apocalypse” entries.

Side effects: Extreme chills whenever a zombie click-clacks his mandibles together. Disproportionate and unrealistic faith in Brad Pitt’s leadership skills.

Bird Box. A Netflix hit with Sandra Bullock as a woman who reluctantly takes charge of a couple of kids during an unexplained outbreak of suicide. People learn to wear blindfolds to avoid seeing supernatural entities that lead them to kill themselves. A taut thriller showing that people will always do the things they’re not supposed to in an outbreak, like touching their faces and removing their blindfolds.

Side effects: May cause YOLO idiots to attempt driving with blindfolds to see how hard it is. (This actually happened, causing real, serious car accidents.)

28 Days Later. Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) goes full outbreak in a script by Alex Garland starring Cillian Murphy as a coma patient who wakes up in hospital to find that a contagious disease has killed most humans, spread by flesh-eating rage zombies. The opening shots of a deserted London Bridge are eerily predictive of our current lockdown reality.

Side effects: Extreme gross-out feels whenever a zombie drips bloody saliva over a victim’s face. Disproportionate fear of monkeys.

Cargo. A Netflix remake of a 2013 Australian zombie apocalypse film, inexplicably starring funny man Martin Freeman, heading upriver to escape an epidemic with wife and infant daughter. They loot an abandoned yacht for supplies, which leads to trouble. (By this point, it’s clear there are eight million ways to die in a zombie apocalypse. The scenario has become depressingly familiar; I’m not sure how many more zombie attacks I can take. Will have to skip over Zombieland, Day of the Dead: Bloodline, Z Nation and the Dawn of the Dead remake to maintain sanity.)

Side effects: May erase fond memories of Martin Freeman playing a hobbit.

93 Days. True story of a hospital in Lagos that tried to contain the 2014 Ebola spread that killed over 28,000 people worldwide. Starring Danny Glover and Bimbo Akintola as concerned doctors, it’s another story where physicians and scientists are the frontline heroes, never giving into political pressure or skepticism, trying to remain calm and helpful, even as they get sprayed with Ebola blood by an irate patient. Sad, but hopeful. 

Side effects: Queasiness, chills, greater respect for healthcare professionals.

12 Monkeys. Based on the ’90s Terry Gilliam movie (itself based on the ‘60s French short film La Jetée), this series inexplicably picks up with Season 2 on Netflix. Starring Aaron Stanford as a scavenger from the future sent back in time to stop the release of a world-ending plague by the Army of the 12 Monkeys, it goes far afield of the source material, though Seasons 2 and 3 received high Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Not so much a guidebook for epidemics as a sci-fi effort to stop the past from happening.

Side effects: May make you want to revisit Gilliam’s version, which is better, and features a loopy Brad Pitt performance.

The Silence. This German-English Netflix horror film follows a global disaster spawned by carnivorous pterodactyl-like cave creatures that hunt by sound (shades of A Quiet Place, also shown on Netflix). A dismal, not-too-smart entry in the epidemic genre, it features Stanley Tucci and Miranda Otto as parents of deaf Ally (Kiernan Shipka), all trying to avoid tipping off unearthed “vesps” which rip apart anything noisy. So precautions pretty much involve trying to keep very quiet. Not hard, when the viewer is either asleep or bored to distraction.

Side effects: Regular urge to hit “10 second forward” button on Netflix menu.

Quarantine. TV anchor Jennifer Carpenter is trapped in a quarantined building with a firefighter team and a vicious, rabid killer. This 2008 “found footage” shocker taps into the usual Night of the Living Dead scenario: starts out breezily, 20 minutes later there’s a money shot in which a crazed old woman takes a bite out of a fireman’s arm. Naturally, people start doing things that don’t really help in viral outbreaks, such as trying to break the quarantine by escaping the building, and squashing a rat underfoot, spraying blood and guts everywhere. 

Side effects: May cause nausea, a few palpitations, fear of rabies, fear of dark buildings with dim lighting, fear of “found footage” genre in general.

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Feel queasy yet? Miss some of your favorite pandemic movies? Let me know at X-PatFiles.com.