At Home Film Festival Suggestions for the 2020 Zombie Virus Pandemic
Are you one of the 3Bn people reported to be in lockdown?
Well, one thing that can be done is to make your own personal #ZombieVirus Film-Festival. Now, I’ll try to be attentive to the needs of kids, but I’ll only really do so by noting the IMDB link where you can find the content-ratings. Given how scary things are outside, zombie movies should be selected with care. But I didn’t want to be restricting the otherwise fairly awesome film-festival list of go-to films at this time of our shared experience of an Epic #ZombieApocalypse the likes of which never before known to mankind — in the real-world…
Beyond that, this list isn’t really intended to be in any particular order.
Contagion (2011)
IMDB STORY LINE NOTES:
Soon after her return from a business trip to Hong Kong, Beth Emhoff dies from what is a flu or some other type of infection. Her young son dies later the same day. Her husband Mitch however seems immune. Thus begins the spread of a deadly infection. For doctors and administrators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, several days pass before anyone realizes the extent or gravity of this new infection. They must first identify the type of virus in question and then find a means of combating it, a process that will likely take several months. As the contagion spreads to millions of people worldwide, societal order begins to break down as people panic.
Blindness (2008)
IMDB Story Line
A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant “white blindness”. Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital where the newly created “society of the blind” quickly breaks down. Criminals and the physically powerful prey upon the weak, hoarding the meager food rations and committing horrific acts. There is, however, one eyewitness to the nightmare. A woman whose sight is unaffected by the plague follows her afflicted husband to quarantine. There, keeping her sight a secret, she guides seven strangers who have become, in essence, a family. She leads them out of quarantine and onto the ravaged streets of the city, which has seen all vestiges of civilization crumble.
IMBD LINK
Outbreak (1995)
IMDB Story Line
When a disease in Africa is discovered, Colonel Sam Daniels of the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases or USAMRIID, is sent to investigate. When he reports back to his superior officer General Ford and tells him that they should put out an alert on this disease but the General that since the disease is so far away and not airborne that it can’t possibly reach the U.S. However, a monkey from that part of Africa was captured and brought to the U.S. and a man who works at the customs house took it and tried to sell it but when the person he tried to sell it to rejected it he released it. Later the man who arrived in Boston collapses and dies, Col. Daniels wants to look into it but General Ford denies his request so he turns to his ex-wife, who works at the Center for Disease Control or CDC to look into and they discover it’s the African disease but since it kills very quickly, Col. Daniels feels that it’s been contained until another outbreak!
IMDB LINK
World War Z (2013)
IMDB Storyline
Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.
I Am Legend (2007)
IMDB StoryLine:
Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a scientist who was unable to stop the spread of the terrible virus that was incurable and man-made in this post-apocalyptic action thriller. Immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and perhaps the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague — the Infected — lurk in the shadows — watching Neville’s every move — waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind’s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered — and quickly running out of time.
28 Weeks Later (2007)
IMDB Storylink
28 Weeks Later picks up six months after the Rage Virus has decimated the city of London. The US Army has restored order and is repopulating the quarantined city, when a carrier of the Rage Virus enters London and unknowingly re-ignites the spread of the deadly infection and the nightmare begins… again.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
IMDB Storyline:
After a bank heist in Abilene with several casualties, the bank robber Seth Gecko and his psychopath and rapist brother Richard Gecko continue their crime spree in a convenience store in the middle of the desert while heading to Mexico with a hostage. They decide to stop for a while in a low-budget motel. Meanwhile the former minister Jacob Fuller is traveling on vacation with his son Scott and his daughter Kate in a RV. Jacob lost his faith after the death of his beloved wife in a car accident and quit his position of pastor of his community and stops for the night in the same motel Seth and Richard are lodged. When Seth sees the recreational vehicle, he abducts Jacob and his family to help his brother and him to cross the Mexico border, promising to release them on the next morning.
Grindhouse (2007)
IMDB Storyline
A double-bill of thrillers that recall both filmmakers’ favorite exploitation films. “Grindhouse” (a downtown movie theater in disrepair since its glory days as a movie palace known for “grinding out” non-stop double-bill programs of B-movies) is presented as one full-length feature comprised of two individual films helmed separately by each director. “Death Proof,” is a rip-roaring slasher flick where the killer pursues his victims with a car rather than a knife, while “Planet Terror” shows us a view of the world in the midst of a zombie outbreak.
The Mummy (1999)
IMDB StoryLine
An English librarian called Evelyn Carnahan becomes interested in starting an archaeological dig at the ancient city of Hamunaptra. She gains the help of Rick O’Connell, after saving him from his death. What Evelyn, her brother Jonathan and Rick are unaware of is that another group of explorers are interested in the same dig. Unfortunately for everyone, this group ends up unleashing a curse which been laid on the dead High Priest Imhotep. Now ‘The Mummy’ is awake and it’s going to take a lot more than guns to send him back to where he came from.
Note:
There’s a few films in “The Mummy” franchise, i won’t list them all but FYI.
Zombieland (2009)
IMDB Storyline
Searching for family. In the early twenty-first century, zombies have taken over America. A shy and inexperienced college student in Texas has survived by following his 30 rules: such as “look in the back seat,” “double-tap,” “avoid public restrooms.” He decides to travel to Ohio to see if his parents are alive. He gets a ride with a boisterous zombie-hating good-old boy headed for Florida, and soon they confront a young woman whose sister has been bitten by a zombie and wants to be put out of her misery. The sisters were headed to an LA amusement park they’ve heard is zombie free. Can the kid from Ohio get to his family? And what about rule thirty one?
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
IMDB Storyline
One long decade after the post-apocalyptic events in Zombieland (2009), the resilient quartet of survivors — the tough-as-nails zombie exterminator, Tallahassee; his rule-making comrade, Columbus; the free-spirited huntress, Wichita, and her younger sister, Little Rock — find themselves in the bosom of a now-derelict White House. However, in a rabid world still overrun by multitudes of walking dead and mutated strains of evolved animated corpses, a premeditated separation will send the team back to square one, searching, once more, for the promised land. Now, all hope rests on Babylon: an entirely organic commune of blissful vegetarian pacifists who love to party. Is this the end of the road?
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
IMDB StoryLine
When a bumbling pair of employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to re-animate as they go on a rampage through Louisville, Kentucky seeking their favorite food, brains.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
IMDB Storyline
Ana goes home to her peaceful suburban residence, but she is unpleasantly surprised the morning that follows when her husband is brutally attacked by her zombified neighbor. In the chaos of her once picturesque neighborhood, Ana flees and stumbles upon a police officer named Kenneth, along with more survivors who decide that their best chances of survival would be found in the deserted Crossroads Shopping Mall. When supplies begin running low and other trapped survivors need help, the group comes to the realization that they cannot stay put forever at the Shopping Mall and devise a plan to escape.
Resident Evil (2002)
IMDB Storyline:
A virus has escaped in a secret facility called “The Hive,” turning the staff into hungry zombies and releasing the mutated Lab “Animals” that they were studying. The complex computer shuts down the base to prevent infection. The parent corporation sends in an elite military unit, where they meet Alice, who is suffering from amnesia due to exposure to nerve gas. The military team must shut down the computer and get out, fighting their way past zombies, mutants, and the computer itself, before the virus escapes and infects the rest of the world. Alice must also come to terms with her slowly-returning memories.
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
IMDB Storyline
An intense film about time travel, this Sci-Fi entry was directed by Terry Gilliam, a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. The film stars Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner of the state in the year 2035 who can earn parole if he agrees to travel back in time and thwart a devastating plague. The virus has wiped out most of the Earth’s population and the remainder live underground because the air is poisonous. Returning to the year 1990, six years before the start of the plague, Cole is soon imprisoned in a psychiatric facility because his warnings sound like mad ravings. There he meets a scientist named Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) and Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the mad son of an eminent virologist (Christopher Plummer). Cole is returned by the authorities to the year 2035, and finally ends up at his intended destination in 1996. He kidnaps Dr. Railly in order to enlist her help in his quest.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
IMDB Storyline
Longing for freedom, a lowly, hapless Outer Circle bureaucrat of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith, summons up the courage to write down his unspoken desires in his little secret diary, in itself an illegal act. Serving silently at the pleasure of the grim, autocratic hyper-state of Oceania, Smith knows the INGSOC (English Socialist Party)’s supreme leader, the omnipotent Big Brother, watches his every move. As the permanent totalitarian government tightens its suffocating stranglehold more and more, Smith meets Julia, another rebel, and a dangerous clandestine affair begins. There’s no turning back. Sooner or later, the illicit couple will have to pay as sex is meant for procreation only and deriving pleasure from it is also a crime, an intimate one often reported by one of the participants to the terrifying Thought Police. What makes a good citizen?
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
IMDB Storyline:
“2001” is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon’s surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
IMDB Storyline:
Agent James Bond 007 (Pierce Brosnan) is on a mission which includes a media tycoon, his former lover and a Chinese Agent. Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) wants to complete his global media empire, but in order for this to work, he must achieve broadcasting rights in China. Carver wants to start up World War III by starting a confrontation over British and Chinese waters. Bond gains the help of Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) on his quest to stop him, but how will Bond feel when he meets up with his former lover, Paris (Teri Hatcher), who is now Carver’s wife.
The Circle (2017)
IMDB Storyline
When Mae is hired to work for the world’s largest and most powerful tech and social media company, she sees it as an opportunity of a lifetime. As she rises through the ranks, she is encouraged by the company’s founder, Eamon Bailey, to engage in a groundbreaking experiment that pushes the boundaries of privacy, ethics and ultimately her personal freedom. Her participation in the experiment, and every decision she makes, begin to affect the lives and future of her friends, family and that of humanity.
V for Vendetta (2005)
IMDB StoryLine
Tells the story of Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) and her unlikely but instrumental part in bringing down the fascist government that has taken control of a futuristic Great Britain. Saved from a life-and-death situation by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask who calls himself “V” (Hugo Weaving), she learns a general summary of V’s past and, after a time, decides to help him bring down those who committed the atrocities that led to Britain being in the shape that it is in.
More to be listed soon…
