28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus has caused the breakdown of society. Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, and Brendan Gleeson appear in supporting roles.
Rabid is a 1977 independent body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. An international co-production of Canada and the United States, the film stars Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Joe Silver, and Howard Ryshpan. Chambers plays a woman who, after being injured in a motorcycle accident and undergoing a surgical operation, develops an orifice under one of her armpits that hides a phallic/clitoral stinger she uses to feed on people's blood. Those she bites become infected, and then feed upon others, spreading the disease exponentially. The result is massive chaos, starting in the Quebec countryside, and ending up in Montreal. Rabid made $1 million in Canada, making it one of the highest-grossing Canadian films of all time. A remake of the same name, directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska, was released in 2019.
Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey.
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium is a 2005 horror film written by Ana Clavell and directed by Clavell and James Dudelson, starring Justin Ipock, Laurie Maria Baranyay and John F. Henry III. It was unofficially marketed as a prequel and sequel to 1985's Day of the Dead. The film was released direct-to-video in the United States on October 18, 2005.
The Patriot is a 1998 American action thriller film directed by Dean Semler. Starring Steven Seagal, the film is loosely based on the novel The Last Canadian by William C. Heine. Seagal's first direct-to-video film, it features him as a local doctor and former immunologist who races against time to find a cure for an active viral outbreak, the origins of which trace back to a militia leader who injected himself with a deadly virus.
Blue Steel is a 1934 American pre-Code Monogram Western film directed by Robert N. Bradbury and starring John Wayne. Wayne plays a U.S. Marshal who is trying to capture the Polka Dot Bandit, who has taken off with $4,000. The film also featured Yakima Canutt and George "Gabby" Hayes. It was released as Stolen Goods in the UK, and this version was later released in a colorized version on home video. Since the movie has fallen into the public domain, several versions are in circulation, including a colorized edition with a jarringly re-dubbed soundtrack, including dialogue, music and sound effects.
Day of the Dead is a 2008 American horror film directed by Steve Miner and written by Jeffrey Reddick. It is a remake of George A. Romero's 1985 film of the same name, the third in Romero's Dead series. The film sees a virus outbreak that causes people to turn into violent zombie-like creatures, and stars Mena Suvari, Nick Cannon, Michael Welch, AnnaLynne McCord, Stark Sands, Matt Rippy, Pat Kilbane, Taylor Hoover, Christa Campbell, and Ving Rhames.
Zombi 3 is a 1988 Italian horror film directed by Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei and starring Deran Sarafian, Beatrice Ring, and Ottaviano Dell'acqua. The film is an in-name-only sequel to Fulci's Zombi 2. The film is about a group of scientists at a top-secret research facility who are working on a biological weapon called Death One, which mutates and kills the living creatures and reanimates the dead. The weapon is leaked out of the facility, which leads to a spread of infection among soldiers and touring people in the area.
28 Weeks Later is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. It serves as a sequel to 28 Days Later (2002), and is the second installment overall in the film series of the same name. The movie stars Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Mackintosh Muggleton, Imogen Poots, and Idris Elba. It is set after the events of the first film, depicting the efforts of NATO military forces to salvage a safe zone in London, the consequence of two young siblings breaking protocol to find a photograph of their mother, and the resulting reintroduction of the Rage Virus into the safe zone.
The Puppet Masters is a 1994 American science fiction horror film, adapted by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio and David S. Goyer from Robert A. Heinlein's 1951 novel of the same title, in which a trio of American government agents attempts to thwart a covert invasion of Earth by mind-controlling alien parasites. The film was directed by Stuart Orme and stars Donald Sutherland, Eric Thal, Keith David, Julie Warner and Andrew Robinson. It was a critical and commercial failure.
I Drink Your Blood is a 1971 American hippie exploitation horror film written and directed by David E. Durston, produced by Jerry Gross, and starring Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, Jadine Wong, and Lynn Lowry. The film centers on a small town that is overrun by rabies-infected members of a Satanic hippie cult after a revenge plot goes horribly wrong.
Planet Terror is a 2007 American action comedy horror film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Set in Texas, the film follows the survivors of a biochemical outbreak as they battle zombie-like creatures and a rogue military unit. It stars Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, Josh Brolin, and Marley Shelton.
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane is a 2007 direct-to-video zombie film by director Scott Thomas. Thomas co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Onspaugh and Sidney Iwanter. The film was originally titled Plane Dead, but the title was changed at Montreal's 2007 Fantasia Festival screening. In spite of a successful screening there and at other festivals, the film did not gain a commercial release and was issued directly to DVD in unrated form.
Pontypool is a 2008 Canadian psychological horror thriller film directed by Bruce McDonald and written by Tony Burgess, based on his 1995 novel Pontypool Changes Everything. A spin-off, Dreamland, was released in 2019. As of 2023, the two other films in the Ponty franchise's trilogy, Pontypool Changes and Pontypool Changes Everything, have been in active development since 2016.
The Crazies is a 2010 science fiction horror film directed by Breck Eisner from a screenplay from Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. The film is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name and stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson and Danielle Panabaker. George A. Romero, who wrote and directed the original, served as an executive producer. It is about a fictional Iowa town that becomes afflicted by a biological agent that turns those infected into violent killers. The film was released on February 26, 2010, and grossed $54 million on a $20 million budget. It received mixed reviews according to Metacritic, with the critical summary on Rotten Tomatoes calling the film "tense, nicely shot, and uncommonly intelligent".
Drango is a 1957 American Western film produced by Jeff Chandler's production company Earlmar Productions, written and directed by Hall Bartlett, and released by United Artists. Starring Chandler in the title role, the film also features Ronald Howard, Joanne Dru, Julie London and Donald Crisp. Set in the town of Kennesaw, Georgia in the months immediately following the American Civil War, the story depicts the efforts of a resolute Union Army officer who had participated in the town's destruction during Sherman's March determined to make amends.
Rabies has been the main plot device or a significant theme in many fictional works. Due to the long history of the virus as well as its neurotropic nature, rabies has been a potent symbol of madness, irrationalism, or an unstoppable plague in numerous fictional works, in many genres. Many notable examples are listed below.
Resident Evil is a biopunk action horror film series based on the Japanese video game franchise by Capcom.
Virus Undead is a 2008 German horror film directed by Wolf Wolff and Ohmuthi, written by Wolf Jahnke, and starring Philipp Danne, Birthe Wolter, Anna Breuer, Nikolas Jürgens, and Marvin Gronen. The screenplay concerns a group of medical students and locals in a small town who suffer an outbreak of a mutated H5N1-like virus that causes people to turn into zombies.
Biological warfare (BW)—also known as bacteriological warfare, or germ warfare—has had a presence in popular culture for over 100 years. Public interest in it became intense during the Cold War, especially the 1960s and '70s, and continues unabated. This article comprises a list of popular culture works referencing BW or bioterrorism, but not those pertaining to natural, or unintentional, epidemics.
