People often ask me what my favorite type of movies are, and by far, my favorite genre is horror. Specifically within horror, my favorite topics are about virus outbreaks. I prefer the recent movies rather then the classics because I find the classics tend to be corny and the special effects just don’t cut it.
In addition, I prefer darker themed movies with a serious plot rather than movies such as Dawn of the Dead or Zombieland where the entire story is about people running around shooting and hacking at anything that moves. I’m not a huge fan of comical zombie movies either.
I’ve decided to keep a ongoing list of my favorite outbreak movies here on this post. As I see movies I like, I will add it to this list. In many zombie movies, the zombification of humans are caused by a viral outbreak so you will see a lot of zombie movies in this list as well.
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Outbreak (1995) – A “modern classic”. The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus and how far the military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread. |
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28 Days Later (2002) A zombie horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The plot depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious “rage” virus. |
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28 Weeks Later (2005) A sequel to 28 Days Later. Over the course of 28 weeks following the original outbreak, the infected have apparently all died, primarily of starvation, and Britain has been declared relatively safe. One day a person who is immune (but still infected and thus a carrier) is found and all goes wrong afterwords. The opening scenes of the film which shows the heavily fortified US Army safe zone is well done. |
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Crazies (2010) A small town’s water supply is infected with a biological weapon and now the Army must try and stop its spread. The movie is about how a doctor and her family try and evade both the Army and the infected. The scene of the Army medical camp and quarantine facility was my favorite part in the whole film. |
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Rec (2007) A Spanish horror film about a young TV reporter and her cameraman who cover the night shift at the local fire station. They tag along during a call to an apartment building where they find a woman in a crazed state. Soon after, the building is quarantined by the police and the residence soon find out that a virulent disease is infecting people, causing them to turn into bloodthirsty savages. This film was re-made in the US retitled, Quarantine. |
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Rec 2 (2009) A sequel to Rec (2007), a doctor leads a swat team into the apartment to obtain a blood sample from an infected girl but are attacked by the infected. It turns out this is not just a biological disaster but something else much more evil. |
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Mutants (2009) In this French film, a young couple, Marco and Sonia, have survived the initial outbreak of a deadly virus that turns people into rampaging mutants. But on their travels, Sonia decides to help a disabled child who happens to be infected and ends up infecting Marco. Sonia decides not to leave Marco, but try and help even though she knows he will end up like all the other mutants. The film’s effects were simply amazing considering it’s low budge but the storyline, specifically the choices Sonia makes I feel are so unrealistic and and against any common sense, it really destroys the movie. |
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Carriers (2009) This is a story about 4 American friends who are traveling across a a dead American landscape. One day, the come across an infected child and her father. They eventually help them out, but in return are infected. Though some scenes are pretty cool, the storyline and acting is so-so at best. This is more inline with a teen-horror flick with little serious plot or character development. |
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Thaw (2009) An Arctic expedition uncovers a deadly prehistoric parasite released by the melting ice caps. The CG parasites look terrible and the so is the ending. This little known movie surprisingly has Val Kilmer playing one of the Arctic researchers. |
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Doomsday (2009) After a deadly virus spreads across Britain, and Scotland is left quarantined. People in the quarantined zone are left to die, but some are immune to the virus and survive. After several decades, the virus re-emerged on the other side of the quarantine zone and the government decides to send a military team into the quarantined zone to retrieve blood samples of the survivors. As the team travels across Scotland, they are shocked to see what has become of the survivors. |
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Right At Your Door (2006) A dirty bomb goes off in Los Angeles and everyone is told to stay indoors and avoid contact with those infected. This little known movie turned out pretty good and the ending has a nice twist that I didn’t see coming. |
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Contagion follows the progress of a virus as it spreads across the world. It focuses on a team of medical researchers from the CDC as they race to find a cure. Though I found the movie to be interesting, it lacked any excitement or twist that I was craving for. The ending was predictable and un-interesting. The movie also had two subplots involving an annoying blogger (Jude Law) and a CDC medical researcher that is held hostage in a remote Chinese village (Marion Cotillard) which did not add any relevance to the main storyline. |