Link to Part 1: COVID-19, WFH, and Virus Attack Movies

Novel Corona Virus, COVID-19, doesn’t seem to be slowing down yet. When I blogged Part 1 few weeks back, I was hoping countries will act fast in curbing the spread. Late reaction from many countries and now most of the countries are either in full or partial lockdown. In India we are in a countrywide lockdown from Mar 24 for 3 weeks. If you are WFH, make sure you stick to fixed time. With commute time saved, great opportunity to spend time with the family, and do things you have been postponing to later time (assuming they don’t need you to step out of the house). Stay away from news channels, no, you will not miss anything by not watching them. It keeps you safe from being agitated. With more time in hand, no wasting of time in cafeteria or breakrooms, what else to do than binge on Netflix and Prime. Added few more virus attack movies to the watchlist. Enjoy while the forced WFH lasts!!

1. Train to Busan: There are many kinds of zombie movies. Starting from Night of the living dead to Zombieland. What if the zombies get a on train? And passengers try to save their families and from each other? You get Train to Busan. Director spends less time to give us the setup. A chemical spill in a quarantined area in South Korea, a mowed down deer that springs back to life, a quick intro of father, who is a hedge-fund manager, and his daughter, and they get on the train to Busan to meet the mother. We get a glimpse of a sick passenger getting on the train last minute. From there on it is a bullet train like zombie ride, never a dull moment, few scenes get you to the edge of the seat. Impressive use of space inside the train for action set pieces. Movie packs in good number of twists and surprises including the climax where I expected the worse similar to Night of the Living Dead.

Official Trailer:

• Night of the living dead: Guess this is one of the initial zombie movies, came in 1968. Being in black and white saves you from the horror. There is some vague reason given like radiation, that makes the dead to come alive across the morgue and graveyards. This is a terrifying horror movie unlike others. While many of the zombie movies are scream-fest for fun, here initial screams lead to chilly silence in second half. A gang of people gets holed up in a house trying to barricade themselves from the attacking ghouls. A girl is wounded and is infected. There is a botched-up escape. One by one everyone dies and only the Black American is left. Next morning, Sheriff and his deputies come along conducting mopping up operation. The end is stunning, jolts you from the seat. As long as you live you will never forget the disturbing climax.

Official Trailer:

• Body Snatchers: This is an alien movie. What is an alien, it is a virus from outer space, right? Trailer came with the tagline, they’d kill to be you. Story has a great premise. Imagine a virus infects people. It doesn’t make people sick. It does change them emotionally. Outside they will look like the person you know, look normal, but inside they are changed. Now imagine everyone around you only look normal but inside they are something else. What you are going to do? Where are you going to run? Where are you going to hide? Nowhere. There is no one like you left. Underlying story works at political and sociological level too. What if certain ideology or *ism takes over people around you? Hollywood has played around with this story few times, but this 1993 version is my favorite. There is another latest version The Invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Army base gets invaded by the alien pods. Obviously with army code of conformity, hard to differentiate between the normal and infected humans. Soon the body snatchers invade the families. A family member gets infected and the daughter figures out something is wrong and tries to alert people around her. After few close calls, and chases movie ends in an ambivalent note to make room for remakes and sequels.

Official Trailer: