Virus (1980)

This is the film Gareth Myles referred to on our most recent Projector Room Podcast with the late Olivia Hussey playing a small part. A cut-down version is free to view on Plex (with ads), but the original version (which you can snag on DVD still if you look hard) is quite long at just over two and a half hours. As he said, it seems to have been a Japanese collaboration project, directed by Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) and littered with a cast from east and west - it's fun star-spotting!

It's a disaster movie/thriller with some scary messages about nuclear war, weapons, Covid-like implications - but also human's (and all animals) spirit to organise, re-populate and survive - or not! It starts with a bio-weapon called MM-88 which is accidentally exposed to all life on earth, except for just shy of 1000 people involved in the military and research stationed in the Antarctic (of all nations). Turns out that the virus can’t keep going in cold conditions, so the game here is to wait it out (with their remaining two-year rations) before trying to venture out until the virus is dead (along with all other forms of life) in the rest of the world.

Trouble is that nuclear missiles from Russia and America are already pointing at each other and even though there’s nobody left to set them off, one of the events that will start the launches is an earthquake. Guess what? There’s an earthquake coming in the Atlantic, so some of the people in the Arctic have to bravely head for Washington DC in their submarine to shut the systems down before they are fired (and subsequently Russia’s system auto-detects incoming, so then fires theirs back at America).

In amongst all this, back in the Arctic, there are internal wranglings aplenty about the fact that there are only 8 women amongst the survivors with which to repopulate, so you can imagine what happens there with over 800 blokes(!), and friction between people’s cultures and nationalities. Everyone under stress in order to survive and make a brave new world. As long as it doesn’t get nuked first - or even if it does!

The acting from all was very good for the day and we’re treated to some lovely scenery and wildlife shooting (depending on which version you can track down). Again, depending on version there are included harrowing scenes of bodies piled up around the world - as before everyone’s dead the news channels report and shoot footage to broadcast to those still alive. The music adds to the atmosphere often too.

I won’t spoil the ending but there are certainly plenty of questions posed about what humans are doing to the planet and much food for thought about what might become of humanity and other animals during (and/or potentially following) such a disaster - and how whatever or whomever might pull through and survive, or not. Well worth a look if you can find it, particularly the longer, original.