Thought I'd post this here as not sure where it should go..
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/ ... ovie+genreNo one can wipe out the virus movie genre
Romero's 1973 'The Crazies' was about more than a contagion: The breakdown of social order was what fascinated the low-budget director
By Dennis Lim • Los Angeles Times • February 26, 2010
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Buzz up!Twitter FarkIt Type Size A A A George Romero's “The Crazies” (1973) has always existed in the shadow of his zombie movies, but this epidemic thriller is perhaps the horror maestro's most provocative exploration of his great theme: the collapse of social order. A new remake, directed by Breck Eisner and also titled “The Crazies,” opens Friday.
Back in the crisis-ridden early '70s, the film's queasy premise must have carried more than a ring of real-world plausibility (as it certainly does in our jittery present of viral scares and terror threats). A military plane crashes in western Pennsylvania, releasing a mystery virus into the water supply and turning the nearby residents homicidally insane. The government goes into cover-up mode and even considers dropping a bomb on the infected town. The virus, it turns out, was being developed as a biochemical weapon. Soldiers clad in hazmat suits and gas masks sweep in, and before long, the gun-owning citizens start to fight back.
“The Crazies” belongs to the cycle of virus movies that was in vogue in that era. It shares some plot points with Robert Wise's “The Andromeda Strain” (1971), a slow-burning bio-thriller adapted from a Michael Crichton novel, about a team of scientists battling an alien virus that turns blood into powder.
Two years after “The Crazies,” a young David Cronenberg made “Shivers,” the first of his many body-horror movies, about a sexually transmitted parasite. The quintessential Hollywood genre of the '70s — the all-star disaster movie — got a bacteriological spin with “The Cassandra Crossing” (1976), which exposes the passengers on a trans-European train to pneumonic plague.
Over the years, virus movies have often resonated with — or even openly exploited — the contagion of the moment. The deadly bug in “Outbreak” (1995) is modeled on the Ebola virus that had grabbed headlines a few years earlier. Danny Boyle's “28 Days Later,” a clear descendant of “The Crazies,” opened in 2003, with anthrax and SARS fresh in the minds of audiences.
With fears still lingering over the swine flu pandemic, Steven Soderbergh has announced he'll direct an epidemic movie called “Contagion.”Who knows? This maybe closer than we think.... 
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