Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics and Zombies in American Movies

Figures
Preface
Introduction
	Disease Movies Past and Present
	Early Disease Movies from the Advent of Film to the Early 1990s
	The Rise of Viral Disease Movies and a Nostalgia for the Past
	Post-Apocalyptic Worlds and Posthumanity
	Future Pandemics in Movies
1. Early Disease Movies: American Norms and Containment
	Introduction
	The Origins of Disease Movies: From Silent Films to World War II
	The Heroic Public Servant and the American Dream: Panic in the Streets  (1950)
	An Alternative Vision: The Seventh Seal  (1957)
	Revealing the Rot in American Values: Night of the Living Dead  (1968)
	A Critique of Values and a Global Pandemic: Shivers  (1975) and Virus  (1980)
	Conclusion
2. Disease Movies in Transition: Globalization and Imagined Containment
	Introduction
	The Disease Is Contained: Outbreak (1995)
	Prescient Transitions: 12 Monkeys (1995) and 28 Days Later (2002)
	Fast Zombies and Fragmentation: Dawn of the Dead (2004)
	Dark Disease Movies and a Pandemic Sequel: 28 Weeks Later (2007)
	Conclusion
3. Post-Apocalyptic Disease Movies: Pandemics and Posthumanity
	Introduction
	Spiritual Faith in the Twenty-First Century: Children of Men  (2006) and Black Death  (2010)
	Individual Choice in a Fractured Society: Contagion  (2011)
	Patriarchal Zombie Pandemics: Zombieland  (2009) and World War Z  (2013)
	Hope for a New Society: Rise of the Planet of the Apes  (2011) and Its Sequels
	Conclusion
4. Remaking Humanity: The Body Snatchers
	Introduction
	The Infection of Small-Town America: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
	The Spread to Urban America: Invasion of the Body Snatchers  (1978)
	An Aggressive Expansion across America: Body Snatchers  (1993)
	The Attractive Threat: The Invasion  (2007)
	The Happy, Bio-Engineered Transformation: Little Joe  (2019)
	Conclusion
5. Popularizing the Pandemic: The Resident Evil Franchise
	Introduction
	Nostalgia for an Imagined Containment: Resident Evil  (2002)
	Transitions and New Paradigms: Apocalypse  (2004), Extinction  (2007), Afterlife  (2010) and Retribution  (2012)
	The New Apotheosis: The Final Chapter  (2016)
	Conclusion
6. Movie Myths: The COVID-19 Pandemic
	Introduction
	Consuming Movie Pandemics during COVID
	The Blurring of COVID and the Movie Pandemic Landscape
	The Wrong Lessons of Movie Stories
	The Stories Missing in Movies
	Conclusion
Conclusion
	The Historical Arc of Disease Movies
	Depicting an End of Times Landscape
	The COVID Story
	Movie Myths and Stories for the Future
Bibliography
INDEX