If you thought the COVID-19 pandemic was bad, think about the never ending plague of remakes and redoes about the immortal movie killing machine Michael Myers. In “Resurrection”, there is a group, ultimately Myers’ victims (duh!), who win a contest to appear on an live Internet broadcast that takes place at Michael’s old home. The visitors are equipped with body cameras and there are other cameras setup around the place by the producer’s of the show to capture the action. It isn’t long before the murderous mayhem begins. At this stage of the “Halloween” movie cycle, this is the eighth film, the viewer had pretty much seen all the butchery and Michael rising from his apparent grave after surely being killed (again) before. This is more of the same: characters you can care less about stack up in a corner as Michael mows them down. Think of this as the Zoom call from Hell.
Tag Archives: covid-19
Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers, R.I.P.
Dave Greenfield played the keyboards with the British punk band The Stranglers. He passed away over the weekend, Dave had to be admitted to hospital for a heart ailment but ended up contacting the corona virus and passed away. Ugh. What a shame. An amazing player and talented writer and performer. Farewell, Dave.
Building A Better Biological Bug And Then It All Went Wrong – “The Stand” (1994)
There were news items circling around where the plot from Steven King’s “The Stand” has been compared to the current global pandemic featuring the irrepressible COVID-19. King denied that there were really any similarities. As we progress through this mess, more details emerge as to the origin of the coronavirus. Did it begin in one of the “wet markets” in Wuhan, China, where a varied selection of animals are sold for consumption? It has also been mentioned that there are a couple of virology labs close by the wet markets where tests were being made on bats for who knows what reason and that a doctor involved may have been infected and took the virus and spread it amongst the general public. That theory alone would make it similar in concept to King’s “Stand” beginning. Maybe one day, we will learn about the true origins of our real life virus problems. For now, take an exhilarating trip with “The Stand” miniseries from 1994. This opening clip from the miniseries, directed by Mick Garris, which shows how an influenza strain escapes from a DOD laboratory and infects the world is really good stuff. Equally killer is the usage of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” as the soundtrack. AWESOME!!!!
“Andromeda Strain’s” Virus Arrives From Space (1971)
With our world’s current battle with COVID-19 on everyone’s mind, a lot of folks are looking back on similar storylines that occurred in works of fiction. I know there are a lot of examples but I will discuss “The Andromeda Strain” (1971), a big-budgeted science fiction film from the Seventies based upon the novel by Michael Crichton. It explored an alien virus piggybacking on a speck of meteor that ends up embedded in a space-borne satellite. The satellite crashes down near a small desert town. The natives naturally are curious about the object and examine it but not before getting exposure to the out of this world life form. The results are disastrous and deadly. After the entire town is found to be dead, a secret government biological research division goes into action and isolates the organism in a vast, underground laboratory complex. It is now up to the “experts” to prevent the bacterial strain from mutating and spreading across the globe. There are some interesting futuristic (at the time) devices and special effects used in this movie. It still holds its charm for me and is very suspenseful in spots but can be a little tedious at times as the four main protagonists go about their tests and experiments to scientifically make sense of this unknown, threatening quantity and try to find a means to eliminate it.
We don’t know how long our present pandemic will last or if the worst of it is behind us but we can certainly agree that it would be best if life did not imitate art after seeing any of the nightmare scenarios detailed in these pandemic themed works of art.