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    Eleven Visions of Life After the Great Epidemic

    Feeling worried about the impending swine flu epidemic? Just to make you feel more panicked, we've put together a list of 11 movies that show what happens when humanity is attacked by unstoppable viruses.



    28 Days Later
    Disease: Rage virus
    Released by: Animal rights activists
    Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating
    Any humanity left? UK is quarantined and left for dead. Rest of the world survives.



    Invasion
    Disease: Space fungus
    Released by: It clings to the outside of the space shuttle, and when the shuttle crashes people pick up pieces of it and bring the disease into towns, where it spreads.
    Symptoms: Lack of emotion, desire for world peace.
    Any humanity left? Many people are infected but we're saved by an airborne antidote. We know the world has returned to normal when everybody starts going back to war again.



    I Am Legend
    Disease: Gene therapy delivered via virus gone wrong
    Released by: Well-meaning liberal doctor trying to do good
    Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating, fear of light.
    Any humanity left? Just Will Smith, and (spoilers!) a tiny walled town in New England



    Outbreak
    Disease: Motaba virus (a fictional version of Ebola)
    Released by: Bad guys selling illegal African monkeys to Americans
    Symptoms: Barfy bloody death
    Any humanity left? Sadly, almost all of humanity survives.



    Rabid
    Disease: Plastic surgery-induced armpit penis that drinks blood (did we mention this was directed by David Cronenberg in the 70s?)
    Released by: Mad surgeon Dr. Keloid, operating on the main character (played by porn star Marilyn Chambers)
    Symptoms: Growing a penis-shaped thing under your arm that drinks other people's blood, erases their memories, and turns them into zombies
    Any humanity left? Disease is contained within the city.



    Andromeda Strain (the miniseries)
    Disease: Nano space virus thing
    Released by: Fallen satellite
    Symptoms: Totally disgusting bloody barfy skin covered in insta-bumps
    Any humanity left? Saved by the CDC, but just barely



    Doomsday
    Disease: Reaper virus
    Released by: Unknown, but centered in Scotland, which the UK walls off in a nation-wide quarantine
    Symptoms: Death
    Any humanity left? Yes, the immune. They have turned into cannibalistic punk rockers, medieval knights, and racecar drivers. Which makes the Reaper virus basically the most awesome thing to ever happen in the UK.



    Doom
    Disease: A 24th chromosome from Mars
    Released by: Union Aerospace Corporation
    Symptoms: If you are "good," you are made superhuman with mega-healing, and if you are "bad" you become a flesh-eating toothface with the ability to shoot your tongue at victims to infect them.
    Any humanity left? Not on Mars.



    World War Z
    Disease: African rabies
    Released by: Unknown - but thought to have begun in China
    Symptoms: Undeath
    Any humanity left? Yes, and the shattered survivors of the zombie wars are the subject of the novel, which is being made into a much-anticipated movie right now.



    The Signal
    Disease: Mind-altering signal sent via television and telephone in an Atlanta-like unnamed city
    Released by: Unknown evil media conglomerate
    Symptoms: Psychotic, murderous rage; hallucinations
    Any humanity left? A few survive in the city; unknown how many more were affected in the world



    Quarantine
    Disease: Bioweapon
    Released by: Doomsday cult
    Symptoms: Foaming at the mouth, vampiric quest to bite people
    Any humanity left: We see the disease spread rapidly through an apartment building, which is quarantined. There is a hint that the disease has already gotten out and cannot be stopped.


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