| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Margie Newton | ... | Lia Rousseau (as Margit Evelyn Newton) | |
| Franco Garofalo | ... | Zantoro (as Frank Garfield) | |
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Selan Karay | ... | Vincent |
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José Gras | ... | Lt. Mike London (as Robert O'Neil) |
| Gabriel Renom | ... | Pierre (as Gaby Renom) | |
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Josep Lluís Fonoll | ... | Osborne (as Luis Fonoll) |
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Pietro Fumelli | ... | Man on TV (as Piero Fumelli) |
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Bruno Boni | ... | Reporter |
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Patrizia Costa | ... | Woman in Bar |
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Cesare Di Vito | ... | TV Speaker |
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Sergio Pislar | ... | Technician Lawson |
| Bernard Seray | ... | Prof. Barrett's Assistant | |
| Víctor Israel | ... | Zombie priest | |
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Pep Ballester | ... | Josie's Husband (as Pep Ballenster) |
| Joaquín Blanco | ... | Professor Barrett | |
After a chemical leak at the Hope Centre in Papua New Guinea (an organization devoted to feeding underdeveloped countries) turns its staff into flesh-eating zombies, a four-man commando squad led by Mike London are sent to investigate. They run into a TV news crew led by celebrity reporter Lia, who are after the same story, but when they discover that the entire country has been overrun by zombies, what are the chances of them getting the message across? Unlike most zombie films, this actually tries to make a serious point - that if we don't feed the Third World, they'll come and feed on us! Written by Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
When someone says a movie is so-bad-it's-good, they usually mean that it's unintentionally comedic. "Virus" is so inept that it is enjoyable in a way it was not intended to be, but it doesn't fit the traditional so-bad-it's-good classification. (Actually, there was one scene in Virus that I thought was really funny. It involves breasts--you'll know it when you see it.) Here's why I liked Virus: all the ridiculousness adds together to form a fascinating and impossibly cohesive whole. The final product is sort of like a surrealist meditation on human insignificance.
The ridiculous, slow, editing; the idiotic behavior of the characters; and the meandering plot combine to make the movie like a sort of gentle nightmare. It's really like nothing else I've ever seen. There are these lazy, extended struggles with zombies where a bunch of guys just stand back and watch nervously. Most of the heroes are soldiers, and there's an officer, but they are all equally helpless and profoundly "alone." There's a laziness to everything that gives the film an appropriate sense of inevitability. The plot is ambiguous, like in a dream. You get a general sense of what's going on but it's also rather aimless, and only when the characters got to their "destination" did I realize that they had any objective at all. The simple beauty of the animal stock footage provides a startling contrast to the bleakness it surrounds.
I don't mean you have to watch it like it's T. S. Eliot and analyze everything you see for meaning. It is, of course, a meaningless mess of incompetence. But if you sit back and just soak it all in, you will find it hypnotic, bleak, and beautiful.