Sci-Fi Disaster Film

A distant cousin to both the future barbarians and natural horror subgenres, these movies involve the aftermath of a biological or nuclear disaster. As the general population drops like flies or is eradicated when symptoms of the disaster manifest themselves, a handful of survivors must spirit themselves to safety or fight to battle the disaster with all the might they can muster. Sometimes the disaster is natural in origin, such as a virus or disease epidemic (Outbreak, The Andromeda Strain, Virus); other times it is a man-made catastrophe such as pollution of the environment or a nuclear explosion (The Quiet Earth, The Day The Earth Caught Fire) that bring about the maelstrom. Fueled by the anxiety of the atomic age and the onslaught of viral epidemics such as AIDS, these pictures tend to be both cautionary and sensationalistic in dealing with a world where science and nature have spiraled out of control and gone awry.

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