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1. Film (1981); vt of Fukkatsu no Hi.
2. Film (1998). Universal Pictures and Mutual Film Company present a Dark Horse Entertainment/Valhalla Motion Pictures production. Produced by Gale Anne Hurd. Directed by John Bruno. Written by Chuck Pfarrer, Dennis Feldman, based on the comic Virus (1992-1993) by Pfarrer. Cast includes William Baldwin, Jamie Lee Curtis, Joanna Pacula and Donald Sutherland. 99 minutes. Colour.
In this run-of-the-mill Monster Movie a tugboat crew come across an abandoned Russian research ship floating in the ocean. While trying to salvage the ship the crew reactivate its power supply, thus unknowingly releasing the creature that killed the vessel's previous occupants. The Monster, an electrical Alien without form, has taken over the ship's electronics and constructed an army of Robots in the machine rooms below deck. The crew are gruesomely killed in turn, their corpses recycled by the alien to create Cyborgs. Communicating by Computer, the alien dismisses humanity as a virus. In response, the plucky survivors blow up the ship and escape to civilization.
Hammy acting and clichéd structure make Virus less interesting than it should have been. The creative team behind the film include a wealth of special effects professionals; the director first making his name as James Cameron's visual effects supervisor. It is therefore unsurprising that the biomechanical nightmares of Virus are so well realized; but the other elements of the movie are not up to the same standards. The novelization is Virus (1998) by S D Perry. [JN]
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight.
Accessed 02:58 am on 18 April 2024.
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