In these trying and unpredictable plague times, movies can soothe cathartic, bathe in warped reality gloom, or provide solace in our world not-quite-collapsing into wasteland oblivion. Peep these end time tales wrestling with pandemics, doomsdays, and their catastrophic aftermath to untangle some troubling thoughts bouncing ‘round during quarantine.

This installment focuses on The End. (See the previous installment: Infection, here.) The virus has spread until it can’t be contained, the comet hurtling toward Earth looms large, governments collapse into disarray, holed up survivors cling to a shred of hope. I originally wrote this article months ago but find nothing has changed for the better. We’re all konked and complacent and punching tickets on the Death Train! The windows won’t open, the car thumps off the rails, and each fleeting moment in a rollover inferno suffocates. Come and see the possible futures awaiting our sorry tail-tucked selves:

Come and see the possible futures awaiting us:

Comet in Moominland

If a comet hurtled toward our planet, and I only had a few scant hours to prepare for destruction and possible death, I hope my attitude would coast as chill and irreverent as the Moomin milieu. Rats off to author Tove Jansson for creating an original and very Scandanavian fantasyland where life moves slow and a talking kangaroo monstrosity stealing snacks might be the biggest issue of the day. I’ve weirdly felt kind of relaxed during quarantine since the world eased into my personal day-at-a-time pace. Now, most people seem to tense at the same anxiety level I feel every waking moment. But at least there’s Moomins! Who wants to go to the real life Moominland amusement park in Finland and kick it with Snufkin and Little My if we ever escape this pandemic alive?

Dawn of the Dead

Those deep focus mall shots capturing shuffling zombies gazing at their reflections in store windows and clutching fountain change in their rotten hands and tumbling down escalators and knocking over shopping stands, though. Too real. The greatest haunted mall movie ever made, and one of the most scathing commentaries about crass consumerism and the AMERICAN condition: toxic individualism, selfishness, empty capital, institutionalized racism, and blind partisanship that fester like a cannibalized biker corpse.

The only thing I can think of that's worse than becoming a zombie is being buried next to a plastic palm tree in a mall. Just let me rot.

Melancholia

"The Earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it."

The arthouse sci-fi version of falling into a depressive slump, but everyone either tells you to get over it or tries to cheer you up. Or having an anxiety attack so acute you can't sit still or think or breathe. You just want to be left the fuck alone, but there's no escape in sight. And then when you finally get the peace and quiet you want; you're trapped with your own bad thoughts and want another planet to come smashing down and end everything. Melancholia feels as drawn out slow and suffocating and handheld anxious as these negative vibes for better or worse. You’re either a Kirsten or Charlotte in quarantine or any chaotic scenario. When the world gasps its last breath, will you embrace the end or melt down wanting more?

Miracle Mile

TFW you’re on the nuclear doomsday countdown clock in The City of Angels and time’s running short and you can feel the flames licking the back of your neck but you gotta keep running ‘cause you know there might be the slightest chance you can split with someone you just met but deluded yourself into thinking might be the one. Maybe both of you could live forever after in some perfect fantasyland where strangers hug. But life is cheap in Red Scare America. The bomb doesn’t wait for anyone. Try and shake this Tangerine Dream-tinged nightmare romance starring Anthony Edwards and the LaBrea Tarpits that hurtles gasping forward at a twilight clip.

Prophecies of Nostradamus

This Toho disaster movie almost acts as a scared straight climate change PSA. Chemicals dumped into Mother Earth poison fish, mutate children, and breed monster slugs. Only a Nostradamus disciple somehow established in the scientific community, played by Japanese screen legend (with over 300 IMDB credits) Tetsuro Tamba, can steer the world on a proper course! Come and see the wrath captains of industry wreak when they pursue profits over people. Do we really want to live in a world filled with radiation poisoning and mixed-up killer animals? Do we really want a future a Renaissance kook with a ZZ Top beard predicted?

Shin Godzilla

The mastermind behind Neon Genesis Evangelion (Hideaki Anno) drops a ground level Godzilla where bureaucratic working stiffs tackle practical things like evacuating Tokyo within a short time frame, navigating traffic backed up by rubble, filling the power vacuum when heads of state die in laser breath blasts, and navigating a middle ground with UN countries to take down the big lizard for good.

Sound familiar? Watching Godzilla directly impact all the little people scurrying in the streets makes for surprisingly gripping drama. The scenes where the King of the Monsters lets loose feels horrific and distant and unknowable. He's just a giant monster reacting to the encroaching modern world. Instead of a calculating personable hero, this Godzilla clambers through the streets and lashes out at any stimuli with unfocused googly eyes like some beast acting on base instinct. He's scary and unpredictable again like a new strain of virus circling the globe. When he looms in the distance like some living skyscraper, inescapable, a force of nature, my flight or fight response spiked.

Threads

This straight up chilling made-for-TV movie chronicles the very realistic aftermath of two nuclear bombs dropped on England. Falling rubble crushes kids dead, screaming skeletons blow to ash, burned and broken humans vomit from radiation sickness, babies are born deformed, blood oozes through skin. Supposedly, director Mick Jackson wanted to scare the world straight from smashing The Button by depicting the physical and social fallout of nuclear war in bleak unsparing detail. I guess he succeeded since we're still in one piece. Though, the powerlessness and dread that come with being a working stiff caught between countries playing an escalating game of apocalyptic chicken seems chillingly familiar. The true horror: hearing media updates of impending doom and having no say or power to stop it. Kitchen sink family drama starts to feel like background noise once the world hurtles headlong into oblivion.

I wrote this article months ago, but sadly, nothing about our current pandemic predicament has changed. Are you still living in a state of ever escalating dread? Has your anxiety about this island, Earth, left your hand shaking on the streaming remote? Then, keep your eyeballs throbbing for the final installment of the Covid Canon: Aftermath. What happens once society collapses, and every person fends for themselves against God? What’s the blueprint we should follow as drawn by cinema? Sink your nails into the edges of your e-reader and hang on for dear life! All will be revealed!

The COVID Canon || Part 2: Apocalypse