A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic

Depictions of Plague and Pandemic on Film and TV

By: Richard Scheib

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Paperback | 19 June 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
220 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.41 x 16.99 x 1.52

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$43.99

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"I have had a headache all day. I am afraid of what will happen next."

A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic is a film book like no other. It opens with the author's first-hand account of the Covid-19 pandemic and life in lockdown. His sense of dread, and anxiety about his state of health, were experiences shared with millions of others across the world. Already committed to writing a book about plagues and pandemics in popular culture, Covid-19 felt like a perverse twist of fate for Richard Scheib. Media depictions of deadly contagions had, to this point, been speculative and often off the mark; his book takes an in-depth look at what filmmakers imagined would happen and contrasts it with the reality.

International in scope, the book examines films in a wide variety of genres, from the silent era to the present day. Black Death, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease, Bird Flu - it explores fictionalized accounts of plague and pestilence such as box-office hit Outbreak (1995), as well as 'mockumentary' treatments. Whether the threats depicted have a basis in reality - the biowarfare of the Cold War era, for instance - or are more fantastical, Scheib demonstrates how the fear of contagion has provided a wealth of inspiration for the big and small screen.

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