VIRUS-99
The quarantine for a deadly virus is over, but the trouble has just started for a man keeping his bizarre family on permanent lockdown.
This twisted tale opens with protective father and husband, William Butler, talking to his sister Erica over the phone. Disheveled and haggard, he looks like a guy who hasn’t left the house in a very, very long time. Though the quarantine has been lifted, William isn’t quite convinced that all is safe, keeping himself and his family on lockdown. Ever the conspiracy theorist (like many during this lockdown), not only does he believe that it’s not safe out there – but he truly believes that there’s something rotten going on. But his sister, Erica, tries to convince him otherwise…
ERICA (VO)
Go check your window. You'll see people outside. The quarantine's been lifted.
WILLIAM
That's misinformation.
ERICA (VO)
The vaccine is real. The virus mitigation is real.
WILLIAM
No. Those are deep-fakes.
You can’t really blame the guy for being a little paranoid and overprotective. This quarantine is pretty unprecedented, at least in our lifetime. And it can be very difficult to make the distinction between what to believe and what not to believe based on the information we’re given through the news media.
But as we spend more time with William, we find that his paranoia is a little more disturbing than we’re initially made to believe... bordering crazy.
WILLIAM
Erica, I know that it's not really you I'm talking to.
You're a computer-generated deep fake.You sound like my sister, but you're not.
ERICA (VO)
William...
WILLIAM
The real Erica is long-dead.
Convinced that his REAL sister is dead, William hangs up on his concerned sister (or sister’s doppelganger), who is determined to come over and talk some sense into her nutso brother.
As if William couldn’t seem any crazier, we really see just how off-the-reservation he might beas he’s cooking up some grilled cheese sandwiches for his wife, Wendy, and his three children. But, rather than actual people sitting at the dinner table, there’s stuffed dummies dressed as his family with facial expressions drawn on pillow cases. Which makes us wonder what happened to his REAL family?
Speaking to them as if they weren’t inanimate, stuffed objects, William prepares them for his “fake” sister’s arrival with a very strange and memorable pep-talk/monologue about the movie, “Apollo 13” – William is 100% certain that an ambush is about to go down.
I won’t reveal TOO much, but just to give you a clue as to how this story may or may not play out, allow me to go back a few sentences in this review where I mentioned – “we really see just how off-the-reservation he might be”… emphasis on “might be”.
Very unique and very dark, Rob Herzog’s “VIRUS-99” explores the depths of our paranoia during these strange times, suggesting that some of that paranoia might not sound as insane as others may think.