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Denmark · 1987
1h 46m
Director Lars von Trier
Starring Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel, Claes Kastholm Hansen, Udo Kier
Genre Comedy, Drama, Horror
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This experimental comedy-horror follows two screenwriters as they develop and write a last-minute script about an epidemic for a producer. Unbeknownst to them, a real epidemic is developing around them. The story is intercut with scenes from the film they write and the deadly virus spreading in real life.
Basically an experimental psychodrama, Epidemic has a pleasingly slapdash, underground quality that recalls early Fassbinder and Wenders -- although, with its cynical premise and frequent infusions of Wagner, it exudes the prankster snarkiness characteristic of von Trier.
Aside from the Pirandellian games and some interplay of different film stocks there isn't much going on here, though von Trier rewards the patient with a strange and horrifying climax.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
The scenes from Epidemic have the high-contrast look of a 1920s horror film, are in English (much of it badly dubbed) and feature images that are handsome and preposterous in equal parts -- they're amusing, and too stylized to be disturbing.
Chicago Tribune by Robert K. Elder
Epidemic will never be confused with von Trier's great films. But it is an intriguing introduction to his later cinematic obsessions.
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