Variola vera

One of the most scary movies I've seen, atmosphere, acting, truly disturbing.

A masterpiece of Serbian cinematography for several reasons: 1. The plot is inspired by a real life event that happened in Belgrade, the outbreak of the Variola Vera pox virus that was brought to Yugoslavia by a person who has traveled to the Middle East. 2. The claustrophobic environment of the quarantined hospital gives you chills down the spine. 3. A struggle of humanity in the darkest times 4. Doing research before making the film. Goran Markovic, the director of the movie, had a team of doctors who contributed in making the movie so it would look realistic, and not a fictional horror movie. Outstanding acting and cinematography.

This film will scare you. It's an unpretentious, yet very well made horror that builds a genuinely creepy mood and introduces us to likeable characters we really care about. I have seen it several times and I have found it enjoyable every single one of those times. The interesting thing is that the film is based on real events, but that is also a potential problem, because the filmmakers cared more about putting together an effective screenplay than remaining true to actual events. This is no docudrama, but a film that takes great liberties. However, they are justified, because the screenplay they ended up with was pretty much flawless. You won't forget this film.

This is really scary and shocking movie that deals with true events of smallpox epidemic that hits former Yugoslavia in 1972 (I was one year old and my parents still remember all this). Movie works excelent in building tense atmosphere from the first second - when you hear amazingly creepy score and see first scenes where a pilgrim buy a little "doomed" flute from a man infected with smallpox, to the moment when he get sick and spread desease that finally stuck in General hospital in Belgrade where main plot of the movie occurs. We see, death, fear, anarchy, people get crazy, army build quarantine ... the creepiest moments of the movie are showing infection (makeup are stunning) and suffering of patients and definitelly occurence of main infectologyst dressed in scary white suit which, in conjunction with amazingly simple and effective score give unbearable tension and unpleasant feelings (only remark I have is that he reveal himself at the end of the movie - and I think it would be better that we don't know any fact about him). It is only sad that we don't see any events that occurred outside hospital (many people was infected and died in the city and everywhere where infected pilgrim passed) and that main plot is stucked in hospital.

Anyway, one of the best and creepiest movies I ever seen with several moments that will stuck in your memory for a long time.

Masterpiece! One of my favourite films ever!

The film is packed with omnious, horrifying scenes and it is based on true events at the same time. It has many merciless scenes but they are realistic. Furthermore, the cast is great as well and they authentically represent different states of human psyche and patterns of behaviour during hard times while being locked in hospital. Some of them behave like cowards and some fight bravely with disease and help everyone in need even though it can cost them their own life. In my opinion this film isn't nearly as popular as it should be, especially that we all faced global pandemic not a long time ago.