A ghostly ship looms silently ahead as the crippled, ocean-going, salvage tug Sea Star approaches. The Sea Star crew, their ship slowly sinking, has sought refuge in the eerie calm of the eye of a typhoon to make repairs and hopefully avert disaster.
But something's terribly wrong. The ship, a Russian science vessel bristling with high-tech radar, electronics and other wonders, appears to be deserted. Unfortunately for the crew of the Sea Star, nothing could be further from the truth.
Shelter from the storm turns into terror on board as they find themselves stalked by a mutating alien life form that has traveled across time and space? an energy force unlike any in the universe.
It is powerful. Intelligent. And it has found the perfect planet to inhabit.
Now, in order to survive, it must destroy the one threat to its existence: a virus called man.
A Universal Pictures release, Virus is a contemporary, techno-thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland. The film, which is based on an original series from Dark Horse Comics, marks the directorial debut of Academy AwardO -winning visual effects wizard John Bruno. Gale Anne Hurd is the producer, with Mike Richardson, Chuck Pfarrer, Gary Levinsohn and Mark Gordon serving as executive producers, and Todd Moyer, Dennis E. Jones and Bud Smith as co-producers. The screenplay was written by Pfarrer and Dennis Feldman.
A terrifying combination of action, suspense and spectacular visual effects, Virus is "an incredible adventure," according to director John Bruno, who quit his post as visual-effects supervisor on Titanic because what he really wanted was to direct.
For such a visually explosive project as Virus, the choice for director was obvious. Who better to handle the reins than Bruno, a six-time OscarO -nominee and a winner for The Abyss? In addition to a ten-year association with Academy AwardO -winning director James Cameron that included work on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies and Titanic, as well as The Abyss, Bruno also has served as visual effects supervisor on Ghostbusters, Poltergeist II, Batman Returns and Cliffhanger.
Bruno’s moment of truth came when he screened an early cut of Virus for his friend and collaborator Cameron. "That was the most nervous I'd been through the whole production," Bruno recalls. "What if he didn't like it? But he enjoyed the film immensely and is a big supporter."
The story of Virus begins in the South Pacific as the Akademic Vladislav Volkov, a Russian science ship, is lining up its parabolic dish with the Russian MIR Space Station anchored in geosynchronous orbit above. Nadia (Joanna Pacula), chief science officer, prepares to download a routine scientific data transmission from MIR.
Suddenly, up in space, a huge, blue, crackling energy mass envelops MIR, invading and overloading its circuits and killing the crew. The energy mass then follows the path of MIR's data transmission directly to the parabolic dishes waiting on the science ship below, invading and engulfing the ship's computer and electrical systems in a stunning display of electronic pyrotechnics.
The alien presence has found its host.
"I think we as a race–humankind–have only the barest inkling of what's out there," says producer Gale Anne Hurd. "I'm a firm believer that we are not alone, that life can take many different forms. In Virus, we postulate that there can be an Electrical Life Form, and I don't think that's an outrageous possibility."
Days later, the shabby ocean-going tug Sea Star and its motley crew are tossed into this mix. Caught in a ferocious typhoon, Captain Everton (Donald Sutherland) grimly battles on. Desperate, navigator "Kit" Foster (Jamie Lee Curtis) heads for the eye of the storm. They enter the eerie calm of the eye, surrounded by 360 degrees of storm raging along the horizon.
All appears lost until Kit locates a large ship on the radar, apparently also waiting out the storm. The Sea Star hails her and musters her last strength to pull alongside. But the ship, the Russian Volkov, is silently drifting, dead in the water and apparently deserted.
Captain Everton decides to take over the Volkov as a "derelict in international waters." Instead of emerging from this whole ordeal broke, the seven crew members–Everton, Foster, engineer Steve Baker (William Baldwin), brash Richie (Sherman Augustus), tattooed Maori seaman Hiko (Cliff Curtis), cowardly Woods (Marshall Bell) and hip Squeaky (Julio Oscar Mechoso)–will split the salvage fee, estimated to be $30 million. Avarice overcomes good sense.
After the Sea Star sinks in a dubious accident, Curtis, Baldwin and Sutherland, the core of the tug's crusty crew, launch a determined search for answers. They find Nadia, (Joanna Pacula) the sole Russian survivor, who weaves an incredible tale of an Electronic Entity coming down from the Space Station MIR, invading the ship's electrical systems and wiping out the crew.
Skepticism and outright disbelief quickly evaporate when the ship's computer flatly declares that it's the human "virus" on board that must be eradicated. The entity is sentient, intelligent and willing to go to any extreme in the name of self-preservation...It is aware.
Baker and Squeaky, the tug's engineering team, restore the ship’s power, immediately reactivating the computers, automated labs, workshops...and something else. As soon as power is restored, strange things start to happen. Sea Star, tied up alongside, is "accidentally" sunk; the automated labs and workshops get back to work on their mysterious projects; little robots the size of cats scurry about; and half-crazed Nadia is discovered hiding. She implores them to shut the power off before it’s too late.
A ferocious attack by a horrifying creature half man and half spare parts suggests that it’s already too late. In complete control of the fully-powered ship and its operating systems, the Alien haughtily explains to the crew via computer: "You are virus." Before terminating communication, it reveals that it wants the crew for "biological material," or as Richie puts it, "for spare parts."
The expanding crisis becomes evident when the crew figures out that the ship’s course has been set for a nearby intelligence station equipped with sophisticated linkups to military and commercial satellites? what amounts to Grand Central Station for an Electrical Alien.
As the ship plows back into the storm, the dwindling crew is subjected to increasingly violent attacks by ever more terrifying biomechanical creatures. The brand-new millionaires have been reduced to germs to be exterminated. They can barely defend themselves; how are they going to stop the ship and save the world?
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