Epidemic

Epidemic is a 1987 Danish drama with horror elements, written by Niels Vørsel and Lars von Trier. The two men play versions of themselves: a screenwriter and a director who lose the script they spent a long time preparing when a computer virus wipes it out. With only a few days left before they must hand a finished screenplay to a producer, they set out to write a new one about a plague sweeping Europe. As they work on their fictional outbreak, a real epidemic develops around them without their noticing, and the line between the film they are inventing and their own lives begins to blur. The narrative moves between their efforts to find ideas and financing and scenes from the film they are trying to make.

The film belongs to the Europe trilogy, which began with The Element of Crime and continued with Europa, and it is the first entry in the chronological list of the director's features. Von Trier and Vørsel appear alongside Claes Kastholm Hansen, Udo Kier, Svend Ali Hamann and Gitte Lind, with Jacob Eriksen producing for Elementfilm A/S and Det Danske Filminstitut. Reception has been moderate: on TMDB it holds a rating of 5.7 from 142 votes, while a critics' rating of 5.3 from 8 reviews sits slightly below the audience figure.