No one likes getting sick. Debilitating illnesses drain your energy and cause all kinds of nasty fluids to come out of your body. If allowed to spread, these diseases can decimate an entire population. As bad as that sounds, fiction is arguably worse.

Writers have fashioned countless crazy plagues across the storytelling realm. Their insane symptoms are obviously great for shock value, but what’s scarier is how plausible these sicknesses sound. When explaining the viruses, creators often use real illnesses as foundations. That inspiration aids in authenticity, but it can also make you paranoid. After seeing such believable pandemics play out onscreen, you start to question whether they could actually happen. Soon, you’ll be afraid to catch a cold.

Related: Top 10 Disaster Movie Clips Critiqued By Experts

10 Red Flu

The Last Ship (2014–2018) may seem like just a naval action show, but it really revolves around a worldwide pandemic. Dubbed the “Red Flu” by some parties, this disease stems from an ancient plant virus buried in the Arctic. Touch helps transmit it, but you can also get sick from breathing contaminated air. Once infected, you suffer from intense fevers and exhaustion. You then develop grotesque lesions all over your body before your system shuts down. The sickness works quickly and efficiently.

That efficacy lets the virus wipe out most of the globe. It easily erodes entire governments, leaving the world in chaos. As bad as that is, you might be more disgusted at what it does to the survivors. Several cultlike leaders use the crisis to frame themselves as saviors and seize power. As much as it bonds the navy sailors, strife of this scale also brings out the worst of humanity.^[10]

9 Vampirism

It’s no secret that vampires can bite humans to turn them into other vampires. It only takes reading books like Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire or watching TV shows like True Blood or Buffy the Vampire Slayer to understand this. However, The Strain (2014–2017) boils that process down to medical science. Rather than fangs, a tendril shoots out of the monster’s mouth and latches onto its victim. It uses this tool to suck blood, but it serves another purpose as well.

Feeding on humans injects wormlike organisms into their systems. These little parasites gradually alter their organs, transforming their targets into hairless husks. Their only purpose is to serve their higher vampire masters. Starting in New York City, this biological warfare is enough to cripple the metropolis, along with the rest of the country. Suffice it to say, these vampires are a far cry from the sexy, sparkling kind.^[2]

8 MEV-1

It doesn’t take a doctor to know that a film called Contagion (2011) concerns a plague. The title refers to a virus called MEV-1. This illness begins in fruit bats and pigs before jumping to humans. From there, infection from fellows is easy. The disease transfers through close contact. That doesn’t just refer to skin but also sweat, saliva, and breath. The ensuing pandemic is fraught with fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, seizures, and whatever other crippling symptoms you can imagine. After a few agonizing days, the afflicted die. Worse still, the virus maintains that speed on a global scale.

The sickness severely hinders the population. Legions of people are dead before they know it, and the remainder line crowded hospitals, pandemic shelters, and dirty streets. Although MEV-1 isn’t quite enough to topple governments or bring forth an apocalypse, it does breed desperation from both professionals and civilians. No one knows how to isolate the infection or synthesize a cure. Even when the doctors engineer a vaccine, they must figure out a means of distribution. Those hurdles ground the movie in uncomfortable realism, which only makes it more unnerving.^[3]

7 Cordyceps

While The Strain grounds vampires in medical science, The Last of Us (2023– ) attempts the same for zombies. This post-apocalyptic franchise sees the Cordyceps plant fungus mutate beyond anything on record. It soon evolves enough to infect humans. Starting at their brains, it slowly morphs them into feral beasts—covered in fungal growths and focused only on killing. It goes without saying that bites can transmit the disease, but dead specimens release spores, which are arguably more effective if you breathe them. In short, the human race has no chance.

It’s not surprising that this new form of Cordyceps kills most of the planet’s population. Humanity has no idea how to combat it with science, so the only option is to fight it conventionally. This desperation turns friends and family against each other. Characters must execute their closest allies or risk getting infected themselves. Such ruthless tactics are undoubtedly isolating, but they’re the only way to survive.^[4]

6 Catriona Plague

World-hopping sounds fun, but it presents a grave danger to everyone around. If travelers aren’t careful, they can introduce foreign objects into an environment, throwing off the whole ecosystem. That’s the mistake that Ciri makes in The Witcher series (2019 – ). As she jumps between worlds, she lands in a port afflicted by bubonic plague, specifically the Black Death. The residents suffer from fevers, aches, swelling, and lack of energy. A bug from this forsaken place hitches a ride on the heroine’s clothes as she teleports back, thereby heralding disaster for her own world.

The bug then jumps to a rat on a ship bound for Ciri’s homeland, and the rest is history. The sickness spreads across the Continent with little difficulty. The denizens of this medieval fantasy realm don’t have the knowledge or tools needed to combat it. Although the illness is technically nonfictional, who knows how it could mutate in the face of Elves, Dwarves, and magic? That unpredictable lethality soon fills hospitals to the brim with the dead and dying. In the end, the losses resulting from this “Catriona Plague” rival those of the war shortly before.^[5]

5 Heart Virus

This sickness differs from other entries in that it only affects one person. That may sound like a walk in the park, but try telling that to the patient. Goku, the overarching hero of Dragon Ball, contracts this mysterious heart virus shortly after returning from his space travels. It gives him the usual fever and exhaustion, but it also puts him in agonizing pain. Not only is he unable to fight, but he can’t even get out of bed. That’s after taking the cure.

The virus on its own is enough to kill him entirely. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens in an apocalyptic future. For perspective, Goku is among the mightiest warriors in the universe. He withstands the most terrible attacks you can imagine, yet this virus puts him down for the count. Normal folks wouldn’t stand a chance against such an illness.^[6]

4 Simian Flu (ALZ-112)

The best intentions can easily go wrong. The Simian Flu originates as a cure. Namely, Dr. Rodman engineers it to combat Alzheimer’s, testing it on chimps to stimulate brain activity. When a test subject unexpectedly gives birth, her offspring shows immense intelligence. Unfortunately, this young chimp—dubbed “Caesar”—is soon on the receiving end of human cruelty. He retaliates by releasing an airborne version of the serum, granting similar sharpness to his fellow apes. What no one foresees is its effect on people.

The serum knocks the humans off the top of the food chain, paving the way for the modern Planet of the Apes series. The initial strain causes victims to cough up blood and eventually die. That alone eliminates most of Earth’s residents and power structures. The survivors appear to have natural immunity, but the serum is only gestating. The remaining humans eventually lose all higher brain functions, starting with their ability to speak. That downward spiral frees the apes to cage them like beasts. Oh, how the tables have turned.^[7]

3 Greyscale

This dermatological disease is hard to contract and harder to get rid of. Introduced in A Song of Ice and Fire, Greyscale can only transfer through direct contact. That’s a simple prospect in itself. When a swarm of infected individuals attacks you, though, it becomes difficult to dodge. Thankfully, you can easily avoid these mobs by staying out of the areas that they frequent. Such caution is in your best interest.

Greyscale equates to slow and steady suffering. It’s generally nonfatal, but it causes children to become malformed as they grow. For adults, the sickly scales spread across the body, gradually driving the patient insane. Victims have one hope for salvation, but it only brings further pain. Treatment involves carving and peeling the scales off. This process is downright excruciating. It essentially amounts to skinning a person alive. Given that degree of torture, Greyscale is more hazardous than the titular Game of Thrones.^[8]

2 Geostigma

As foreign organisms, aliens run a clear risk of infecting humans. Few invaders are more malevolent than Jenova. This extraterrestrial woman touches down prior to Final Fantasy VII. After being an unwilling test subject, her dissected corpse falls into the Lifestream: the mystical liquid infused into the planet and its people. That unholy mixture has gruesome consequences down the line.

Advent Children (2005), FFVII’s film sequel, introduces Geostigma. This sickness arises from the infected Lifestream, which spreads to the planet’s innumerable residents. Alien matter infiltrates their bodies, causing their systems to fight back with antibodies. The catch is that the bodies overcompensate and collapse. Victims then develop sores and excrete black goo before finally dying. Although anyone can contract Geostigma, it ravages the world’s children first due to their weaker constitutions. Of course, another illness inflicts much more damage in that respect.^[9]

1 Infertility Epidemic

Sometimes, the simplest problems are the most difficult to solve. Children of Men (2006) provides ample evidence of that sentiment. The Infertility Epidemic does exactly what the name suggests. It renders humans unable to produce children. While the story never states the exact cause of this disease, it actively explores the ramifications. Needless to say, they are terrifying.

Society completely collapses thanks to this single issue. Extremists incite their followers to violent tactics, and governments enact totalitarian regimes to maintain control. Meanwhile, everyday people sink into hopelessness. Human beings, like any animal, have an instinct to procreate. Taking that away not only robs them of purpose, but it also prevents the species from continuing. The inevitable endpoint is extinction. That fact makes this sickness deadlier than any other.^[10]

The past was far more disgusting than most of us realize. We’ve told you before about Pompeii’s trash can streets, medieval London’s otherworldly stink, and the appalling hygiene of the 18th century. But even these horrors have nothing on the various parasites and diseases of the past.

10 Exploding Teeth

Remember the last time that you had a bad toothache? Awful, wasn’t it? Now imagine that pain roughly 100 times worse. It’s so bad, in fact, that you lose touch with reality and start acting like a rabid dog. And your dentist has no way to help you.

That was the sort of toothache that a small number of patients encountered in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Luckily, the infected teeth had a simple method for curing themselves. They exploded.

In 1817, Reverend DA from Springfield suffered a toothache so bad that it made him act like “an enraged animal,” banging his head against the ground and biting a fence post to relieve his agony. But the pain kept getting worse.

One morning, the reverend’s wife heard a crack like a gunshot. Shortly after, her husband walked in and declared himself cured. His tooth had just exploded, sending calcium fragments flying across the room.

There are a handful of similar cases on record. Although the patient usually felt better after the infected tooth burst, the explosion could be damaging in itself. In 1871, one woman was nearly knocked off her feet by the blast, which was so loud that she briefly went deaf.

Cases of exploding teeth mysteriously stopped in the 1920s. It’s now thought that the mixture of metals used in old-time fillings may have caused cavities to occasionally fill with hydrogen, eventually leading to a miniature explosion.

9 Gigantic And Painful Intestinal Worms

Intestinal worms like tapeworms still affect people today. But these parasites are wimps compared to some worms observed in the 18th century. In 1782, an article in Medical Essays and Observations reported on a young man who passed a worm 0.5 meters (1.5 ft) long and 4.0 centimeters (1.5 in) thick. By “passed,” we mean that he had to get a friend to help him pull it out of his rear end.

Made up of earthworm-like joints and full of dark, sticky blood, the worm was like something out of a horror movie. It had a jaw like a duck’s bill, was dark chocolate in color, and had apparently been burrowing in the poor guy’s intestines for days. As it moved, it caused him excruciating pain. Whatever this monster was, it wasn’t a tapeworm.

A similar story from the 16th century is just as bad. Italian goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini recorded in his autobiography that he once vomited a worm that was 13 centimeters (5 in) long and covered with long, dark hairs. No one had any idea what the heck it was.

8 Dancing Plagues

Mass hysteria is when a group of people start doing something absurd on a grand scale with no rational explanation. Famous examples include the Loudun possessions and the Salem witch trials.

At certain times in history, mass hysteria has also intersected with medicine to create creepy, inexplicable “plagues.” One of the creepiest may be the dancing plague of 1518.

The plague began one hot July in Strasbourg when a woman began dancing in the street and didn’t stop. Ever. She was still dancing days later, apparently no longer in control of her body. At that point, things got weird. At least 100 other people started dancing and quickly discovered that they couldn’t stop, either.

According to old eyewitness accounts, the victims appeared to be terrified and begged those around them to make them stop dancing. Within a few short days, people were literally dancing themselves to death.

Luckily, the town had a bizarre but effective solution. It was decided that the plague’s victims just needed to dance the compulsion out of their systems. Halls and stages were set up for dancing, and musicians were hired to play 24/7. By September of that year, the dancers—whose number had swollen to 400—finally tired themselves out. The plague was over.

Although this was the last dancing plague in European history, it wasn’t the first. There had been at least 10 beforehand. In 1374, one of them engulfed what is now Belgium, Luxembourg, and most of northern France.

7 Bladder Beetles

There are certain things that no man ever wants to have happen to him. Hearing his doctor say the words “prostate cancer” is one of them. Another is having a living creature crawl out of the end of his penis. For one unfortunate man in 1838, that’s exactly what happened.

As reported in American Journal of the Medical Sciences, the 23-year-old victim was suffering from a urinary tract infection. After days of urinating blood and pus, he found himself unable to pee.

His agony was so great that doctors urgently sent for a catheter. Before it could get there, the problem sorted itself out in the worst possible way. A pea-sized object popped out of the guy’s penis, followed by a heavy discharge of pus and urine. When doctors examined the blockage, they discovered that it was a living beetle.

Terrifyingly, such cases were not unusual at the time. The former BBC journalist Thomas Morris has covered many of them on his gruesome blog. Apparently, one young boy peed out 16 slugs.

6 Sleepy Sickness

If you were to be mysteriously whisked back to 1918, there’s one disease that you’d probably try to avoid above all others. That was the year that the Spanish flu blasted its way across the globe, killing up to 50 million people—over twice as many as World War I. But that pandemic overshadowed one that was just as inexplicable and potentially freakier.

Although it was far less deadly than the Spanish flu—killing “only” one million people—sleepy sickness was horrifying. Officially known as encephalitis lethargica, scientists now believe that it was a reaction to a rare form of Streptococcus bacteria.

At the time, though, nobody knew what was happening. All they knew was that people were starting to fall asleep like they had narcolepsy. And some of them never woke up.

But they didn’t die. Some sufferers lapsed into coma-like states, unable to control their bodies and unable to wake up. Shunted into medical units, they still showed signs of brain activity, but they didn’t respond to stimuli.

Millions of people worldwide suffered this horrendous fate. Although some were “awakened” with drug treatments in 1969, many slipped back into their sleeping state after only a few weeks.

Scarily, the disease hasn’t entirely vanished. The odd case still crops up today, although another major outbreak seems extremely unlikely.

5 Eye Spiders

The words “eye spiders” alone are enough to give a significant number of people nightmares. Unfortunately for any arachnophobes reading this, the story behind that headline is even worse.

In 1840, Dr. Lopez of Alabama was called out on a gruesome case in Charleston. The previous night, his patient had felt something drop on her face while sleeping. The next morning, she woke up with a hideously swollen eye. When the eye was examined, a mucus-covered spider was found living in the cavity.

Incredibly, the horror story was only just beginning. A few days later, Dr. Lopez was called to see the woman again. More spiders had been discovered in her eye socket.

Over the next few weeks, Dr. Lopez visited her every morning. Each time, he extracted a tiny, mucus-coated spider from inside her eye. After two months of this, locals were convinced that the original spider had laid an egg sac behind her eyeball, causing this terrifying condition.

We’ve got good news for all you readers who are trying not to vomit. As Dr. Lopez soon realized, such a thing is basically impossible. It turned out that the woman was mentally ill and had been placing the spiders in her eye each morning, possibly as a means of getting attention.

Still, the 19th century was a fertile time for extracting animals from bodies. On his blog, Thomas Morris records the stories of a boy who vomited millipedes and another person who supposedly had a live mouse extracted from his intestine.

4 Ice Age Superbugs

Antibiotic-resistant bugs are a potential nightmare. Bacteria that can shrug off treatments have been around since 1947 and are growing in number. Commonly called superbugs, these Darwinian monsters could be what finally kill off modern humans.

Yet recent research has shown that these superbugs might not be so modern after all. There is evidence that they spent their formative years in what is now Canada, killing off our ancestors during the last ice age.

In 2011, Scientific American reported that antibiotic-resistant superbugs had been found buried deep in the ice outside Dawson City, Yukon. These tiny killers were at least 30,000 years old and hadn’t seen sunlight in millennia. Thousands of years before we humans figured out antibiotics, Actinobacteria had set up a defense system to stop us from killing them.

Of course, this made no difference to our ice age ancestors. Bugs killed them swiftly whether they were resistant to antibiotics or not. But if you ever go back in time via a DeLorean or a TARDIS, you might want to avoid prehistoric Canada.

3 Laughing Plagues

The dancing plague may have occurred centuries ago, but you don’t have to go too far back to find creepy instances of mass hysteria. In modern-day Tanzania, you would only need to take a time machine back to 1962 when the mainland was still called Tanganyika. That was the year that the laughing epidemic hit. One day, people suddenly started laughing. Months later, they still hadn’t stopped.

Like the dancing plague, the laughter epidemic was creepy because those affected apparently didn’t want to be laughing. People laughed so hard that they injured themselves. Entire schools were shut down, and whole villages were quarantined. When the plague vanished months later, 1,000 people had laughed themselves into illness.

Perhaps the creepiest part is how the symptoms were described. Those affected said that it felt like “things were moving about in their heads” and that they were being controlled by an alien force. However, just about every expert in the world now chalks the whole thing up to mass hysteria.

2 Vomiting Up A Fetus

In 1835, Dr. Ardoin, a French doctor living in Greece, recorded that a young boy named Demetrius Stamatelli had vomited up a fetus. This already disgusting sentence gets even worse when you realize that the dead baby spewed by Demetrius was probably his own twin.

Parasitic twins occur when one twin “absorbs” the other in the womb. Usually, the absorbed twin goes unnoticed until death. Occasionally, it has to be surgically removed if it starts to cause problems. The case in 1830s Greece is the only time on record that someone apparently vomited their twin.

The details of the case are utterly gruesome. Demetrius had abdominal pains so bad that he was at death’s door. It was only after a horrendous vomiting fit that his symptoms abated—after the dead twin was spewed out of his mouth. Apparently, it had been attached to the boy by some kind of umbilical cord. Dr. Ardoin seemed to find this horror show utterly fascinating.

1 The Plague Of Athens

Of all the gruesome and mysterious plagues that have racked human civilization over the centuries, none is more gruesome or mysterious than the Plague of Athens. Between 430 BC and 426 BC, the cradle of democracy was transformed from a serene place of ancient wisdom into a grand showcase of gore.

According to the only surviving eyewitness account (as related by Thucydides), those affected saw their eyeballs turn red, their tongues become bloody, their throats decay, and horrible ulcers pop up all over their bodies. If that wasn’t enough, death typically came after a horrendous bout of diarrhea.

It’s estimated that up to two-thirds of the Athenian population died this way, including some of the city-state’s greatest leaders and generals. Scarily, we’re still not sure what caused it. Many scientists believe that the Plague of Athens could be the earliest-known Ebola outbreak.

Yet that interpretation comes with issues because there was no other recorded outbreak between 426 BC and the 1970s. Others have suggested cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid, and even measles.

Fashion fads are like any fad, really. Some of it works. Some of it doesn’t. And you don’t know which of those two categories the one you’re participating in now will end up falling into until enough time has passed for society to gain some perspective. Before you dive into the latest trend, though, keep in mind that for every pair of blue jeans or high top sneakers, there are a million things that don’t stand the test of time. So if you want to actually enjoy looking at pictures of yourself years from now, take a lesson from the following disasters…

10. Zoot Suits (1940s)

In the 1940s, zoot suits symbolized rebellion and individuality for the minority youths who wore them. So much so, in fact, that they actually rioted when the government tried to ban them, arguing that the absurd amount of fabric required for their manufacture was depriving the Army of valuable war material.

Cool facts! You know what’s not cool? The zoot suit itself. Look at this goofy monstrosity and mock it.

9. Rompers for Men (1970s)

The ’70s are a good decade to illustrate the following point: the more a new fashion trend deviates from the standard jeans/t-shirts/dress, or skirt/boots or sneakers/tailored jacket look, the more likely it is to not stand the test of time.

Variations on the classics likely won’t be too embarrassing down the road, but wild departures like the wide-collared onesies for grown men advertised in mid-’70s fashion mags will likely force you to trash any and all photographic evidence you ever partook. 

8. Shoulder Pads (1980s)

If brevity is the soul of wit, then just enough clothing worn well is the soul of fashion. Maybe that sounded better in my head. The point is: women in the 1980s did not understand this self-evident truth.

Shoulder pads and bat-wing sleeves and other gratuitous add-ons to shirts and jackets that simply did not need them were ridiculous perversions of the more subtle 1940s shoulder pads, because everything in the 1980s was a ridiculous perversion of something. That was part of the fun. It’s also the reason no one who lived through that decade will ever admit it in public.

7. Mullets (1980s)

“Business in the front, party in the back?” Try “thank you for the application, but we are not hiring right now.”

We will say this, though: few could’ve imagined that the mullet, popularized by Irish rock star and liberal philanthropist Bono, would end up on the scalps of beer-guzzling Appalachians who soak their feet in kiddie pools. How did this happen? We don’t care enough to find out. But we imagine it has something to do with Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot giving the look a blue jeans appeal and country crooner Billy Ray Cyrus taking it from there. Quite a storied history for one of the most regrettable, worthless hairstyles of all time. 

6. Hair Metal… Everything (1980s)

Men dressing like women might come off as rather woke now, but we promise you, social commentary and LGBTQ rights weren’t even on the radar of the chauvinistic, Sunset Strip slime balls who teased out their hair and smeared on the makeup to rock out to Bon Jovi in the mid ’80s. The women were just as bad. For a few months in 1986, the skies above Los Angeles were 40% Aquanet. Whole species of birds were endangered. Nirvana didn’t kill hair metal, the EPA did. We have a million of these.

But nobody said it better than Tommy Lee, who you probably know from his thoughtful contributions to The Economist: “Just because we are wearing lipstick doesn’t mean we can’t kick your ass,” he once quipped. The other members of Mötley Crüe all laughed. We did too.

5. Bang Parentheses (1990s)

We really tried to find the proper name for this dorky looking mop of a haircut, but “bang parentheses” will have to do. It really is a perfect description. It’s the haircut famously sported by Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement and some of the kids from Saved By The Bell. Leonardo DiCaprio wore it too, around the time Titanic was released.

Now it lives on in those haircut idea books at the salon your local Karen goes to. When you first saw them in there, you thought maybe I could pull this off. Now you think, how the hell has no one thrown this book out yet?

4. Excessively Baggy Clothes (1990s)

Maybe the current trend of slim fit, tailored clothing will one day be seen as an overcorrection, but nobody can look at poncho-sized T-shirts draped over jeans that were four sizes too big and honestly think it looks as cool now as it did in the mid ’90s.

It’s a wonder anyone could even function when they had 40 pounds of fabric to wrestle with just to find their wallet. Hang on. We know it’s buried in here somewhere. Sir? Can you hold this fistful of shirt while we look? Thanks. 

3. Frosted Tips (1990s/2000s)

Which trash can did we toss mullets and glam metal coifs into? Don’t empty it yet, because we’ve got another atrocity to deposit, courtesy of yet more cute musicians who deceived the public into thinking that you too can look as hot as Justin Timberlake by simply bleaching the top half of your greasy hair spikes.

Is there a way to tell people who do this, without breaking their hearts, that they look less like a cute member of a late-’90s boy band and more like they’re heading to Flavor Town?

2. Soul Patches (1990s/2000s)

Cute guys might sport frosted tips, but bad boys had soul patches. Guys with motorcycles and cigarettes. Guys with leather jackets and hot girlfriends. Guys who listened to cool bands like uh, Crossfade (heh) and Nickelback (snicker). Guys who are now fat, bald and goateed, who wear sleeveless Tapout shirts and shades indoors, and who yell at their kids at the gas station while their wife smokes in the pickup.

Honestly, though, the biggest question we have regarding soul patches, which are so small it hardly seems worth the effort to maintain and trim them, is “why?”

1. Trilbys (2000s/2010s)

God help us. Sometimes fashion trends fail so spectacularly, you don’t even need hindsight to see it. Now before we continue, keep in mind that fedoras and trilbys are often-confused cousins, not twins. Fedoras are the wider-brimmed, classic Hollywood-era hats you’ve seen paired with chiseled jaws and suit jackets. We have no problem at all with the properly applied fedora. Trilbys, on the other hand, have no fashionable utility whatsoever. They weren’t even slightly cool, at any point in time, in any part of the world.

In fact, they’re so uncool that it makes everyone around the wearer embarrassed, as if future anthropologists will spot one while digging up an ancient shopping mall, and think all of us wore wolf t-shirts and tried to seduce uncomfortable women by bragging about our sword collections. For the sake of our collective dignity, please deposit your trilby in the nearest wastebasket and beg for forgiveness. 

BONUS!: Clear Shoes (2010s)

We’re not sure how these got on the list. They will be cool forever.