As the world confronts the spread of a deadly new virus, interest in disease-themed movies, games and TV series has exploded, with worried viewers turning to documentaries and disaster flicks for answers and ways to cope.
The iTunes movie download charts are usually dominated by the latest blockbusters.
But in the last few weeks a blast from the past has stormed up the charts -- Steven Soderbergh's 2011 thriller "Contagion".
Starring Gwyneth Paltrow as a businesswoman who unwittingly brings a lethal pathogen to the United States after shaking hands with a Macau chef, the movie has many parallels with current events.
Like the new coronavirus, the illness jumps from animals to humans in China before spreading abroad -- although in the movie it is an exponentially more deadly phenomenon, killing 26 million around the world in the first month alone.
It's a horror story that appears to have us hooked.
In the last week of January, "Contagion" popped up in the top 10 of the British iTunes chart.
This week it has slipped down to 55 in Britain but remains stubbornly high up in many places -- number 7 in Singapore, 24 in Australia and 20 in the US.
In Hong Kong -- which features heavily in the film as the first city the virus runs truly rampant in -- "Contagion" is sitting pretty at number 8.
The international financial hub has provided made-for-movie scenes in real life recently as panic-buying set in with runs on staples including rice, cleaning products and toilet rolls.
Earlier this week there was even an armed robbery of a delivery driver dropping off toilet tissue.
The city experienced 299 deaths during the 2002-03 epidemic of the SARS virus -- a partial inspiration for Soderbergh's film -- and has had two fatalities from the current coronavirus.
But while Hong Kongers fret, many it seems are also keen to watch Hollywood's take on what a global pandemic might look like.
"The sudden interest in everything epidemic and virus-related allows people an avenue which can help to process what's going on," Robert Bartholomew, a medical sociologist who explores mass hysteria, told AFP.
"It's well-known in psychology that the process of talking about traumatic events can help people 'get it off their chest' and relieve stress."
"But in fact we made it because some of us had seen the system tested in smaller ways and knew its vulnerabilities. We hoped to inform before, not after, another dangerous pathogen emerged."
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