3. The Human Apocalypse
This one's sort of like the technological apocalypse - it probably involves us all getting blown up -, except in these films we do it to ourselves without mechanical intervention. Goodie. Well, almost without mechanical intervention: in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), it's an automated doomsday device that wipes mankind off the face of the planet (except for the lucky, soon-to-be inbred few hiding in mines), then again we did build the damn thing! In the Ambassadors defense, it was supposed to be a surprise. Mankind are probably the biggest contributors overall to the cause of cinematic apocalypses: we make the viruses, we bring the natural disasters on ourselves, sometimes we even make the zombies ourselves (Resident Evil). What's specific about the human apocalypse is that it's our finger on the button: we knowingly blow ourselves to hell. And it's not all crazy, bodily fluid-obsessed Generals: sometimes we eat ourselves to the point of extinction (Wall-E), sometimes it's overpopulation (Logan's Run), sometimes we just like nicking stuff (Escape From New York). Human apocalypse films challenge the viewpoint of the alien/monster ones in that here it's all our fault: at best we're a mess, at worst outright monsters. We're certainly a lot more innately scary than the next bunch...