As we, the Fantastic Fest coverage team for CultureMap, have attested several times, one of the things that makes this festival so incredible is the community that it fosters and the reunion of scads of amazing movie geek friends.

That being said, the one major drawback to that reunion is that we all spend an inordinate amount of time confined inside movie theaters or in close quarters out on the patio. This creates the perfect breeding ground for a bizarre strain of virus that we have not so affectionately dubbed the Fantastic Flu. This heinous germ is as much a festival regular as I am.

For years, film journalists and film fans would stroll into town from across the states, and in fact across the world, and a faction of them would leave with a mild case of the sniffles. These sniffles would quickly evolve into a nasty and completely debilitating illness that would have them out of commission sometimes for several weeks. This insidious little bug gets carried back to L.A., New York, Oregon and other stateside locales by traveling within the out-of-town bloggers. With all the friendly handshakes, the food service during screenings and the myriad door handles, tables and movie tickets we communally touch daily, the nationwide spread of the Fantastic Flu is almost a guarantee.

But it has a potential worldwide reach, as well. Fantastic Fest is an international film festival and many of the filmmakers attend as guests. They in turn do interviews in small spaces with journalists already teetering on full infection. Basically, we live the end of every September in a Steven Soderbergh germophobic nightmare. The contagion spreads like the wildfires that raged across our fair state earlier this month.

As I write this, I am sitting in the bar next door to the Alamo Drafthouse. Behind me sits an acquaintance whose hacking cough is filling the room with a palpable sense of dread. As I document the flu’s spread through this year’s festival crowd, I will be inching further and further from this potential patient zero.

The festival is winding down and the Fantastic Flu is certainly rearing its ugly head. It started slowly, as it is wont to do. A cough would sound in a quiet theater or a telling sneeze would go almost unnoticed in the murmur of the lobby. Before long, as has already occurred this year, fest-goers were missing early morning screenings or abstaining from late night drinking sessions due to feeling “a little crappy.”

Oh no, the contaminated gentleman at the table behind me has entered into a sneezing fit. I’m holding my breath.

Other fest attendees were not fortunate enough to escape the Fantastic Flu with only minor afflictions. One poor victim this year actually had to go to the hospital with a viral infection. My wife came by the festival for just a couple of hours to visit with friends and had to stay home from work the next day with flu-like symptoms. So not only can the Fantastic Flu be devastating, but it can also spread with nightmarish velocity. What are we to do?

This year, I have noticed far more people taking adequate precaution and arming themselves against the virus. Quite a few tiny bottles of hand sanitizer appeared discretely from shoulder bags and doses of emergen-c were added to water bottles in the blistering Texas heat. But the remarkable thing to note here is that while so many festival regulars are well aware of the debilitating effects of the Fantastic Flu, the knowledge in no way dissuades them from attending. The passion these people share for international genre cinema far outweighs their personal health concerns; crazy perhaps, but entirely commendable if you ask me.

Well, as the sickly gent behind me exited the bar, he gave me an amiable pat on the shoulder. No use ordering another orange juice now, I am doomed.