Help me win an argument

Hey! I really need your help. I got into a MASSIVE argument with my friends and they think i'm an idiot. We watched the new Lara Croft movie and I noticed a theme that I thought id seen before. In the movie they find something like an egyptian mummy. When anyone touches it they die graphicly. In most movies they would explain this mechanism as something mystical, or metaphysical, but in this movie the characters realize that it had a scientific explanation; The mummy was simply carrying a contagious disease. I told my friend that I had seen similar ideas in movies, they told me that I was an idiot. Unfortunately I cannot recall any movies by name that have this theme, but I'm wondering if any of you guys can think of some.

What i’m looking for specifically is movies that take ideas that are normally considered supernatural, mystical, or unexplainable, and explain them in scientific ways.

For example: in a movie, it seems like sorcerers are healing people with magic, but then the characters realize they were just using medacin.

I would appreciate help very much! I can give more examples or explain this more clearly if this is confusing

The first thing that came to my mind was the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb, and the deaths that followed it, which were seen to be due to a curse. There was a recent suggestion that the air inside the sealed tomb could have been poisonous in some way, and that could have killed them.

Indiana Jones is interesting too because some of its supernatural goings-on are explained, for example the trials on the way to the Grail chamber, and some are not.

Every Scoobie Doo episode "And I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!"

Sherlock Holmes movies - especially the 2009 one

So, shot in the dark here, but is it possible he thought you were saying you'd seen a similar plot/story, and not just a similar theme? Because if someone told me they'd seen a film with a similar plot after something as specific as that, I'd probably find that idiotic, too. But if you were talking about the larger idea of having a mystical thing explained as having an empirical explanation, yeah, not that unusual.

If I'm recalling the storylines correctly, in the Tintin comics (and TV series) you have several stories where researchers become mad or become ill because they have discovered mummies (Cigars of the Pharaoh) or some kind of Inca treasure (The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun). These phenomenons eventually all get explained in a scientifically plausible manner. The so-called curses all seem to have been "planted" there on purpose.

They're some of the most brilliant comic albums of all time, so I definitely recommend reading them. It doesn't seem like such a weird plot device, so I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of other films/stories out there that are very similar.

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

The difficulty with this question is that sometimes you can think of things but don't want to spoil the storyline in question. Sherlock Holmes has some real corkers, particularly in the expanded plots of some of the Granada TV series episodes.

The Orphanage comes to mind. But as with most movies that follow this kind of plot, its tricky for it not to come out disappointing which I thought The Orphanage was. Silent House goes the same direction kind of. As does Walled In. Also, not the main plot but in Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks worship C3PO as a god but he is in fact just a smart android who Luke helps float for a few moments. Course it all depends on what you think of The Force. Is it a mystical non scientific force or is it midichlorians? But now that I think of it, I think they already thought of him as a god before that scene because he could speak their language.

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Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

Oh and I forgot the most obvious one: The Wizard of Oz. Duh. Not an all powerful wizard. Just a guy behind a curtain with a machine. And also The Uninvited which has a similar twist to Silent House.

Another couple of movies that fit the bill are Friday the 13th part one and two. It was said in both movies that camp crystal lake had some type of curse...absolute garbage. It was revealed that Jason’s mother was the killer, not some mythical creature. Following that in part two Jason returns. Well that is easily explained. He didn’t die or age as he was in the camp crystal lake..lake. I’d say that science could prove the lake has a very rich concentration of oxygen which enabled Jason to breathe and also not age underwater for numerous years...once he left this lake he dramatically aged hence why he was an adult in part 2. So none of those movies are based on the supernatural and are most likely based on real world events.