Should you have some time this weekend, and watch Contagion, the chilling truth of the movie may leave you cold.

Shot in Illinois, the movie's premise is a global disease spread by an outbreak of hypothetical virus - MEV-1 - that affects Matt Damon's wife played by Gwyneth Paltrow, watching his struggle to avoid it spreading to his daughter.

Trying to capture as much realism as possible, the film is a part thiller, part documentary, as the team of doctors, played by Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne take part. The film tells the story of what might happen in the event of a deadly plague.

"Don't touch anything," Matt Damon says in one particularly dramatic exchange.

In another, Laurence Fishburne, playing a doctor at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that this disease is not a bird flu virus sent to kill americans - it's a virus which is already spreading.

The movie was produced by Warner Bros. and features a host of big names including Jude Law as a web blogger trying to 'bring down' the establishment, which is gradually losing control over the spread of the disease.

“A lot of the reason I wanted to be a part of this project was because the script was so strong, and obviously a strong script and a brilliant director like Steven (Soderburgh), you feel, as an actor, confident that you’re almost halfway there,” Law told the Philadelphia Inquirer. He researched for his role by surfing the blogs of wellknown critics of Big Pharma and Big Gov, industries:

"I drew on a few and tried to create someone that seemed to fit that particular persona," he said.