Netflix Disaster Movie Freakily Shows ‘Almost Exactly What’s Going On’ In Town It Was Filmed In

Netflix Disaster Movie Freakily Shows ‘Almost Exactly What’s Going On’ In Town It Was Filmed In Netflix

Sometimes pop culture has a weird way of predicting real life. That’s definitely the case with Noah Baumbach’s Netflix movie, “White Noise.” The movie, based on the 1985 Don DeLillo novel of the same name, is all about a suburban family whose lives are completely destroyed after an unexplained chemical leak in the Ohio town where they live. Viewers can’t help but notice how the plot is basically exactly what’s happened in the actual town where much of the movie was filmed.

“White Noise” stars Adam Driver and Gerta Gerwig and has been billed as an “absurdist comedy” that focuses on a family “grappling with love, death, and an airborne toxic event.” However, it’s certainly not funny that less than a year after its release, residents in East Palestine, Ohio are experiencing the film’s events in real life.

On February 3, a 50-car freight train derailed and exploded. It was carrying vinyl chloride, a horrifically toxic substance, in 20 of its cars. That spilled everywhere, releasing black clouds full of phosgene and hydrogen chloride into the air. While 2,000 locals were evacuated in the immediate aftermath and authorities assured everyone in the area that everything was safe, that doesn’t seem to be the case. And while emergency crews went to work almost immediately trying to contain the damage, it’s believed that things may be much worse than officials are willing to admit.

Netflix’s “White Noise” has come eerily true

“White Noise” features pretty much an identical storyline: A train crashes and releases tons of toxic chemicals into the air, leading to residents being forced to leave their homes. People on social media are absolutely freaked out by the similarities.

“I just think it’s so wild that White Noise – a movie that includes a train derailing IN OHIO, causing a Toxic cloud to force people to evacuate came out in August [2022] and then seven months later, an actual train derails in Ohio causing a toxic cloud to force people to evacuate,” one person wrote.

Another added, “After a train derails, Ohioans are now living the plot of the movie they helped make.”

Ben Ratner, a man who lives in East Palestine and appeared as an extra in Netflix’s “White Noise,” told People he was flabbergasted by what’s happened. “Talk about art imitating life. You can just about drive yourself crazy thinking about how uncanny the similarities are between what’s happening now and in that movie.”

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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