Decay is a 2012 horror film by Luke Thompson (of the University of Manchester), set at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The movie was created on a budget of $3,225 and was filmed over a period of two years by Thompson and his fellow physicists. The film was released online for free under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC license, shareable and remixable. Decay was premiered on 29 November 2012 and centres on the idea of the Large Hadron Collider transforming scientists into zombies.
Thompson, a physics doctoral student, came up with the idea of the film while he was walking through the maintenance tunnels at CERN and began thinking that it would be a good location for a horror movie. In an interview with Wired, he stated that the film was initially started for fun, but that it was also an opportunity to "do some satirical commentary on various aspects of people’s perceptions of science".
Plot
A security guard is walking along the maintenance tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN when he turns around, meets an unidentified man whom he recognizes, and informs him that he is not supposed to be down there. The man proceeds to shoot the guard dead.
Connor, James, Amy, and Matt are physicists at CERN working on the Large Hadron Collider. James works with the LHC while the others analyze its data. They are on their way to attend an emergency meeting at CERN. They have no idea why the meeting was called, but Amy believes it cannot be too significant. At CERN, they overhear Dr. Niven and the Director-General arguing over safety. Dr. Niven wants the LHC stopped until he can assess the safety. The Director-General overrides his concerns and informs him that the LHC would usually work once the problem is fixed and finds the Higgs boson is of utmost importance. The Director-General realizes that Connor, James, and Amy are listening to them, and he asks the security guard to shut the door.
They meet Lisa in the conference room, who was supposed to be in Barcelona but missed her flight due to the party. The Director-General addresses the attendees and informs them that there was a beam dump in LHC the previous night. The beam dump occurred because the beam sensors detected that the monopole magnet at LHC segment 11G had quenched due to an unknown event. He further warns that there could be a catastrophic accident if the event occurs again. Dr. Niven is selected to take a team of technicians down to the LHC tunnel to investigate the cause of the incident and try to get the LHC running again. The Director-General requests four volunteers to be in the control room while Dr. Niven is busy. Connor volunteers for the task, and the Director-General selects Connor, James, Amy, and Lisa. Lisa bails out, informing the Director-General that she has to attend a conference in Barcelona, so Matt is selected instead.
James introduces his girlfriend Kate to Connor, Amy, and Matt. Amy uses the mainframe computer to simulate the impact of Higgs boson radiation on human tissues. As Amy runs the simulations on the mainframe, the LHC beam monitor indicates that the LHC is up and running. James checks the system and realizes that the system has turned on by itself and Amy had nothing to do with it.
The team led by Dr. Niven is still in the LHC maintenance tunnel and is at risk of being exposed to radiation. James and Connor try to shut down the LHC, but they are unsuccessful; the emergency shutdown switch is not working. The radiation alarm goes off, and they decide to run away to avoid exposure to the radiation. The elevator near the control room is not working, and there is no mobile signal since they are over a hundred meters underground. They decide to go down to the maintenance tunnel, and James manually shuts down the LHC. Connor informs the group that the LHC cannot be turned on from the control room, and neither do they have access rights to turn on the LHC. Since the LHC is now off, they can use the elevator in the maintenance tunnel to get out; they believe that the team led by Dr. Niven is dead due to radiation.