complete re-tread of the first movie

phenomynouss

score 2/10

the first movie "Contracted" was good as hell with compelling characters in a body horror that at the very end reveals itself to be a zombie movie, executed in such a way that the mysteries that were begun in the film end up seeming insignificant compared to the implied threat of a zombie breakout.

this sequel picks up immediately after the first, beginning with Day 4 (the first film had the Day 1-3 transitions, with Day 3 revealed to be "of 3". This film does the exact same thing with Day 6 revealed to be "of 6") with now zombified Samantha secured and contained.

From there, we basically follow the same steps as the first movie, only focusing on the derpy guy who can't act Riley instead of Samantha. Every scene, every beat done by the first film is repeated here as if the first film didn't do them first, like we're supposed to be shocked and horrified when he starts coughing up lots of blood or finding weird things all over his body.

The guy who initially started the infection gets some more screen time, with a dumb run of the mill "mankind is a disease" manifesto sent to the police as the feds get involved. More people get infected by Riley and showing the same symptoms he and Samantha had. More ridiculously, people act as if the horrifying facial deformations are just a minor thing. It was similar in the first film, but at least Samantha had long hair and hid her face as much as she could. This guy meanders about town looking like pure syphilis and no one's gagging at the mere sight of him and calling 911.

Overall, the acting has gotten significantly worse, with Riley being utterly awful, and the actor playing Detective Young constantly slipping out of accent to some kind of either Irish or Canadian accent.

about the only new thing done in this movie is the introduction of some manner of wide-ranging cult related to the zombie thing and BJ, noted by the word ABBADON tattooed on their fingers. The zombie outbreak starts unfolding, implied offscreen, at the end of the film, essentially making the vast majority of this film a waste of time

phenomynouss 11 November 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3855624/