Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005)

Sex :
Violence :
Director Ana Clavell, James Glenn Dudelson
Writers Ana Clavell
Starring Stephan Wolfert, Laurie Maria Baranyay, Samantha Clarke
Genre Zombie
Tagline Every day has a beginning
Country

Review

"Even the fastest deer will get killed from crossing the street too many times" – Dr Heller.

Guess most horror fans love a good zombie movie, and there are certainly plenty of them hitting our shelves recently to keep everyone amused. Naturally, since they are arriving on mass there has to be the odd one that’s deader than its victims. Day of the Dead 2: Contagium is just such a movie. Yes, I should have known; all the signs were there: multiple directors, actors last seen in T.V. outings, and pretty much no one involved that any of us have ever heard of. But there’s a certain lemming-like capacity to risk self-destruction over watching a zombie flick regardless of whether the red neon warning signs are blinking fanatically. Besides, how could you go wrong with a sequel to arguably Uncle George’s finest zombie flick, Day of the Dead? Next time I’ll heed the warning signs, honest.

At the end of George’s original flick, the survivors exited stage left via a helicopter for a tropical beach somewhere devoid of zombies. DOTD:C has nothing to do with George’s survivors, the missile silo, or quite frankly everyone’s favourite zombie Bud. In fact this movie has nothing to do with the original besides squandering the name. In DOTD:C a Russian defects to the U.S. with virus phials that were originally created in the land of the free. Naturally the virus gets loose in a Pennsylvania military hospital. Okay, there’s the connection: Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD) was also placed in 1968 rural Pennsylvania, and the muppets who made DOTD:C simply got the wrong movie title. Hey, it’s the least of their sins, let it go!

Anyways, a “shoot ’em in the head” fire-fight erupts, with the hospital eventually going up in the flames due to some well place explosives. Just when we think the virus is contained, some unknown hospital worker tries to escape with a thermos containing one of the virus phials, naturally he turns into a zombie but as luck would have it gets shot in the head before he can infect anyone. The thermos tumbles into the underbrush unnoticed.

Flash forward 37 years and the Ravenside Mental Health Facility has been built right near where the military hospital once stood, cause all the good Indian burial grounds have been used up already. A number of patients are cleaning up the gullies around the facility and naturally one of them finds the thermos that was discarded nearly four decades prior. Clear evidence that modern technology is super duper, even the humble thermos can last out in the open for decades. Naturally our mentally disturbed people open the thermos, unleash the virus through the wonders of CGI, and we have another zombie outbreak on our hands. One of the worst zombie movies ever made ensues.

Contagium – is that even a word (guess it must be as MS Word isn’t throwing a hissy fit over it)? – starts off not too bad and lulls you into the expectation that you are going to actually be watching something half decent. A zombie rampage breaks out and the walking dead are pretty soon in contact with the military who wonderfully have learnt Romero’s doctrine “shoot ’em in the head” and use it to good effect. The filmmakers just can’t help themselves though, and give us ample warning that this movie is headed down crap creek with a woefully bad CGI helicopter thrown into the mix for no apparent reason. The copter appears in one short scene and is then never referenced again; clearly the manufacturer is White Elephant Copters or something. But hey, at least we get some decent action, zombie gut munching, and one weird use of a finger that puts ET to shame. Hey, let your fingers do the walking and cut that throat artery folks. Not entirely sure if that was cool or not, but at least it was completely different from your run of the mill post-NOTLD zombie flick.

Unfortunately the audience is then stuck with the second act which is akin to trying to swim through treacle. The middle part of this movie shambles along slower than Romero’s undead. Guess the Directors and Writer went to film school as they are trying for character development, but they fall flat on their arses in the process. Some cardboard cut-outs, plot points that are simply dropped or picked up when the script requires them, and totally unbelievable characters. You may well find yourself itching to fast forward through the middle act and I wouldn’t be blaming you, it’s simply bad moviemaking in all aspects. The final act picks up the pace and goes zombie rampage again, but by this stage most viewers would have lost interest. Speaking of the final act, zombie outbreak, military notified, uhmm where’s the troops?

Contagium does at least try some new stuff but is more having a bet each way with it than developing anything meaningful. Once again stuff is used as the script requires and then discarded in whole scenes. We have psychically connected zombies that feel each others’ pain – how touching, intelligent zombies (or at least they should be if it weren’t for the below average dialogue) – and either fast or slow zombies depending on the scene. In short, the seams are showing and the directors do nothing to try and tape over them.

The technical aspects of the film go from the appallingly bad to the indescribably bad in pretty much every scene. The dialogue gives good evidence that 101 chimps can in fact type up a script if given ample time and a good supply of peanuts; the above-mentioned plot inconsistencies will take you out of the movie, and the scene transition was basically amateur hour down the YMCA. Wrap in some bad CGI and we’re good to go, do you want fries with that. On the bright side of the virus some of the gore effects are half decent, though I didn’t really give a stuff from about the half way mark.

Okay have to come clean here, this movie has been around for quite some time down my local DVD sales place but I wasn’t up for paying $35 for the dubious pleasure of adding it to my collection. Surprisingly the movie didn’t make my local rental place, and they have wall to wall crap, go figure that one? Maybe if it had Will Ferrell starring or something. Long story short, was picking up a birthday present and noted Contagium had fallen into the sales bin with $12 on its arse, and who can resist that deal amigos? Actually, figure the shop owes me about $10 in refund as the movie is worth a couple of bucks at best.

So where was I, that’s right the acting, woefully bad to totally inept. Don’t bother taking any names here no one is going on to a glittering career based on this flick. You have to be concerned when the shambling undead outperform the “star” cast.

Well at least we must get some T&A you may be thinking, well you would be wrong we get “na” and “thing” going down. That’s another black mark in my book of counted cinema woes.

Some dude named Chris Anderson did the score but I didn’t take any notice to be honest, you make a call there.

It took me three attempts to get through Contagium, mainly due to the effects of alcohol and the mind-bendingly boring middle act of the movie. On the bright side, it sure is a cure-all for insomnia. I didn’t have a lot of fun with the movie but am kind of pleased it’s behind me as I can tick off another zombie flick for an upcoming series of articles on the subgenre. Other than that we’re not exactly going steady or planning a second date, the one viewing was enough. One of the worst zombie flicks I’ve had the pleasure to sit through.

The original title of the film was simply Contagium, and you are left to muse on whether the movie would have found better favour with genre fans if that title had been maintained on release. Putting Day of the Dead 2 in front of the original title forces comparisons to Romero’s flick and really does give ample evidence that everyone involved in this project were simply looking to cash in on a superior movie. In other horrible news to hand, the muppets involved in Contagium also made Creepshow 3, and are working on Knight Rider 2, clear evidence that they have it in for Uncle George. Someone has to stop them, this is worse than Michael Bay’s rampage through classic horror flicks!

Zero recommendation, even zombie fans are not going to be impressed. Amateur, cheap and nasty, lacking any finesse in any aspect. One of the singularly worst movies of any genre I’ve seen so far in '08, Contagium deserves to be shot in the head and put out of its misery.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  Putting the "dead" into undead!