Macabre…ish Horror Review: Contracted
Contracted, 2013/ 84 min
A man, BJ (Simon Barrett), has sex with a corpse that is labeled with a biohazard tag and later on at a party he approaches a very inebriated, Samantha (Najarra Townsend), who is clear about being a lesbian but after she blacks out, he takes her to his car and rapes her.
The next morning, Sam, is suffering from what she thinks is just a bad hangover. Later, at work she finds she can’t eat and is so noise sensitive that she can’t do her job. After bleeding heavily she goes to her doctor who says her heart rate is unusually slow and she has a bad ear infection and a severe rash, he suspects it’s an STD from intercourse with a man.
She get’s sicker, vomiting and urinating blood and maggots fall from her private parts. Then her hair and teeth start falling out and her finger nails easily come off. By day 3 she’s bleeding out, she has sores on her face and her eyes are changing. Plus she is no longer perceiving temperature. This is not an STI.
Her life is starting to unravel and there’s nothing she can do about it. During a confrontation with her ex girlfriend, Nikki (Katie Stegeman), Sam chokes her then drives to Alice’s (Alice MacDonald) house to confront her for interfering in her relationship, announcing ‘you finally have me’. They kiss and Sam vomit’s blood in her mouth. When Alice threatens to call the police, Sam chases her down and bites her.
Sam’s spiraling into violence and chaos so she invites Riley (Matt Mercer), who has a crush on her, over to Alice’s house and during intercourse, she bleeds, bloody maggots and it freaks him out. In his disgust he runs to the bathroom to examine himself and while cleaning himself up, he finds a corpse in the tub.
Sam takes off in her car and crashes, she emerges completely transformed as a zombie.
This is directed by Eric England and it’s another twist on the zombie genre. Even a new spin on the apocalypse sub genre. This was nice because it feels like a prequel and if you’re a zombie horror fan, we rarely are privy to how it begins, why and who the culprit is but in this movie and the sequel, Contracted: Phase 2, that’s exactly what we find out. This movie is paced pretty well and the effects are solid. Expect it to be bloody and graphic but this is not gore porn, they do not show everything. The zombie acting and effects are good.