aka Day of the Dead: Contagium

• Directed by Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson
• Written by Ana Clavell with Ryan Carrassi
• Starring
  • Justin Ipock
  • Laurie Maria Baranyay
  • Stephan Wolfert
  • John F. Henry III
  • Steve Colosi
• Produced by James Glenn Dudelson

A quick look around the internet will fill you in on how the horror fanboy community reacted to this purported sequel to the culmination of Romero’s original trilogy, made with no connection to the movie it claims to sequelize (the title was an afterthought of distribution; it was produced as an original, unrelated zombie movie). Terms abound such as “completely amateurish,” “hilariously bad,”a “cinematic abortion,” “blasphemy,”and “sucks… and hard.” Such a backlash showcases the danger of trying to piggyback on a more successful movie. To the degree that it works for The Asylum, the low-budget production company famous for its “mockbusters,” it does so because the movies which are imitating are current big-budget releases; audiences have been inundated by marketing messages, but have had no time to develop a deep, sincere love of the movies being aped. Day of the Dead, meanwhile, is one of the most beloved entries in the zombie subgenre, adherents of which are noted for their obsessive devotion. A production which purports to be a sequel (or worse, a prequel to a movie which is already third of a franchise) yet which shares no personnel or production credits with the original is bound to get hackles up. Zombie fans came into this one ready to be critical, and thus unloaded their pent-up bile when the cheapie in-name-only sequel predictably proved to be far inferior to the movie whose coattails it attempts to ride.

Me, I didn’t react violently to this movie. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen oodles of low-end derivative zombie flicks, both those of cheap yet professional origins and those put together by microbudget “auteurs” (in fact, I had just watched a Todd Sheets movie before this one). I’m not enthusiastic about Contagium, but I certainly don’t hate it with the fervor of some.

In a misplaced nod to the original Night of the Living Dead, the prologue takes place in a military hospital in Pennsylvania in 1968. There’s a bloody Russian guy screaming on an operating table, and one of the staff named Deluca (Michael Moon) takes advantage of the confusion to steal one of a number of oddly-shaped canisters the size of a cigar case and hide it in his Thermos. Whatever he intends to do with it, his plans get interrupted, as the Russian’s symptoms develop into those familiar to Romero fans: hollow eyes, a lust for human flesh, contagious saliva, and an urge to trap and kill Duane Jones. The hospital is soon overrun with the living dead, and even a crack commando team called in to “contain” the problem only just barely does so. Deluca tries to sneak off the grounds with his Thermos, but he’s been bitten too, and by the time a couple of soldiers find him, he wants nothing more than to bite off a piece.

Hey, that’s not how you do hospital corners!

In the ensuing years, the entire facility and grounds has been first examined minutely, then razed to the ground and paved over, so there are no further problems. The end.

I kid! In the present day, Ravenside Military Installation has become Ravenside Memorial Hospital, a fairly relaxed mental health facility. The first handful of patients we meet is outside on the grounds, cleaning up the ill-maintained nether reaches of the property: Isaac (Justin Ipock), who spends a lot of his time reading and giving voiceovers from a book called Defying Death (later it’s mentioned that he’s a “necrophobe” in such a way that we were apparently supposed to already know it); Jackie (John F. Henry III), the Italian guy who’s there for “anger issues”; Boris (Steve Colosi), who seems no more maladjusted than the average Starbucks barista; and Sammy (Julian Thomas), the token African-American one, who finds “treasure” in the long grass: a beaten-up vintage Thermos.

With them also is Donwynn (Stephan Wolfert), a young doctor who treats patients by being their friend. He’s the kind who wears open-necked Hawaiian shirts and reassures patients sincerely, “I’m on your side.” He is also, from all appearances, exactly half of the clinical staff at Ravenside, the other being his superior Dr. Heller (Andreas van Ray) — a skinny goose of a man who wears severe glasses, a white coat, and, no fooling, a bow tie. Somehow, one expects him to speak with a German accent to complete the picture.

Who says that clothes don’t make the man?

Now, you might think that, because the mysterious Thermos has been recovered one scene after it was lost, the zombie mayhem will begin presently. Not so. For one thing, we’re got a full ration of interpersonal baggage to get through. There’s the four patients’ relationships with each other, their relationship to Donwynn, and Donwynn’s relationship to Heller. There’s also Isaac’s relationship to Emma (Laurie Maria Baranyay), a formerly suicidal type with whom he’s developed a mutual attachment. Isaac is due to be released in a day, and Emma’s taking it hard, thinking their romance will dissolve once Isaac has access to “normal” women. Emma’s also got interpersonal issues with the two other female patients that are always hanging around her, but come on. This is a zombie flick, not a daytime soap.

Oh, there’s also Marshall (Joe C. Marino), the unsympathetic orderly who looks like a morph of Tom Savini and Ron Silver. Marshall wishes that this were a real prison flick, because then he could be the head bull and carry a nightstick.

All right, is your dance card full? Amidst the scenes that let us know just who these people are and how they interact in the hospital’s microcosm, we’ve got the following that moves the plot forward: Jackie sneaks off with Sam’s Thermos over some perceived slight and tries to open it in the bathroom, only succeeding when Isaac, Boris, Sam, Donwynn, and Emma get there. (What’s Emma doing in the men’s bathroom? It’s In The Script, that’s what.) And out of the vial comes not liquid, nor vapor, but some glowy purple lights that hover in the air, then vanish. If you want the moment when an otherwise serviceable story concept falls apart, this is it.

That’s how you do hospital corners.

Donwynn googles Deluca’s name from the bottom of the Thermos and finds that his son runs a conspiracy-theory webpage. He emails him for possible info on the canister. And that night…

Well, that night the sparkly lights wake up everyone who saw then the day before, dance around in front of them, then settle on their foreheads. In the morning, they all wake up with a cough and peeling skin (you’d think it’s the standard-issue liquid latex, but no — it actually looks like white glue smeared on their faces). Sam goes into convulsions. Emma bites Marshall on the arm when he tries to restrain her during a medical exam, and immediately gets infected. The six who were infected together start feeling each other’s pain and hearing echoes from each other’s minds. And… um… Without looking at my notes, I can’t even remember what happens in the middle part of the movie. Not really a sign of quality.

Fortunately, before everything hits the fan, Deluca’s son Jerry (Kevin Wetmore Jr.) shows up to give us an info-dump. The six who were present when the canister was first opened are now technically dead, which explains why they don’t bleed when pricked and don’t die when shot. (He doesn’t explain why or how a viral contagion can start with little twinkly lights.) They’ll be able to hold it together and stay mostly human-like unless they eat human flesh, which they’re really starting to crave; once they start feeding, they mutate even faster. As luck would have it, Jerry ends up proving that bit of information, when Boris, Sam and Jackie just can’t restrain themselves any longer and tear him open; Donwynn, Isaac and Emma keep themselves away and retain their humanity and such.

“Eww! And I just polished my shoes, too!”

Meanwhile, infected Marshall has become what looks like a blob of hamburger, and it’s through him that the infection quickly spreads throughout the hospital. The best efforts of security aren’t enough to curtail its spread; at best, they can at least quarantine themselves off from the outside world for a little while.

Oh, and did I mention that Emma is pregnant? Not from any hanky-panky between her and Isaac; the virus apparently impregnated her. With what? We never find out.

In fact, lots of plot threads kind of vanish. Heller apparently knows about the 1968 zombie outbreak and is prepared for its return; but the one call he makes to a contact in the Pentagon leads to no military response, and despite a lot of talk about a possible cure contained in a locked fridge on the premises, nothing ever comes of that. No one explains how a virus can link the minds and bodies of the six initially infected, of why that “group mind” symptom doesn’t pass on to those they infect in turn (except Marshall sometimes, but not consistently). The ending of the movie doesn’t wrap up the plot so much as have all the subplots collide and then suddenly cut it off.

“I’ll take two fresh human corpses and a side of onion rings.”

So yes, it’s a disappointing movie, mostly from the script side of things; either the screenplay needed one more major draft, or the non-writers who feel they need to “make their mark” on the screenplay before shooting should have kept their hands off.

On the other hand, it’s not a movie that deserves all the bile that has been vented at it. Camera work is competent; makeup is adequate, if uninspired; and while the acting isn’t the best, these actors at least know what acting is. My comparison, again, is a Todd Sheets movie, where none of the components for a competent piece of entertainment are present in any degree. By those standards (and really, those are the standards you need to use in order to judge a zombie movie), this movie comes out in the lower half, but nowhere near the bottom. If only someone hadn’t had the great idea to compare this movie to one of the greatest zombie movies of all time, it definitely wouldn’t have generated all the negativity it has.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 61
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0