The Horror Show
Contracted (2013)
Directed by Eric England
Contracted is an extremely low budget film with a fresh take on the horror genre. The makeup and special effects are really done well and make up for the subpar acting and poor dialogue. I didn’t hate the film and I didn’t love it. Unfortunately Contracted is an extremely predictable film that has the potential to be something so much cooler than what it was.
The short and sweet of it is that a twenty something girl is going through a rough patch with her girlfriend Nikki and goes to a party, gets completely wasted and has unprotected sex with a stranger. Our twenty something girl, Samantha, is now experiencing rapidly deteriorating health and is convinced she has contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Over the course of the next few days, we learn that the mysterious stranger at the party whom Samantha hooked up with is wanted by the police and is described as a very dangerous man. Samantha begins to exhibit violent behavior, psychotic episodes and becomes a danger to herself and the people around her. The movie ends just as I expected it would, and as completely erratic as the storyline is and as forced as the dialogue may be, it is really worth the watch.
Najarra Townsend who plays Samantha, does a really great job with the script she was given. Perhaps now that I am thinking about it, it’s not so much the acting at all that’s wrong with this movie, it’s the writer who doesn’t realize how people interact in real life. When a woman looks like a walking corpse, there is something wrong there. When you’re a doctor, you don’t send her out of your office. As her boss, you don’t force her to work when her fingernails are falling off in people’s meals at your restaurant. As her mother, you don’t walk in on your daughter hemorrhaging in the bathroom and lecture her about partying too much and going to college. Writer and director, Eric England, might not have ever read his own screenplay.
If the movie had been condensed to major plot points and the ending placed in the middle, this could have been a great apocalyptic film. I understand that maybe that wasn’t what was intended for this movie, but you don’t end a film the way Contracted does and say otherwise. The other issue I had with this movie is the fact that we never truly understand the subplot of the “mystery man wanted by the government” that Sam had sex with. Clearly this man is spreading a serious virus around and this could have made all the “why is this happening, why is Samantha doing that” moments so crystal clear. If the writer/director had taken his own project more seriously I could see this hitting movie theaters or at least winning some sort of indie film award for its originality and fresh take on the genre.
As I stated in the beginning of the review, the makeup and special effects were great. Truly these two things mixed with the ending are Contracted’s saving grace. If you’re looking for a low quality horror flick with plenty of “Oh my god that is disgusting” moments, I sincerely recommend allowing yourself to “contract” this movie that you will not take seriously but probably love in spite of its flaws and hate it for what it could have been like I did.
Rating: 4 out of 10.
Stevie Kopas, Associate Editor HMS
The Horror Show Menu.