I am the first to admit that I am a zombie fangirl, and yet at the same time even I have to admit that there's really only a limited number of storylines for a zombie outbreak/apocalypse. So when a film comes out that seems to take the concept in a new direction, I am of course going to take interest in that film. It is certainly fair to say that Contracted does put a new spin on the initial zombie virus infection and how it initially spreads... but that doesn't necessarily hide or excuse the film's other flaws.
After an extremely dubious sexual encounter with a man (whom we saw in the opening seconds of the film having sex with a corpse), Samantha starts to develop very strange symptoms. Her eyes go from bloodshot to fully red to mouldy green, she develops a "rash" of blue and black lines trailing all over her body from her groin, and her fingernails and hair start to fall out, among other things. At the same time, almost mirroring her body's slow collapse to illness, the rest of Samantha's life starts to fall apart as well, as one by one her friends and family either betray, abuse or try to use her for their own ends.
Okay. First off, I want to address one of the biggest points of contention I've seen about this film online, as a warning to those sensitive to the subject if nothing else - the question of whether Samantha was raped or not. The whole encounter is certainly ambiguous, at the very least. The man - B.J. - is certainly predatory and without any scruples seeing as we see him screwing a dead body at the very start, and later on it's strongly suggested that he may have slipped drugs into the drink he tricks Samantha into taking. But because the scene doesn't have any of the "traditional" indicators of rape, a great many people online take the opinion that it was just a one night stand. My opinion? I'm honestly not sure. I lean more towards it being at least of dubious consent, but Samantha's reactions to it tend to muddy the waters there. In the end, whether it is or it isn't is not of great importance to the plot, so I really put this here mainly to address the controversy and to warn anyone going into this blind who might not want to see something like that in a film.
Contracted is much more about the body horror than about the zombie aspect. Most people will probably figure out where things are going the moment they see Samantha start to get sick, so there's no real need for spoilers there, but while we can all see where this is going to end, the film focuses far more on Sam's deteriorating condition, mirrored by the deterioration of her relationships with those around her (and also the more obvious parallel of the withering and death of the prize-winning orchid Sam has been lovingly cultivating in an attempt to get into an exclusive orchid club). Then again, it seems like nearly all of Sam's friends and family are pretty unpleasant people anyway and she would have been much better off without them (if she hadn't come down with a zombie STD at any rate).
The problem is that Sam, our protagonist and point-of-view character, isn't all that likable either. I guess we were supposed to identify with her troubled past, her conflicted present, and her desperate desire to get her girlfriend back (said ex-girlfriend being such a nasty character that I was counting down the minutes until something nasty inevitably happened to her), or at the very least feel sorry for her... but I couldn't even manage that. It's one thing for her to be oblivious to several of her friends' ulterior motives; it's quite another for her to lie to the doctor treating her for the mysterious and rapidly accelerating illness she's come down with just because she doesn't want anyone to know she slept with a man, even though her life is probably at stake. Some protagonists are too stupid to be believable.
In the end, Contracted tries to do too many things when it really should have just focused on one - the deterioration of Sam's condition as the disease spreads throughout her body. That part of the film is at least skin-crawlingly effective, and very memorable. The rest of the film, with its themes of alienation, sexual politics and maybe a bit of slut-shaming? Not so much.
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