DAY OF THE DEAD 2: CONTAGIUM

Posted by Absolute Horror panelist, Masked Maniac.

This sequel/prequel has triumphed in being two things: a trashy camp classic and one of the most appalling films ever made. I saw DAY OF THE DEAD 2: CONTAGIUM at the London Frightfest festival which is no doubt the only time it will be privileged with a theatrical screening as it was made for direct-to-video release. I don't know if the organizers of the festival actually watched this before selecting it. It is so hilariously bad, you can only hope that was the intention of directors Ana Clavell and James Dudelson.

The title is misleading as it has nothing to do with George Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD and is only there for its name value. The minimal plot is about the residents of a mental institution who stumble upon a canister from the 60s called Contagium which contains some crappy CGI that turns them all into flesh hungry zombies. Well, it does so but very, very slowly as it takes an age before any of them turns nasty.

To say judging from the film that it looks like Clavell and Dudelson have never watched a horror movie in their lives would be a compliment. It fails so miserably on every single level, it looks like the work of people who've never watched ANY film in their lives. The structure and editing are sloppy and the (few) scenes of mayhem have absolutely no momentum or dramatic thrust to them. And if you're hoping for at least some cool gore, forget it. Nothing much happens until the last 30 minutes and even then, the action is directed and edited so poorly, Michael Winner or Ed Wood could have done a better job.

It's a low budget movie and boy does it show. The camerawork is often shakey, the effects and make-up look like they were done by a bunch of school kids, the quality of the sound recording is so poor it might have been done with a single mic attached to a handycam made in 1983, and the acting would be deemed too wooden for a daytime soap.

The crowning achivement of the movie's ineptitude is the dialogue. The audience was frequently in hysterics and even clapped a number of times at lines that were so god-awful, they could actually be classed as comedy gems. "He's dead. By human standards, anyway" and a Russian soldier looking at a canister and shouting "Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!" are just two such moments.

There's also a character reading aloud an email as he types it. But the undisputed star is the bald doctor with a standard generic east European accent who utters lines like "Even the fastest deer will get killed from crossing the street too many times" and "One wrong is not the answer to another wrong." He quickly became an audience favorite, eliciting laughs just by his appearance on screen.

DAY OF THE DEAD 2: CONTAGIUM is destined to join SHOWGIRLS as a cult Midnight Movie. This is the kind of dreck that if it is to be seen at all should only be viewed with a large group of people with a sense of humor. But no amount of laughs generated by this travesty can excuse the heinous decision by its "creative" team to remake Romero's original DAY OF THE DEAD. That's one remake, due for 2006, that horror fans everywhere would be wise to miss.

RATING: * (out of four)

Comments

[Slavedriver]

Five inches long and column shaped?

I've never seen anything like it.

*cue hilarity*