Every 'day' has a beginning...

Story

1968, Pennsylvania. In a restricted area of a military installation a mysterious virus has been unleashed. Soldiers descend upon the complex, killing everyone in sight. They are harbouring flesh-eating ghouls. Somebody conceals a gadget inside a flask and escapes before the place is blown up.

35 years later, psychiatric patients and their support worker stumble upon the nondescript flask. They open it and discover what's inside…

It begins with a normal cough, then their skin begins to peel, they lose the will to sleep, veins begin to appear on their foreheads, they discover they don't have any blood and they develop a psychic link. Quarantine is placed on the psychiatric hospital; the silver device inside the flask contains a contagious germ that changes the DNA with unpredictable results. The patients and their support worker become hungry: will they overcome their cravings for human flesh?

Comment

By calling a film Day of the Dead 2, one might make the assumption that it's a sequel to the 1985 claustrophobic classic by the one and only 'Don of the Dead'. This is not the case. Contagium has nothing to do with the infamous zombie saga (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead). There is no sign of the surviving characters of Day and George Romero was not involved. Taurus Entertainment, who unfortunately acquired the rights to the original film, thought it would be a good idea to make their own zombie film and call it a follow-up to Romero's original.
 
Patients that have been admitted to a psychiatric hospital on the aptly named Romero Ward stumble upon an ordinary flask that was stolen from a military complex in 1968. The flask contains a virus that turns them into zombies. Moving a step beyond the evolution of running zombies in the Dawn remake these zombies have the power to talk and reason, as a female zombie murders her human adversary, in revenge, she ridiculously intones, 'welcome to my world, slut!' These creatures are like vampire-zombies lifted from a Lloyd Kaufman Troma movie. The film taps into the destructive nature of micro-organisms like bacteria and influenza, which is a persistent theme in today's world of terrorism (think Toxic Avenger [1985] meets Class of Nuke em' High [1986]). Like Romero's own zombies these creatures are given distinct personalities to reflect their environment (blood-soaked nurses, limbless doctors and malformed psychiatric patients). The 1968 flashback sequence as the military invade the complex emulates the housing project scene at the beginning of Romero's Dawn of the Dead as the soldiers descend upon the complex in a whirlwind of mindless murder. They kill innocent victims, mistaking them for zombies. Later on, when all hell breaks lose it also touches upon governmental conspiracy like The Crazies.
 
It examines our fears and anxieties of the body as the hospital patients feel the effects of the zombie virus. Their skin begins to peel and their fingernails fall off like Seth Brundle in Cronenberg's The Fly (1986), taking a step up the evolutionary ladder they morph into flesh eating ghouls. It also brings a new perspective into zombie cinema, the comparisons made between institutionalised care of psychiatric patients and zombies as they shuffle around in their drug induced haze. Even though Contagium has its faults, the director Ana Clavell has an obvious affection for Romero; it's just a shame that her passion is misguided under the guise of an official follow-up. The film is much better than first anticipated considering the bad reputation it's developed online; the semi-professional actors try their best to inject the film with a realistic edge.
 
The message at the heart of Contagium is that the mentally unstable shall inherit the earth. As the schizophrenic manic-depressive zombies break out of their asylum and wreak havoc upon an unaware society you can't help but to giggle as they approach people's cars and saunter through the suburban streets. It's just a shame the zombies have to talk, it lowers the tone and the superhuman zombie Toxic Avenger type creature is just plain silly. Eat your heart out Troma because Taurus Entertainment's Contagium is knocking at your door.
 
Verdict

As a sequel to Romero's 1985 Day of the Dead it fails on all counts, as a film judged on its own merits it achieves a likeable position within the platoon of zombie movies 3/5.