A sequel and a prequel to Day of the Dead (which is itself the third of a series).

Here is a confused story – and I am not referring to the plot of this film.  As I understand it, George Romero made some unwise choices regarding legal claims to the titles of his own Dead trilogy.  As a result, the makers of this film managed to secure the rights to the name of Day of the Dead; the third of Romero’s zombie films.  It would appear to me that the makers then just added the words “Day of the Dead 2″ to their title in attempt to drum up some more interest in it, or give it some added credibility.  Whatever their reasons, the plan backfired.  Make no mistake, this is a very poor film, but implying that it really is connected to the real Day does it more harm than good:  Day of the Dead was a serious and intelligent study of a bleak ending for humanity and we would naturally expect a sequel to follow with the same tone.  Not so.  Had this film just been “Contagium” then expectations would have been entirely different.  In fact, Contagium’s overplayed, mock melodrama reminds me a lot of Reanimator; and who knows? maybe it could also have attained similar cult credibility.

Don’t be fooled by the name as there is no connection to the original.  Day of the Dead 2: Shaun of the Dead would have been more credible.  There are zombies in it (if you can call them that) but the only other similarity to Day is that both films have far too much unnecessary dialogue.

As for the film itself: it has a bad plot played by bad actors with really bad dialogue.  The beginning borders on the promising – soldiers storm into a research lab (experimenting on zombies) and immediately begin executing all inhabitants with a shot in the brain – both alive and undead.  Then cut to 20 or so years later and a psychiatric hospital now occupies the space (with one building “hilariously” entitled “the Romero Wing”).  One of the vials of zombie making chemicals (for that is the culprit) gets found, and then opened (Sam : “don’t open it! If you do something really bad will happen”) and of course the zombie infections start.

I really cannot decide whether this film was intended to be funny.  It seems that while the directors originally intended to play it straight, they soon realised what a laughable effort they had on their hands.  So they changed tack and pretended it was a comedy after all.  The ludicrous scenes with Dr. Heller defy description; he is undoubtedly the star of the film – albeit for all the wrong reasons.

There are different types of zombies in Contagium, some self aware and enjoying live flesh, some self aware but fighting the urge and some just plain mindless zombies.  These distinctions make any connection with Day even more tenuous.  There is also this strange plot line concerning a pregnant inmate – who might have had an immaculate conception.  We never find out the point of this as the particular strand is never resolved.  Rumour has it there was originally an “alien baby” subplot.  Either way it is more evidence of shabby filmmaking.

All in all this is a bad film that is made to look even worse by the high expectations built up from having those words “Day of the Dead” in the title.  It does need to be seen to be believed but I have seen it, and believe me you don’t need to.

Favourite Scene:

None really, but at a push I’d have to say the ones with Dr Heller in them.

Favourite Quote:

Jerry: “Yes, you are all dead. But only in human terms.”

Film Rating:

1/5

Adherence to THE LORE:

1.5/5