[HorrorScience] Contracted (2013)

Horror films often have moral lessons in part of their script, punishing those characters who abuse drugs, or take sex too lightly. In films of the subgenre slasher This is common, and when we see a couple having sex we know that they are close to being murdered.

contracted It is for many people another example of a moral lesson within the genre. I can only completely disagree.

There are no hidden moral lessons within this film. It has a very simple script, full of unanswered questions, and a direct message: this happens, this follows, and it ends like this. Nothing else.

The film begins by showing us a scene that takes place in a morgue, in which an employee makes certain preparations near the corpse of a young woman, to then carry out an act of necrophilia. Fortunately, this reprehensible act is not shown directly, taking care of the aesthetics of this film that already has a central theme as unpleasant as it is. the process of putrefaction of a human body and that I will comment below. However, there is an important detail shown in this scene, which has not and will not be explained, but helps us understand some things that will happen later if we take it into account to create an explanation: the label that is usually hung on the big toe of a body, in the case of this dead woman, has the well-known symbol of biological risk.

This employee, who we later learn calls himself B.J., will appear briefly in the film, and we will barely see his face. Despite everything, it plays a very important role in the story, since it is the beginning of the evil that will afflict the protagonist.

Next we will see a young woman named Samantha talking on her mobile phone, leaving a message on the voicemail that we will later learn is her ex-girlfriend, Nikki, with whom she wants to resume the relationship, and whom she has called on several occasions without receiving a response.

Samantha arrives at a party organized by her friend Alice, and there we will meet a couple of characters who are interested in her, such as Riley, who apparently has always liked Samantha, as well as Alice herself, who is secretly in love with our now highly desired protagonist. Among the guests we will notice that there is also this B.J., who looks attentively at Samantha from the first moment.

Alice suggests that Samantha get drunk to forget her recent breakup with Nikki, and Samantha ends up giving in to her friend's pressure. When she is quite drunk, B.J. He approaches her and gives him a glass with a drink which she supposedly left lying around. Samantha, too drunk to know if this is true or not, accepts her, and although she openly declares that she is a lesbian, she ends up in B.J.'s car, although everything gives us to understand that it was because he put some drugs in the drink that he gave her, and then took her to his car and raped her. Quick scene cut with the title of the film and we hope that with the end of this soap opera.

The next morning Samantha wakes up in her room, a little confused at first, but aware of what happened the night before. She experiences symptoms similar to those of a hangover, although some of these symptoms go further, and we can notice this when we see that she cannot eat or do her job well as a waitress in a restaurant.

Alice meets Samantha for something to eat, and comments that Police are looking for a man who calls himself B.J. and who was at the party. She also worries about Samantha when, in the bathroom, she notices that her friend is feeling sick. Samantha, however, claims that it is a hangover and little more. Why is he hiding what happened with that B.J. guy, and not saying anything about seeing him at the party? It is clear that she remembers what happened, but she is in a process of denial. He doesn't want to think about what happened at that party, because he hopes to get back with his ex-girlfriend and knows that he would reject her if he found out that she had sex with a man. And it is this same denial that causes him not to seek medical help for his condition, because he thinks he has contracted a sexually transmitted disease and doesn't want anyone to find out.

Finally, after insisting several times, Samantha meets with Nikki, although the latter does not show much interest. I think at this point we already realized that the soap opera continues, and that it will continue like this until the end.

Among all the things that happen, we see that Samantha has problems with her mother, with whom she lives, and that they are due to old issues related to drug use that have already been resolved, but leaving her mother with a certain overprotective attitude, something that bothers Samantha a lot. If we add his relationship problems with Nikki; the rape she suffered at the party by B.J., who is suddenly wanted by the police; the attraction that Alice feels towards her and which obviously causes her some discomfort; an acquaintance with whom he maintains contact and who sells drugs, who is the same person he bought from in the past when he used to use and who lets him know that he is still in the market; this Riley guy who becomes quite annoying in his efforts to get her attention; and a demanding boss who doesn't care too much that his employee is sick, we have a combination that makes us notice that Samantha's life is being a disaster, and in a certain way justifies his bad decisions and his fear of making public this illness that he has just acquired.

This drama that we will experience is practically the basis of the plot of contracted, but in this section we do not analyze dramas and this is certainly not a film that belongs entirely to that genre. contracted it's a horror drama, and the horror element is certainly disturbing: The illness that Samantha has acquired causes her body to die little by little, rotting in life, with all the unpleasantness that this causes. During the course of the film we will witness how Samantha's life deteriorates while her physical condition does as well. Her hair will fall out, her nails will fall out, pustules will appear on her skin, she will have bleeding in her eyes, vaginal bleeding, loss of teeth, and other things that are disgusting and that are part of this transformation of Samantha into something else. Because what is clear to us is that this is a transformation, a process of slow and very painful change towards something that is dead but at the same time alive: A zombie, you could say, although it would not be entirely correct.

The work of the makeup people is what stands out most in the film, making the protagonist's appearance worsen during the development of the story. If you compare how Samantha looks at the beginning with how she looks at the end, the change is truly drastic and yet realistic.

It also fits highlight the performance, since the entire cast, and especially Najarra Townsend, do an excellent job embodying their characters.

The flaws in this film are the responsibility of Eric England, writer and director, who has done a good job in general, but with some notable stains that diminish the final quality. An example is the poor development of some characters, obvious failure of the script and direction, as well as the introduction of other characters or scenes that are irrelevant. The total 78 minutes that this film lasts should have been extended by an additional 20 or 30 minutes to better define the role of some secondary characters and elaborate a little more on Riley's story, for example, or Alice, or even Nikki. Failures such as a scene where we see a person being hanged, and the hands of the person doing the hanging are only holding the other's neck without using any force, making this scene quite ridiculous; or that in the process of Samantha's physical deterioration a point is reached where one of her eyes becomes completely white and dead, and a couple of scenes later we see that that eye is fine, and then we see that it is white again. Although without a doubt the ingredient that completes this dish of mistakes by the writer-director is the poor and almost non-existent reaction with which he has given most of the characters towards the illness that the protagonist is suffering, and that it is impossible for it to go unnoticed in the eyes of everyone given the grotesquely visible symptoms that it presents.

Despite these errors, contracted It is an interesting film to watch, different from many in that it approaches the topic of contagion of an unknown virus from a sexual point of view, mixing a drama with various emotional conflicts and a remarkable visual quality.

Three curious facts about Contracted:

• On two occasions we can see that B.J., the carrier of the virus that infects the protagonist, has the word Abaddon tattooed on one of his hands. This name refers to several things depending on what religion we base ourselves on, but basically any of these things are related to destruction and death.
• The film's marketing referred to the protagonist's contagion with a phrase indicating that it was due to a casual sexual relationship one night, something very different from what is seen in the film, since there we are shown a slightly ambiguous scene but which is much closer to being a rape than casual sex, especially considering that the protagonist had previously been drugged by the perpetrator of the act. Several critics criticized this phrase for expressing something different than what it really is.
• At one point in the film, Zain, the character who sells drugs to Samantha, tells her that he sold Rohypnol to B.J. at the party. This drug is one of the names by which Flunitrazepam is known, a very effective sedative, anxiolytic, and muscle relaxant. It is considered the "rape drug" due to its high potency and ability to cause severe amnesia.