As much as it can sometimes take a while for sequels to be made, it sadly often takes me even more time as a reviewer to get around to watching them. And I have fairly fond memories of the initial Contracted, so it's not as if I was putting it off because I hadn't enjoyed the first. Anyway, let's get cracking, shall we?

The original followed Samantha, who succumbed to a sort of sexually transmitted zombie plague, given to her by a mysterious stranger at a party by the name of 'BJ'. But before she goes full undead she sleeps with Riley, in a scene that left me pretty nauseated at the time and isn't much less disgusting in flashback here. This is the backstory you need to have, as this story follows Riley's own descent into the zombie plague as well as his role in the effort to catch the disease's carrier, BJ. There are one or two other side characters from the first film, but nobody all that recognisable, or certainly nobody that had cemented themselves in my mind.

It's a strange offering as a sequel, because as you can see from the above it doesn't follow the same lead character as its predecessor. Najarra Townsend's depiction of Samantha in Contracted was one of its best features, but then again given the ending this could only be expected – barring it being a prequel, which this is not. Matt Mercer is perfectly good in the role of Riley, but it does another problem in that so much of the storyline is already familiar. If you've seen Contracted, then the way that this disease takes over and what it does to a character will be well known to you, and as such the tension of that element is removed. Instead the story leans at least some of its story weight on the police pursuit for BJ as the cause of the viral infection, with a fairly anonymous Detective Young trying to track the man down officially while Riley goes on a vigilante pursuit of the same man, hoping to find a cure.

While Phase II isn't bad, it's also not massively inspiring. The effects are good, and at large the performances are decent enough – although as I mentioned Detective Young could have been more well-rounded. What little we see and hear of BJ as the cold, apocalypse-inducing psychopath is good, but there's not enough of it for me. With all that said, Contracted: Phase II is somewhat hamstrung by the foreknowledge we have from the first movie, as well as the pacing being a little clumsy. As a result of that, the chase element seems to suffer a bit, and the suspense goes up and down unevenly. The romance element in the story also feels a bit forced, and doesn't really smash home with the emotional impact that it could have.

If you're really into your zombie films, then Contracted: Phase II does offer something different from the usual fare and explores the trope in an interesting way. However if you have seen the first, it doesn't do a huge amount to advance the story or upscale things – there is some escalation in the infection, but a lot plays out in the background rather than the foreground. I've not seen any whispers of a Phase III, which might be interesting, as this one does feel like a real bridging section towards something that could be much bigger and more expansive. I don't rate it quite as highly as the original, but if you liked the first you should find something here for you to latch on to.

RATING: 6.5/10. As sequels go, it's a slightly unusual one, but certainly not a bad one by any stretch. There is an effort to do something different, but so much of the first movie hung on its central conceit that you can only really follow it here without completely undermining the original. Most of what is here is done pretty well, but the pacing was a little off here and there and a few other things didn't hit their marks perfectly, so it's an eminently respectable 6.5/10 for this one.
 

Dir. Romain Basset, France, 89 mins

Dreams can be weird things, right? You go to bed feeling perfectly fine and while you sleep your mind conjures up the weird and the wonderful, the strange and the surreal, the fearful and the frightening. We've all had nightmares and tried to pull apart the symbolism and dissect what it all really means.
 
Don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this. Because Horsehead is a movie heavily preoccupied with dreams, and in fact does a fantastic job of capturing the look and feel they so often have.  By blending reality and these slumbering fantasies, this is a film that cooks up something surprising and effective.

Horsehead itself follows the story of Jessica, a young student pursuing a better understanding of the meaning and context of dreams. She returns home to a less-than-supportive mother and a rather more caring stepfather in order to attend her grandmother's funeral. The house itself is pretty unusual, with its own dreamlike quality, and Jessica's curiosity about her grandmother's life drives her to ask more and more questions at home – and suffice to say that doesn't go down well. So, as a deep and lucid dreamer, Jessica seeks her own solution – to find the answer in the sleeping world rather than the waking...

I'm happy to concede that this central conceit might be a bit hokey, and that controlling your dreams by constantly drugging yourself probably wouldn't work in real life, but if you're willing to let that element slide – or just suspend disbelief for long enough – then what lies ahead is a really rewarding experience, with Jessica's time split between short spells awake and significant amounts of time caught in nightmarish visions that begin to give her clue about the buried secrets within her family. For me personally, the pacing and the way the main reveals occurred was very good, and the visual style was excellent – it had all the disjointed fashion of a dream, and in that respect reminded me in parts of movies like The Cell or Subconscious Cruelty. There are plenty of moments where it's hard to distinguish the real and the unreal, which further adds to the quality of the piece. The lead performance from Lily-Fleur Pointeaux is very solid, and the finale had a great impact also – this one just caught my attention from the get-go and held it throughout.

Honestly I could get that some people wouldn't like this one – it's arty and abstract, and doesn't spoonfeed much at all to the viewer. The narrative is not terribly linear either, but all of those are things that on a personal level add to its appeal – I've been turning it over a lot in the days since I watched it, and finding myself digging deeper to find fresh nuances and new interpretations of certain scenes and lines of dialogue.

My only frustration really is that it's five years on and there's no indication of anything further coming from this director – I'd merrily watch more from Romain Basset, but barring a few shorts before this there's nothing else to get stuck in to. There's a feel from Horsehead this is a man with real directorial talent and vision, but for whatever reason this appears to be it for the time being.

RATING: 9.5/10. Sure, it's not the most extreme film we've ever reviewed, but it is gloriously unusual and has many of the qualities that I love in a horror movie. It's dark, it's atmospheric, it's complex and multilayered, it tackles some uncomfortable ground and it unfurls its story slowly yet fascinatingly. Likely my favourite film watched in 2019 so far, and one that I feel might even grow in stature given how much it has continued to preoccupy my mind in the time since I watched it.

Dir. Frank Henenlotter, USA, 85 mins
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So, I had a day off recently, and I was all good intentions to watch something cutting, intelligent and brilliant. But as I woke up to a day of relaxation after an ultra-busy couple of weeks, I realised I simply couldn’t manage anything cutting, intelligent and brilliant that day. I needed something silly, and something fun, and something I could just enjoy without engaging too much of my brain.

Enter Frankenhooker!

I often talk about some of my favourite directors, and many of them are producing artistic, brutal and flat out hard-to-watch pieces of art. But the more I watch from Frank Henenlotter, I feel like he deserves a mention in that very same breath. You see, usually I’m not a fan of the horror B-movie, but Henenlotter seems to be someone that does it so well that the effect is almost impossible to resist. I felt it with all the Basket Case films, I felt it with Bad Biology, and damned if I didn’t feel it with Frankenhooker. There are many directors who produce one great film and that’s in, but Henenlotter has produced consistently fun and entertaining movies over a long spell of time.

The story itself follows mad scientist Jeffrey, and we begin with his newly-invented lawnmower inadvertently chopping girlfriend Elizabeth to pieces. We’ve already seen him experimenting on a brain in his kitchen (??) so it’s not long before a deeply depressed Jeffrey has determined that he will find a way to bring Elizabeth back. Thankfully he has her head on ice, but all he’s missing is the rest of the body…

You see where this is going?

He decides his best route forward is to get the body from a local hooker, but an unfortunate super-crack accident involving a host of prostitutes (yes, you did read that right) leads to him having a superfluity of body parts to make his own Bride of Frankenstein. The procedure is a success – of sorts – barring the fact that Elizabeth seems to have adopted the speech and mannerisms of the prostitutes that make up her new body.

If it sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is, but Henenlotter’s ability to capture the comedy and absurdity of these sorts of situations is fantastic. By taking everything too far it achieves something more than so many other B-movies can – looking at his career record, maybe it’s just the case that Henenlotter has a lot more love for this type of move than his contemporaries in this patch. The whole thing is hilarious from the get-go, aided by the wonderful central performance of James Lorinz, who plays the whole thing like a lousy 80s sitcom – which is intended as a compliment! The pimp Zorro is also good for plenty of laughs, and everybody almost caricatures the people they are depicting to a fabulously overblown effect. It’s also boosted by an unexpected finale that really brought me one last chuckle from this movie.

Let’s be honest, Frankenhooker is not one of those movies that transcends its title or its premise – you could likely take a good guess at what it would be on its moniker alone. But it’s delivered with such a verve and energy and madcap manner that it’s hard not to like – I’d argue that Henenlotter is the ultimate horror B-movie director, and I think a look at his back catalogue would back that case up too. Henenlotter has recently been working mostly in short films and documentaries, which feels like a bit of a shame, but maybe it’s a matter that the market just isn’t ripe for this particular stripe of horror comedy in 2019.

RATING: 8/10. I don’t want to go nuts on the rating – it’s not a movie that’s pushing boundaries or redefining anything or even making you think much about anything. But it is unequivocally a lot of fun, aided by some excellent comic performances and moments, and might just cement Henenlotter among my top five directors. If you’ve loved any of his previous work – or indeed are just a fan of horror comedy at large – then this one is well worth going out of your way to check out.