​CONTRACTED: PHASE II- A FILM GUTTER REVIEW

Dir. Josh Forbes, USA, 78 mins

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.