Movie Review - Day Of The Dead 2 - Contagium

The reason this is an "Of The Dead" movie is because Taurus (the company who made) owned the rights to the name Day Of The Dead and were allowed to use it however they wished, this was nothing to do with George Romero at all. The film is very gorey, but decidedly low budget looking.

Starting out in 1968, Ravenside Military Installation in Pennslyvania (according to the fairly helpful graphic but the sign above the main door is more helpful & reads Ravenside Military Hospital) in the middle of some sort of emergency from the alarms and frantic running around. We get a warning (translated from Russian, clearly a soldier who'd defected to return something the Russians had stolen) and in the chaos someone steals what had been returned.

We see some of the cheapest looking CGI jeeps and helicopters I've ever encountered and we see exactly what kind of response the Military have sent, the type that results in deadly force with no questions asked. Seemingly their problem is easily solved and the zombies outside obviously went to the Romero School of Acting judging by their loping gait.

Our thief hears the military policy over their radios (By the way, the order "Shoot to kill" is NEVER issued, when you open fire you only ever do it for 1 reason) and there are 2 goofs (the "dead" nurse on the ground who blinks & the sniper upstairs who needs 2 shots to kill someone) as our thief finally succumbs to the disease and is killed, losing his ill gotten booty.

Flash forward (the graphic gets around dating the movie exactly by reading "Five Days Ago") and we meet a group of men, one of whom discovers the long dead thiefs booty in what is now Ravenside Memorial Hospital. Funnily enough they live in the Romero Ward and its fairly clear this is some sort of Mental Institution.

We gradually start to find out who are staff and who are patients (its not immediately obvious before they enter the hospital) and get a rough idea of what kind group dynamic they have and what kind of relationships exist. The disease is unleashed again and the 1st signs start to manifest after the patients are returned to their beds and rooms. Dr Donwynn researches on the internet and the patients seemingly start to hallucinate.

The following day (4 days ago) and more signs of infection start to manifest in the form of extremely low budget make-up effects (using PVA glue to simulate peeling skin) and we discover there is some sort of connection between all of the infected as they all experience the same feeling as Emma in her restraints. Their symptoms worsen (however none of them seem to question the fact their vomiting up blood & bile? I know their supposed to be mental patients but most of them seemed quite lucid before getting infected) and chaos seems to be ensuing at the hospital and getting worse rapidly.

When Donwynn is asked where they got sick and Dr Heller (the guy in charge) calls it "the DeLuca ravine" its extremely clear Heller knows more than he is letting on about the past of Ravenside. Isaac (one of the patients) discovers he no longer bleeds (so he is already dead then) as Heller considers contacting the military but changes his mind and imposes a quarantine, issues weapons and authorises the use of deadly force.

His final order of "aim for the head" proves he knows more than he is telling anyone else and Donwynn finds out exactly what was in the vial and what it does. It appears Donwynn has a connection with all the infected and Marshall the nurse who attacked Emma is shown to be more infected than any of those who were exposed to the vial. A guard is shot & killed and the infected male patients argue as Heller shows us how bad Marshall looks.

The following day (3 days ago) and after a minor scuffle one of the patients gets hold of a gun and it is pretty weird that they are letting the obviously infected Donwynn interact with uninfected staff & patients. Marshall breaks loose and eats Heller as Emma is released & Isaac is shot & Marshall gives us the 1st scare of the movie which is awesome even if it is totally expected. Donwynns informant Jerry confirms the infected are dead and tells us about the origin of the vials and we get to see what caused the original outbreak from the start of the movie.

Theres the super goof of the guard losing the magazine from his pistol as he fires at Marshall and as the cure is about to be revealed the patients fall into a feeding frenzy on Jerry.

The following day (2 days ago) Heller is now undead, Donwynn discovers how much Heller knew and patients Boris, Sam & Jackie appear to have physically changed after eating Jerry. The cure is seemingly destroyed by Vicky, a junkie looking for a fix and Emma has gone from just pregnant to full term in 3 days as Isaac finds his own solution to being undead.

The following day (yesterday) and the news reports the dead walking and attacking the living in a very open and extremely weak non-ending. I say non-ending as there is no real conclusion, no idea of what happened to Emma and her pregnancy. I assume this was left open to further explore the franchise at a later date.