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Infection Actor: Michiko Hada Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 96 minutes Studio: Lions Gate Home Entertainment Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-05-17 Buy from Amazon |
 "JACOB'S LADDER meets JU-ON at the KINGDOM HOSPITAL"These people definitely have a better work ethic than I do cause the first time I saw some demon creature crawling around with it's mutated green internal organs hanging out I'd be gone. Just put my check in the mail. I never understood where the storyline was going, if there even was one, but with impressive camerawork, young Japanese nurses, good acting and lots of creepy visuals I rank this as one of the better Japanese horror flicks. Which is saying something I guess.  "A great movie"Infection about docters bieng trapped by duty and can,t do nothing about ,first it works on two levels as a campy thiller camera angles like Dracula ,or early 30,s monster flicks ,as a drama shows weakness with docters and nurses doing there job the a strain of dna is the baddie ,looking for a cure with little time I totally believe fine articulate film that I highly recommend because it,s that good. "This is one Infection horror fans will actually want to catch"Japanese horror films truly are a different breed. Infection, from director Masayuki Ochiai, is one humdinger of a creepfest that doesn't spare the gore yet never descends to the level of a hack-and-slash effort. Its vibrantly dark cinematography and appropriately unsettling music provide the background for a veritable orgy of suspenseful horror as its characters' psychological overloads, helped along by a mysterious catalyst, give birth to something exceedingly ugly and quite often disgusting. In a sense, the film is somewhat confusing, in that it never exactly spells out the source of the infection or even the absolute nature of it, but I didn't feel the disappointment some viewers might at the ending. Central Hospital is in trouble. It's dangerously understaffed, no one has been paid, the director has disappeared, patients are coming to harm because no one is there in a timely fashion to see to their needs, supplies are dangerously low, doctors and nurses are putting in way too many hours to carry the load, etc. Lest you think things could get any worse, well, they most certainly do. It all starts when a mistake leads to the death of a patient. With their backs already to the wall thanks to the deteriorating state of the hospital, the doctors and nurses involved decide to cover up the real cause of death - it was a severe burn victim with no real family, after all. There is to be one more patient admitted to the hospital, however, one literally dumped on them by paramedics. John Doe has the mother of all infections, one that liquefies the internal organs and basically causes the victim to start dropping gooey gobs of green nastiness all over the place. One extremely unemotional doctor, who may or may not have knowledge of the little cover-up so recently planned upstairs, insists on treating the patient, trying to figure out the new pathogen, and thus gaining medical kudos for the effort. Everyone else is just revolted by the poor excuse of former humanity spreading his nasty green goodness all over the floor. Well, he of the liquefying organs sort of disappears, and the hospital crew enacts a search for their green and gloppy charge. It soon becomes clear, however that - whatever the patient had - it is quite infectious. Rather than call in the health department, they keep on keeping on under the direction of the emotionless pioneer (who I like to call Dr. Gung Ho). Needless to say, they start dropping like flies - well, not like flies, really, as they tend to do something really nasty such as burn their own hands off before commencing with gooey expectorations of the nastiest sort. I'm not sure why the hospital is almost completely dark throughout the film, but it makes for a most creepy of settings, and characters have the disarming tendency of sneaking up quietly behind one another out of the frame. It's really hard to describe the sort of horror that builds up as characters develop the infection, but it's more than capable of spooking and quite possibly disgusting you. The ending leaves some questions unanswered and may be something of a stretch for some viewers. Even if you find disappointment in the final minutes, though, there is more than enough gory goodness to keep you entertained up to that point. Infection (aka Kansen) is apparently the first film in the J-Horror Theatre series, which apparently aims to shock audiences and teach them the fine art of suspenseful dread. The Japanese are masters at creating atmospheres of indelible horror, and one can only hope that future movies in the series can succeed half as well as Infection in terms of going for the jugular of horror fans everywhere. "Infectious"Lions Gate Films apparently cut a deal with a Japanese company and created a small sub-division within LGF aptly named J-Horror. The purpose of this division was to make 6 Japanese horror flicks specifically for the American DVD market. 'Infection' is one of the first of these films released(the second, released simultaneously, is called 'Premonition' and is also worth checking out). Anyways, the plot of 'Infection' is basically that a hospital is on its last legs: its running out of supplies, money, employees, etc. And one night a burn victim is accidentally killed by the staff and a possibly infectious patient is dropped off at the hospital's ER. The two don't really seem to connect at first, but by the end they are tied together. The infection then quickly starts spreading(with gallons of green ooze), people start melting from the inside out(literally)and the few employees left(three doctors and a handful of nurses)try to deal with the horrid happenings. The movie is very well done. The acting(though I don't speak Japanese)is very good, regardless of the fact I don't recognize any of the actors even from my extensive viewing of Asian cinema. The cinematography is great and gives the hospital a whole lot of atmosphere(think Von Trier's 'The Kingdom'). The script is well written though the film's logic seems to fall in on itself when the movie is wrapped up. It will leave you slightly confused. And the gore(i.e. the burn victim, the constant onslaught of green ooze from every possible orifice)is great. There aren't too many special effects to speak of but the few that are there are well done. Overall, 'Infection' is a good little horror flick. Nothing to really scare you out of your skin, but there's enough creepiness to make you queasy. Though you will leave a little confused and there are somethings that aren't really explained(i.e. the swingset), this is still a movie worth watching. Check it out. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.  "Infection creeps under your skin"There's something special about Japanese movies that has always facinated me;First the chacters are just nasty and second they always get away with things that the Rating board would wince and shudder towards.The story is simple;four doctors and three nurses make a fatal injection on a patient with a pathonic infection and decide to cover up there mistakes.The only problem is that a doctor/carrier witness the cover-up and releases the infection.To tell you everything that happens would be deplorible and ruin everything.The movie is in YELLOW subtitels so reading them is easy.It's a great little movie to watch when it's raining,so sit back in a chair turn the lights off and be prepared to be creeped out when watching this little gem. One last note;To be quite honest at the end I found myself checking for rashes its that contagious. |
