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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 |
 "not at all disappointed!"as an employee of blockbuster, i'm forced to deal with movies every day. i watch movies before they come out on video so i am able to give customers feedback before they spend their money. i am also a huge fan of japanese horror, but lately i have been very disappointed in the films i have been renting; nothing has been very interesting. so, i was a little skeptikal to rent this one. BUT THIS FILM... was awesome! it has perfect timing for suspense, great camerawork, and a creepy ending. never once was i bored woth the movie, or upset about how they did something in the film. it was great from beginning to end, and i highly suggest you see this film if you're a fan of ANY kind of horror movie! "Expect creeps and gross out rather than shocks with this one"The old joke is that you should avoid going to hospitals when you are not feeling well because there are too many sick people there. "Kansen" ("Infection") takes place in a hospital where nobody should go, and that includes the doctors and nurses in director Masayuki Ochiai's 2004 horror film. Last night I watched the season finale of "E.R." and with all the problems the fictional County Hospital has, it looks like a state of the art facility compared to the hospital in this movie. The doctors have not been paid, nine nurses have quit, patients are falling out of beds, and they are running out of syringes and just about every other type of necessary supply. One doctor suggests sending every incoming patient to surgery because that might help the place make enough money for them to get paid. A new nurse is so inexperienced with a syringe that she has turned a comatose patient's arm into a pincushion. Meanwhile, an ambulance in transit with a patient who has a rash that is quickly covering their entire body keeps asking for help. It takes that ambulance a while to get to this wretched little hospital, at which point we understand the movie will get to the business of the title. But before that happens things have already gotten critical when a patient dies because of a fatal mistake. Recriminations fly fast and furious, along with the fear that a malpractice case could close down the hospital and cost them their lousy jobs. When they agree to cover up the circumstances of the death, these doctors and nurses earn the fate that awaits them when the decomposing body is delivered and the unknown infectious disease is unleashed. Whatever it is, it appears to be a green fluid. The part where your muscle tissue falls apart with the sort of wet sound that makes you physical ill comes last. Before that there are nightmarish visions and a descent into insanity peculiar to the personality (and personal limitations) of each character. The basic premise of the killer disease is familiar and depending on your age the films "The Andromeda Strain" or "Cabin Fever" might be what first comes to your mind as cinematic reference points for this one. What Ochiai is able to take advantage of is both the setting and the characters to creep you out in this unsettling little horror film. There are enough gross outs involving bodies falling apart, but the parts that will get you come before the end stage of the infection as the characters fall apart mentally. Where did the green goo come from? The question is not really worth asking because it is simply the cause for the grim effects. The first act of the film is the most problematic because it takes a long while for the ambulance to get to the hospital and get the main part of the story going. But once things start happening "Kansen" jmoves into a higher gear as these doctors and nurses are all trapped in that place by feelings of duty, guilt, and fear as the infection jumps from person to person. The result is a solid little horror film without any of the cultural mysticism and nuances of the better known efforts in this genre from Japan. The goal here is not to shock you, but to simply creep you out and it succeeds more often than not in that effort. "Kansen" is the first title in the J-Horror Theater project put together by producer Taka Inchise. With the international success of "Ringu" and "Ju-On" the idea is to keep Japan at the forefront of making horror films and make a six-part film anthology. Involved in the project are Hideo Nakata ("Ringu"), Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Kairo"), and Takashi Shimizu ("Ju-On"). Norio Tsuruta directs the second film in the series, "Yogen" ("Premonition"), and while the trailer for that film appears on this DVD, I have yet to see its availability. But on the basis of that trailer and this film there is reason to believe that these Japanese filmmakers will be able to succeed where their American counterparts failed so miserably when they started churning out all those splatter flicks.  "3.5 stars."Good movie , pretty creepy more of an american horror. The end is a little wierd in the sense when you think it ends one way but then somewhat changes and got me confused, if not for that endiong it would have got 4 stars. But a good movie and worth the buy, there are 3 or 4 pretty sick and creepy parts well done movie. "A dark, atmospheric, creepy little movie...."I guess I'm old school when it comes to horror these days, and Infection worked for me. Less is more in the horror genre as far as what is shown to us, and this movie follows that rule very well. I hate it when reviews give everything away, so in a nutshell: A decaying hospital (as well as healthcare system) is the setting for this nicely done thriller. Fear of illness, infection, hospitals, the dark, doctors.... they're all covered here. A botched death at the hands of doctors, a mysterious patient dropped off at the E.R., a hospital with very dark rooms and corridors, an aggressive virus that disolves it's host. The movie really builds tension, and the payoff does not insult the viewer. Most horror films today are pretty silly, and this was a nice little gem to discover. Highly recommended. |
