2013-11-25

Culture Turning Right? Sort Of

Back in the late 70s and early 80s horror movies were very popular. The stock market bottomed in 1982 and due to the investment and many popular franchises, the early 80s are remembered well for the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street villains. One interesting part of those slasher flicks is that the killers targeted teens (particularly in the Friday the 13th movies) who were having sex or doing drugs. Nancy Reagan promoted launched the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign, unintentionally, in 1982 when she gave that advice to a school girl who asked what to do if someone offered her drugs. About the same time AIDS became a huge health concern and the corrective conservative social shift has two of its big issues for the next few years, eventually adding violent rap lyrics.

So this movie synopsis caught my eye:
When gorgeous lesbian Samantha has a drunken one night stand with a strange man, she contracts what she thinks is a sexually-transmitted disease. But the truth is far more disturbing. As her horrific condition worsens, her friends begin to fear for her... and themselves.

This review goes straight to the point: Contracted (Movie Review)
Well here you go bible-belters, here's one odious poster-child for abstinence if I've ever seen one. Or perhaps a sly satire of, which I (want to) believe is the intent behind Arkansas born filmmaker Eric England, the 25 year-old who made MADDISON COUNTY a couple of years ago. Problem is, I can't tell. In CONTRACTED, England depicts the harrowing consequences of sleeping around with reckless abandon, but also uses that framing device to illustrate - at the personal, granular level - the painstaking transformation of a human being into a flesh-decaying zombielike mutant. CONTRACTED is a sick and icky flick, sure to induce a perpetual cringe on a viewer's face and sate even the most depraved of body-horror fans.......

......All that to say, if you're a fan of seeing intense bodily grue and ever-increasing flesh-putrescence, CONTRACTED is something you'll definitely want to catch. But for those who demand such visual disturbances come in combination with stronger storytelling and a more intricate plot, CONTRACTED might be one to avoid picking up. I dug it for its strengths - the visceral and emotional toll of slowly transmuting into a zombielike mutant - but found faults in some of the larger statements the film tried or didn't try to make, the emotions it tried to elicit, and the tonal/generic inconsistencies of the third act.
NSFW descriptions at the link. The reviewer isn't sure if the sexual angle is satire or not, but the bigger issue is how will the audience view it? As satire, or will they take the more direct message?

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