Contracted (film)

Contracted
Film poster
Directed by	Eric England
Produced by	Eric England J.D. Lifshitz Raphael Margules Matt Mercer Joshua Petrino
Written by	Eric England
Starring	Najarra Townsend Caroline Williams Alice Macdonald
Music by	Kevin Riepl
Cinematography	Mike Testin
Edited by	Josh Ethier
Production company	BoulderLight Pictures Southern Fried Films
Distributed by	IFC Films
Release dates	July 7, 2013 (2013-07-07) (NIFFF)[1]
Running time	78 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$4,105[2]

Contracted is a 2013 American horror film directed and written by Eric England.^[3] It was first released on November 23, 2013, in the United States and stars Najarra Townsend as a young woman that finds herself suffering from a mysterious sexually transmitted disease after a rape.^[4] It has been compared to the 2012 film Thanatomorphose, with which it shares similarities. Twitch Film has criticized the movie for its marketing, in which England describes the character Samantha's rape as a "one night stand".^[4]

Plot

In a morgue, BJ has sex with a corpse that has a biohazard symbol on the toe tag; afterward, he handles an empty test tube while washing up.

Samantha is trying to get over a recent break-up with her girlfriend, Nikki. The party's host, Alice, plies her with strong drinks, while Zain offers her drugs. After she becomes heavily inebriated, Samantha is approached by BJ, who offers her a drink. Even though she tells him that she is a lesbian, when she begins to black out, BJ takes her to his car and rapes her.

The next morning, Samantha thinks she is suffering from a bad hangover. She bickers with her mother, who struggles to accept her daughter's lesbianism and is worried that she might have relapsed into hard drug use. Alice tells Samantha that the police are searching for BJ, who Alice had never met. At the restaurant where she works, Samantha has trouble eating and is overly sensitive to noise. When she bleeds heavily from her vagina, she visits her doctor. Despite her protests that she is a lesbian who has not had sex with men for nearly a year, he is suspicious that she has contracted a sexually transmitted disease from heterosexual intercourse because of a rash that has developed in her groin.

Samantha tries to repair her relationship with Nikki, who is rude to her. Samantha is hurt to learn that Nikki had not let her know that a scholarship offer had come in the mail. Meanwhile, her symptoms continue to worsen. Her eyes turn bloodshot, her hair falls out in clumps. When she is called into the restaurant on a short-notice shift her fingernails begin to fall off. Samantha flees the restaurant and returns to her doctor, who advises her to avoid contact with other people until tests can determine the nature of her disease. Instead, Samantha visits Zain, who gives her heroin. When Alice arrives, she encourages Samantha to talk to the police about her encounter with BJ. Believing that Alice wants to isolate her from her other friends, Samantha argues with her and storms off. Zain reveals to Alice that he sold Rohypnol to BJ at the party.

Samantha stops off at home and argues violently with her mother. She abruptly leaves for her flower competition but is turned away at the door because of her appearance and the condition of her flowered plant.

Samantha turns to Nikki for consolation, but Nikki coldly rejects her and calls her sexually confused. Enraged, Samantha chokes Nikki to death. She then drives to Alice's in a rage and murders her by biting out her throat. Losing her sanity, Samantha invites Riley, a man who has had a crush on her, to Alice's house and tries to seduce him. Riley sees maggots fall out of Samantha's vagina and becomes repulsed. When he goes to the bathroom to inspect himself, he discovers Alice's body. Samantha flees the house. As she drives, she fades out of consciousness and is involved in a car crash. She emerges from the wreckage transformed fully into a zombie. Her mother, who has arrived at the scene, begs the police not to shoot Samantha. As the police caution Samantha against moving, she lunges at her screaming mother.

Cast

• Najarra Townsend as Samantha Williams
• Caroline Williams as Nancy Williams
• Alice Macdonald as Alice Patrick
• Katie Stegeman as Nikki
• Matt Mercer as Riley McCormick
• Charley Koontz as Zain
• Simon Barrett as Brent "BJ" Jaffe
• Ruben Pla as Doctor
• Dave Holmes as Therapist

Production

England said that he began working on Contracted due to his wanting to "tell a story within the virus/infection subgenre like we've never seen before" and that he wanted to use sex as a plot device as it was something that "most people can understand and relate to".^[5] He wrote the film's script in March 2012 and shot Contracted during a 15-day period in Los Angeles in May of the same year.^[6] Casting for the film was difficult due to the limited funds, as well as some actors finding the film's content "too bold" or having scheduling conflicts.^[6] Veteran horror actress Caroline Williams was cast as the mother of the main character after England and film producer Matt Mercer approached her via her Facebook page.^[6]

England had initially planned to have the film center around the film's protagonist experiencing the loss of her virginity, but changed it to focus on a character that is uncertain of her sexuality and has a prior lifestyle different than the one she currently has.^[7] He had also initially planned to have the film set outside of the United States and focus slightly on xenophobia, but did not have the budget to accommodate this and as such, changed the movie's setting to Los Angeles.^[8]

Release

Contracted at Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival on July 7, 2013.^[1] IFC Films released it in the United States in theaters and video on demand on November 22, 2013,^[9] and on DVD on March 18, 2014.^[10]

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 53% of 16 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 4.8/10.^[11] Metacritic rated it 48/100 based on five reviews.^[12] Rob Staeger of The Village Voice wrote the film moves from moralizing to under-explored themes while remaining full of stereotypical characters.^[13] Fangoria compared Contracted to the similarly plotted Thanatomorphose, saying that while both had a similar premise, Contracted's "visual palette is relatively conventional" in comparison.^[14] In a mixed review, Andy Webster of The New York Times wrote that the "ending to this fable misses the opportunity for broader metaphorical resonance, but getting there has its own unnerving rewards".^[15] In contrast, Martin Tsai of the Los Angeles Times stated that while the film was "absurd" it was also "compelling" and that it would play well off of the unrelated 2013 film Blue Is the Warmest Colour.^[16] Staci Layne Wilson of Dread Central rated it 2.5/5 stars and wrote the film is neither body horror nor a zombie film but simply a gross-out film.^[17] Dennis Harvey of Variety called it "a body horror opus" whose vague themes and unlikeable characters are not readily discernible as intentional.^[18]

Ben Croll of Twitch Film criticized the film's marketing, which depicts a one-night stand that is opposed by an unambiguous depiction of rape in the film. However, Croll states that the major themes of the film are denial and self-deception, which color Samantha's own perception of the incident.^[4] Something Awful was critical of the rape elements in the movie and stated that

"England punishes a lesbian for being raped in the most horrible ways imaginable. Worse, the Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) is the only means by which he gives his character agency. And there's something all too misogynistic in the way he returns to the vagina, again and again, for his wellspring of horror. Yes, horror as a genre has frequently dealt with the ways in which men fear everything between the vulva and the stomach. If you, aspiring horror filmmaker, are planning to tread this well-tread ground, do something interesting - like Teeth. Otherwise, find something else. And quit punishing your female protagonists for being women."^[19]

Sequel

A sequel titled Contracted: Phase II was released September 4, 2015, in the US.^[20] Contracted: Phase III is in the process of production by Craig Walendziak. It will be released October 31, 2017.

References

External links

• Contracted at the Internet Movie Database
• Contracted at Rotten Tomatoes
• Contracted at Metacritic