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Posted By: RedSabbath at 11:30am, September 20, 2008
First off, I know I'm gonna get ragged over this review......
Okay, today I watched one of the DVD's I bought in a Horror Lot of 6 movies:
Day Of The Dead 2:Contagium
Now this is the first time I've seen this flix. The reason is simple, when it first came out I saw the box & surprised that it even existed and realized George Romero's name wasn't on it at all. Eventually, I saw the Internet reviews universally panning this movie massively. I kept reading.....it's a prequel/sequel yet neither, Romero had nothing to do with it or endorsed it, and what, the zombies talk?!!? So, I forgot about it until two years later. Now.
But maybe it was the low expectations going in, but.....
I actually liked this movie!
Okay, wait a minute, I can see why so many hated it though. First, yes there is NO real way to have the "Day Of The Dead" title connected to this. NO WAY! This was either a shame on Anchor Bay or the filmakers to think they could have gotten away with this. Maybe the filmakers are innocent and the distributors are to blame trying to cash in on the success of Romero's films after it was completed. Nope. On the slateboard in the behind-the-scenes, it clearly shows "Day Of The Dead", so everybody's to blame on that screw-up. If this was released as just "Contagium" I think the reviews would have been alot kinder.
Second, there's alot of things in the movie that disobey common Undead/Zombie rules. Like communication, mental-links, and that silly device that infected the original six in it's present day. But if this was brought in to a movie which had NO ties to Zombie classics like "Day" or "NOTLD" it would be preceived as original. With the "Day" title, it seems blasphemous. In fact with these changes it sort of reminded me of ANOTHER franchise of horror movies....
Which is Third, this doesn't rip-off "Day Of The Dead" as much as "RETURN Of The Living Dead"! Now THIS is what the movie should have been a sequel to. The virus speading airbourne, zombies talking, not knowing you're dead already, the military being so involved....did the filmakers just title it wrong? This movie would have been a welcome addition to the "Return" family, and probably would have been more well received than it's own Parts 4 or 5. In fact, I would say personally, I enjoyed this better than those two "Return" sequels! I might even go as far as saying I enjoyed it more than Romero's own "Land Of The Dead", which was released just a few months earlier!
But look, the movie is flawed, no doubt. But it's far from being the worst Zombie movie ever made. It ranks medicore, a solid C to be precise. The acting is middle of the road, the gore/effects are middle of the road, and the story's about the same too. But actually, I can't remember I've seen a Zombie movie take place in a mental institution before, so that gets a small thumbs up on that one. But what killed this to so many horror fans is simply it doesn't live up to the legacy of Romero's Dead series, and never should have tried. But I think that if they did the right thing & released it on it's own without connection, we'd all say that it was "Okay, worth a rental, but not too memorable" and that's far from what's been said about it today.
Overall, I'd say get past the title and give the DVD a spin. Don't expect Romero Gold, or Zombie gold for that matter. If you like the genre in general and have an hour or two to kill, it's worth a watch. It's not the best, but it's not the worse either. C'mon guys, there's got to be movies to fill in those spaces, right?
(RedSabbath Rating:6.5/10)
