movieaddict1988 After watching this, I am in no doubt, that this film doesn't deserve a star rating. (ok, probably half a star at the very most) I was extremely disappointed with this film. Please if you are a fan of the first Day of The Dead film, keep it at that. Day of The Dead 2: Contagium has absolutely nothing to do with the first film and is just a cash-in because Taurus Entertainment Company hold the rights to the original 1985 film. So in their eyes, this is an official sequel, but the fans now this most definitely not to be the case.So the bottom line basically is, please save yourself the time and don't watch this film!

geminiredblue In 2005, Hollywood came along and remade George Romero's classic DAWN OF THE DEAD. In terms of remakes, it was one of the best ever made. Why? Because the filmmakers wisely respected what the original did and then went about telling their own version. Shortly thereafter, Hollywood came along again. Bringing with them Mena Suvari, Nick Cannon, and Ving Rhames (who had previously starred in DAWN), the filmmakers probably figured they could work some magic out of remaking Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD. When that turned out to be a big old bust, someone out of desperation chose to make a sequel to the remake. The film opens in 1968 (probably a reference to the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) at Ravenside Military Hospital, in Pittsburgh. A mysterious viral outbreak has turned many of the inmates into Z-heads! The army gets called in to shoot the zombies and then bomb everything. Which begs the question, why didn't they just start by bombing and leave it at that? Anyway, a cannister containing the virus escapes then gets lost in the middle of the... desert? Excuse me, but there are no deserts outside Pittsburgh. Anyway, flash-forward 40 some years. Now a group of mental patients stumble across the cannister (which looks in relatively good shape- little rust or dents). Once back in their hospital, the cannister gets opened and... same old same old! Though it's hard to imagine, this film is even WORSE than the DAY OF THE DEAD remake. Now, don't go thinking that's a recommendation to see the first one. Both are equally excruciating. If possible, dig a hole at least twenty feet deep, drop both movies in, douse them in gasoline, burn them, and then bury them. You will have performed an exorcism worthy of Max von Sydow! And if you don't get the reference, go back and watch THE EXCORIST. A way, way better horror movie!

westerlund-147-949472 This is supposed to be a sequel to George Romeros Day of the Dead, which in turn was the second sequel to the classic Night of the Living Dead. I guess that would make it Night of the living dead 4? Or Dawn of the Dead 3? It is the only entry to the living dead series with a numeral in the title, which makes it pretty confusing. You might think that it would have some special relationship to Day of the Dead, but apparently it is supposed to be a prequel to the entire franchise, telling the story of how it all began. But why connect the title to Day of the dead of all movies? Even more, Romero doesn't seem to have been involved in any way. After watching though, I can say that it does not only have nothing to do with Day of the Dead, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the franchise at all.To describe the plot is difficult, because there isn't so much of it. It starts off at a hospital of some sorts, where the virus breaks out for what I guess is the first time. Apparently it came from some sort of a vial that belonged to a Russian bloke. The military shows up to take care of the situation, but one of the vials falls into the brush and disappears. Five years later, it is discovered by a group of patients of a mental institution and their doctor. Of course it gets loose again and starts too zombify everyone, and the quest for survival is on.This movie suffers from many things. The acting isn't great, and the way the characters interacts with each other doesn't feel natural or engaging. The characters themselves are fairly uninteresting, mostly because of the bad acting and because the script does not do a good job of presenting and developing them. The biggest problem however is the story, or what is supposed to pass for a story. Really, I have no idea what this movie was about! The point of the movie was supposedly to explain how the whole thing started, but I know nothing more after watching it than I did before. Why do we even need an explanation anyway? There is no point in explaining where the zombies came from. The Living dead movies have never been about "why?", but rather it has been about how we deal with it, what happens to us people when we face such extreme conditions. The series have also always been full of social commentaries, but here doesn't seem to be anything similar to what we saw in Night or Dawn, at least none that I could see. Were we supposed to worry about the characters losing their humanity due to the release of the virus? Propably, too bad I didn't care. It just becomes a bland mess of characters and insinuations we don't care about. Does it at least have some gory zombie action? Well... some, but it never becomes as chilling as in Night, as over the top and messy as in Dawn or as intense and nail-biting like in Day. It just comes and goes, and when it's over it's hard to even care. The zombies behavior is also weird and inconsistent with the rest of the series. In this movie, the zombies are still conscious of their personalities, and they talk too. Yes, talking, thinking zombies. Have these guys ever seen a zombie movie before? Also, this movie seems to insist that it is the virus that makes the corpses look all bloody, chewed up and decomposed. I thought it was because they, you know, used to be dead and chewed upon before they turned into zombies! It's bad enough when the story doesn't connect with the rest of the series, it doesn't even look or behave like a Romero-movie. It just makes me wonder why they wanted to make a sequel to Day of the Dead if they were not even going work within the same universe. All in all, this movie is pretty pointless.

Tender-Flesh Going into this film, I had a lot of preconceived notions that it was going to be really, really terrible. I had inflicted some bad viewing on my friends and they, in turn, gave me this movie as payback. But, I have to admit, even as low budgeters go, I actually was interested in the plot and the characters.Don't get me wrong, this is pretty low budget. I had read this film had a 9 million dollar budget, which is totally insane. If that's the case, the director spent maybe 1 million on the movie and the rest on himself for some beach-front property.I think the biggest problem is the title. It's rather misleading and while certainly not a sanctioned, cannonical Romero film, you don't see much to connect it to the "of the Dead" series. Basically, the usual zombie-creating bio-weapon is "misplaced" and after a military shoot-out at a quasi-hospital(I like hyphens), some time passes and the installation is rebuilt as a looney bin for the seriously ill as well as people with anger issues and cutters. As you'd expect, most of the staff are huge jerks and you know who's going to get what's coming to them a mile away. One doctor has a "crew" of patients he treats using unusual methods, which are never wholly explained. Some of the patients are going to be released soon as "cured." While out cleaning up the grounds(I've never heard of the mentally ill being used as groundskeepers), one of them stumbles across the bio-agent hidden inside a thermos. It is eventually opened, and the chemical is inhaled by the doctor and his patients. But here is where it differs from the usual zombie fare. Although their bodies get "sick" and eventually shut down, they can still think, reason, and talk, plus they have a mental bond with one another. When a few of the zombies take to flesh-eating, it turns them more hideous, and they, in turn, try to force-feed the others so they will turn also. Meanwhile, an orderly is bitten by one of them(the sexy Emma) and the rest of the non-infected patients either go on to become zombies or food.I found the mental connection the most interesting concept and that some tried to remain as normal as possible while the others evolved into intelligent, non-shambling flesheaters.I'm almost ashamed to say I enjoyed this as much as I did after hearing so much negativity about it. Definitely worth a look as long as you don't try to make any connections to Romero's work.