(Review) Contracted

SAMANTHA (Najarra Townsend) is depressed that her relationship is not going well.
So she goes to a wild party where she gets drunk and ends up on a one night stand with a total stranger.
The next day, she doesn’t feel well and fears she could have contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
She goes to the doctor who takes her blood samples for tests and she waits for the result.
Within days, her body begins to decay physically. There are maggots coming out of her body. She is losing her hair. Slowly, she is looking like a creature out of a horror film. She loses her mind, becomes hysterical and goes on a rampage…
I must admit the idea behind the movie is creative. The audience will get to see how a human slowly turns into a monster.
But sad to say, the execution of the idea is badly done. This movie shows that having a creative idea alone is not good enough.
Some elements in the movie do not make sense. For example, the doctor could not make any headway in defining her illness. A good doctor would have quarantined her or at the least kept her hospitalised.
Instead, he sends her home. The doctor must be out of his mind.
I find most of the characters in the film are really annoying, selfish and plain dumb.
One good example is Samantha’s mother (Caroline Williams) who ­believes her daughter is on drugs and that it’s transforming the girl – to look like a monster. One look at ­Samantha, and you know drugs alone could not have caused the misery.
The most disappointing element is that you will never know the cause of Samantha’s transformation. You will never know the motive of the stranger in infecting her with the ‘disease’.
There are far too many ­unanswered questions. The only saving grace is the lead actress.
Townsend has done well to ­capture the emotions of a woman blighted by the slow and painful decay – physically, emotionally and mentally. The other actors are plain wooden in their performances.