Arena Of The Unwell: September 2015

Hmmm....this blog seems to be a wee bit preoccupied with twenty somethings having 'the sex' at the moment.

Must be something in the water.

Contracted (2013).
Dir: Eric England.
Cast: Najarra Townsend, Caroline Williams, Alice Macdonald, Katie Stegeman, Matt Mercer, Charley Koontz and Simon Barrett.

After having sex with a corpse wearing a rather fetching 'bio-hazard' toe-tag, bald badboy BJ (Barrett, currently hard at work writing the US version of I Saw The Devil for people too thick to be able to read subtitles), after sexily washing a test tube heads off to a hip n' happening party being thrown by the luscious lipped lesbian Alice (Macdonald, best know as the Sexy French Maid from TV's Happing Endings).

Also in attendance is the puppy-eyed Samantha (Townsend) who is not only having to contend with a broken heart after splitting from her frighteningly accented ex-girlfriend Nikki (Stegeman), the dangerously portly drug dealer Zain (Koontz, fresh from CSI: Cyber and more recently raiding the bins behind McDonalds for food) and the constantly creepy conversationalist and permanently friendzoned Riley (Mercer), a man so Beta that I actually attempted to insert a video cassette into him at one point.

Anyway with the party in full swing, Alice bored with Samantha's whining suggests that she get drunk, an idea that Samantha decides to embrace with relish which unfortunately gives BJ the opportunity to hand her a spiked drink before taking her to his car and having sex with her.

For he is a bad man.

Take two bottles into the shower?

Waking up at home with a sore head and even sorer arse, Samantha starts the day arguing with her overprotective mother (TCM 2's delectable DJ Stretch herself Williams) before heading off to the restaurant where she works, hoping that her hangover will subside before the lunchtime rush and that she'll at least be able to sit down at some point without using a rubber ring.

Alas, our poorly pal just seems to get worse as the day goes by and her general grumpy mood isn't improved any when Alice calls her and reveals that the police are looking for the mysterious BJ due to some undisclosed badness that he'd committed earlier that day.

Samantha denies any knowledge of the guy before running to the bathroom and vomiting blood.

Yup, definitely a hangover hen.

Luckily Samantha has a coffee date with darling Nikki to look forward to and covering her face in crayon to hide the blotches excitedly heads off to an upmarket café for an afternoon on being cold shouldered by her ex and a lecture on how all men are potential sex criminals.

Which is nice.

Before indulging in a bout of corpse coupling always check the sell-by date.

As the day goes on Samantha's sinister symptoms continue to worsen; her eyes go all poppy and bloodshot and clumps of her hair begin to fall out which leads her dear old mum to accuse her of being back on crack.

Tho' it's never clarified if this is better or worse than being back on cock.

Annoyed with all the angry accusations and general snideness being throw at her (and it must be said a wee bit worried by the green gunk leaking out of her pant area) Samantha makes an appointment to see her doctor, tho' to be honest he's so ineffectual she might as well have asked a greengrocer for advice seeing as he basically (and uninteresting) pokes her stomach before saying "It's either the clap or a cold....take these tablets, avoid penises and come back if your tits fall off."

And that is why we Britons should be proud of the NHS.

Ever so slightly frustrated , or maybe just constipated - she has a permanent scowl so it's hard to tell - heads back to work where her rapidly worsening state is becoming more and more obvious to her boss not to mention to the customers.

Especially when one of her blackened fingernails drops fails into someones soup.

Fleeing (well hobbling as quickly as a person with a major body-rot problem can) the restaurant Samantha heads home to find that much to her chagrin her mother has invited a bearded Christian man round to have a chat about the evils of drugs and onanism which only has the effect of making Samantha call her mum a drunk before storming off to Zain's in the hope of scoring some coke.

Sprawled out on Zain's sofa Samantha barely has time to open the can and take a wee sip before Alice turns up.

Unfortunately her friendly concern for Samantha's well being turns into a huge argument over whether she actually cares or if she's really just trying to get into Samantha's pants.

From the state of her at the moment tho' she really can't be too choosy so if it were me I’d take it whilst I could.

Which says a lot really.

Samantha, by now really getting into the whole stomping off in a huff mindset decides to make one last attempt at persuading Nikki to take her back, leaving Alice and Zain to make uncomfortable small talk.

Oh yes and giving him a chance to admit that he may have accidentally sold BJ some Rohypnol at the party.

What a guy.

"I think I've found the problem...it appears that Amy Poehler is living in your brain stem and filling your head with shite."

Nikki, understandibly, is fairly annoyed when our rancid-panted pal turns up at her door and, in no uncertain terms tells her to fuck off which unfortunately has the effect of making Samantha go all shouty and slappy culminating in her breaking Nikki's nose with a doorknob before strangling her.

To death.

If only she'd gotten herself a nice boyfriend none of this would have happened.

Probably.

Still angry (well she is a woman) Samantha drives over to Alice's for a last ditch attempt to sort things out - or at the very least indulge in a wee bout of fanny fiddling but this also goes awry when Samantha accidentally vomits blood into Alice's mouth whilst kissing.

Trust me, there's nothing more passion killing than that.

Except maybe with you shite in it instead.....tho' thinking about it....

With her last chance of lesbian loving standing in the kitchen swearing and spitting blood over the newly polished work surfaces Samantha has no alternative but to beat Alice to death and hide her body in the bath before inviting Riley over to the house.

Is it just me thinking that this isn't going to end well?

"Blood in mah mooth ya bastard!"

Bounding into the house like an over-excited puppy, Riley listens intently as Samantha drones on about how it's a shame for her and stuff whilst nodding like a cheap toy and trying to ignore the overpowering stench of cabbage.

This plan seems to work for him tho' as within minutes Samantha is unbuttoning his trousers with her pus-filled bloated sausage fingers whilst showering him with vomit tasting kisses.

Hmmmm....Danone! As the kids say.

Although slightly confused - and no doubt repulsed by the smell , Riley bravely attempts to put it in her only to admit defeat when he notices the large amounts of maggots tumbling out of Samantha's vagina.

Well he's obviously never shagged a girl from West Bromwich.

West Bromwich....Maggot spewing whores not shown.

Making his excuses ("your fanny is full of maggots!") Riley amusingly runs to the bathroom with his trousers around his ankles and quickly inspects his penis for sores, unfortunately he's distracted from this by the sight of Alice's corpse gazing at him from the bathtub.

Tho' to be honest, if I were him I'd find it quite hard to not be tempted by her swollen, bloodied mouth....I mean he's still fairly erect and it's not like she'd complain.

Meanwhile Samantha has decided that what she really needs is a wee drive around to calm her nerves so hobbles out of the house and - carefully - jumps into her car, her head lolling about like a deflated balloon as she desperately tries not to hit any oncoming traffic.

Normal driving for an American I guess.

Fading in and out of consciousness - either that or my TV wasn't getting a very good signal, she's soon mounted the kerb and hit a bollard.

Which is quite possibly the sexiest sounding thing in this whole review if I'm honest.

Stepping out of the wrecked car it's soon apparent that Samantha's transformation is complete and she is now a member of the walking dead (as in a zombie, not one of the cast of the goddawful TV adaptation of the rather good comic) and as her mother begs the police not to shoot her daughter Samantha lunges at her, teeth bared...


*Remember kids, photoshop is bad.*

Eric England's lo-fi reimagining of David Cronenberg's back catalogue is as entertaining as it is frustrating, for every spark of horror originality there's a sketchily written character or lack of motivation leaving the viewer as frustrated as Riley in his attempts to woo Samantha.

Overall tho' the movie is actually quite enjoyable and the motley collection of narcissistic and thoroughly unlikeable characters on show are surprisingly not too infuriating to watch, unfortunately after grounding the basic premise in the real world the film becomes slightly ludicrous once Samantha starts killing people, the death of Nikki raising more giggles than shocks.

The fact that the film features the most incompetent doctor since Marlon Brando donned a tent in The Island of Doctor Moreau doesn't help either - when Samantha goes to see him regarding her illness the guy equates vaginal bleeding, cramps and milky eyes as a sign of a head cold - and only work in taking the viewer out of the - till that point - seriousness of the situation in hand.

And don't get me started on the alleged dodgy sexual politics on show, mainly tho' because all the reviews that seem to mention that the director seems to be 'punishing' Samantha for experimenting with her sexuality all seem to be missing the point that everyone in the movie is punished in some way or another....cos life can be a wee bit nasty sometimes.

Talking of Samantha, Najarra Townsend is great as our main manky maiden, reminding me as she did of Alex Essoe in the thematically similar Starry Night, kudos too to Alice Macdonald and it's always a pleasure to see Caroline Williams back on screen, even without the denim shorts.

Matt Mercer as Riley tho' you just want to give a bloody good kicking to.

Tho' maybe that's the point.

Uneven and somewhat infuriating, Contracted is still worth a looksie and of all the current movies focusing on bad shagging it's this one that comes across as being exactly like having a drunken shag in the back of a strangers car.

And you can't say fairer than that.