Infected
(2008/Horror/Genius DVD)
Picture:
C- Sound: C- Extras: D Feature: C-
I always
feel so bad for movies like Infected. It’s trying so hard to be a fast-paced
conspiracy thriller combined with an effects-driven alien invasion film, but
instead it’s just stiffly acted aliens being rooted out by characters with a
really trite and superfluous back-story.
This film is screaming for something original, a plot twist (even if you
do see it coming a mile away), a cameo, a likeable character that lasts more
than ten minutes, for the love of God, somebody throw a pie.
This film
comes tantalizingly close to having a few of those things that it so
desperately needs (a cool villain, a comic relief character, a social message)
but then when it falls short, that only makes it all the more disappointing.
The plot
follows two investigative journalists trying to uncover the massive conspiracy
surrounding an impending alien invasion and the bottled water that is
simultaneously spreading a plague and preparing the populace to be hosts for
parasitic alien larvae. Of course the
journalists have a torrid and heartrending history together, but their
relationship never worked out because of his rare genetic mutation that makes
him unable to conceive children, but also coincidentally makes his blood toxic
to the aliens. Clearly, this is
screenwriting at its finest.
The
picture quality is just below what you would see on standard definition
broadcast television, and is not helped by the kitschy lighting so prevalent in
modern low-budget science fiction. The
image is in a 1.77:1 anamorphic widescreen format. The audio, in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, is
a touch soft on the dialogue tracks.
There are no extra features on the disc.
Really,
it’s not what this film has that makes it bad, it’s what it lacks. The filmmakers didn’t take any gambles on the
dialogue, on the acting, or on the effects.
They played everything low-key and ultimately the film suffers because
of it. If they had gone for broke and it
didn’t work out, at least the result would have been campy and funny. As it is, Infected is just disappointingly average.
- Matthew Carrick
