Ill: Final Contagium Review from TetroVideo!
There’s a huge heavy duty machine working underground. Instead of drilling to the center of the earth, it’s pounding into your mind. This machine is run by many people, including Domiziano Cristopharo and his gang of oddballs. There’s so many films it’s hard to keep track of what’s good and bad. Then leave it to Severed Cinema. We’ll watch ‘em all for you. So far, we haven’t found a bad one yet. You’re going to see some thought provoking, atmospheric and likely brutally nasty images, whichever one you pick, from the stable of flicks.
Ill: Final Contagium is an anthology structure which is a regular format used to let so many people shine. Segment one begins with a hooded man wandering around a derelict building. He claims and takes home a case. It contains a gun and a proper old school mobile phone. Afterwards, two Spanish girls, Natalia and Lily, involve themselves with him at a club. Back at his home, it seems they have a mission which is to do with that metal case.
After a bit of merriment that becomes rough and tumble, he’s knocked out and they snatch the case. Driving off, they park up in a middle of nowhere villa and smile. But then it all begins with a nosebleed…
My God, was the camera man having a seizure at some points? Bloody wobble-cam! I haven’t seen a shaky style for ages and this threw me. As the girls are coughing up blood on the road and then a man in a hazard suit arrives, it was all over like being thrown around on a fairground ride. The makeup looks like it has been quickly chucked on but it’s really effective. Lucio A. Rojas (Trauma) has a lot to live up to with a name like that, and he handles the build-up of his chapter very well, developing the characters as far as you can in such a short time. As an opener it’s nicely done, but like I said, the shaking slowly dying camera man kind of distracted my enjoyment factor a bit.
Part 2 has a blood-soaked man laid in a night road as a man speaks to him waiting for an ambulance. He got hit by a truck apparently. This is day 86. Nearly three months have passed. This chapter is a Lorenzo Zanoni creation, who last appeared courtesy of A Taste of Phobia (see review of A Taste of Phobia here) so this’ll be interesting. Our main man is Owen, and after the injured fella is loaded into the ambulance, he robs some cash out of the guy’s wallet and then heads home to tell his girl, Stella. As he watches TV, a report comes up that there is still a hunt on for the scientist we met in part one. He’s apparently been spreading nasty ol’ toxic infectious stuff, as you can imagine (and I don’t mean he has a Facebook account). Owen is left by himself the next morning as she goes off to work. He counts the roll of cash he swiped, in doing so licks his fingers, touches the notes, and then licks again. For the rest of the day he plans to eat loads of junk food, play video games, and be a slob. That is until he starts retching. He becomes bed and sofa bound with an unbelievable appetite on top of feeling really off kilter. This is only the start of a horrific slow transformation into something hideous for Owen.
Lorenzo has captured a true and haunting big movie feel for this. Is it the lighting? The careful mood construction? I have no idea how he’s done it but this has that huge big budget sense. The way his deterioration and isolation is treated reminded me of Andrew Parkinson’s excellent 1998 classic, I Zombie (yeah not the TV series). It is disgusting (thanks to FX genius Athanasius Pernath) and compulsively watchable at the same time. Owen becomes a bewildered and trapped, desperately pitiful man, unable to prevent what is happening to him. Top marks and a crimson Creepy salute to Tommasco Arnaldi and Giuseppe Di Biase for giving us, Owen.
Domiziano grabs the film by its infected balls for the third segment, on day 104. Let’s meet, Laura (played to expected quality by Severed Cinema & Domiziano regular, Chiara Pavoni) who is transgender. Laura endures some pretty graphic injections on course to transformation and needed body, courtesy of a sinister smooth-talking woman who works at her home. “You were already beautiful. But now you are a Countess.” Afterwards, Laura takes a series of selfies until she notices a nosebleed. Seems she’s caught something by going cheap.
Regardless, she gets dressed up and pegs a man before finding she has a totally insatiable appetite. As Laura goes about her business, she sees scale-like rashes emerging around the places she had the injections…
I always adore Antony Coia’s soundtracks, they bring forth such golden era Italian horror sweetness. Sections of this score reminded me wonderfully of Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and I was in heaven. Such a lush feel to proceedings, and of course the direction and angles catch every required chilling moment as you’d expect. It was great to see Poison (House of Flesh Mannequins, No Please Not in my Mouth) Rouge and Giorgio (POE 4: The Black Cat, Just a Child) Agri pop up briefly as well.
Finally, we conclude Ill: Final Contagium with Day 913, and head off to Germany, deep into the forests to meet a solitude survivor. He sits and records a video diary, explaining how fast half of the world became infected, and how civilization collapsed. “First you make money with the virus,” he directs at pharmaceutical companies, “Then you make money with the antidote!” His son is infected. He keeps him secure in the far room and has found a way to slow the infection down, for now, which involves an axe. He plans to upload his video in the hope someone will see it and be able to help.
He scavenges food and tries his best to look after Conner, taking him back inside when he escapes to eat a fox, and so on. Then one day he returns to hear his son screaming in agony…
Day 913 is a solemn affair that takes its power by using the actors. Less on the makeup and horrors.
Athanasius Pernath who supplies effects to two of the chapters, goes all out forming blisters and decaying flesh to incredible heights of eye-popping moments. I’ve never come across a film displaying any weakness, all of Athanasius’s work has so far has been a tremendous gift to horrorkind.
Ill: Final Contagium nicely compiles the stories throughout to tell the overall tale of how a virus can quickly become a pandemic and what results in the aftermath. There’s stronger and weaker entries but none disappoint in the complete picture. Ill: Final Contagium wants to wave a blistered hand in your face and let you smell the puss. It’s not here to be friendly or kind. It is here just to shock and revolt you, but above all, compel you to keep watching.
Directed by: Lucio A. Rojas, Lorenzo Zanoni, David Amrosini, Domiziano Cristopharo, Kai E. Bogatzki | Written by: Lucio A. Rojas, Ximena del Solar, Luca Nicolai, Pasquale Scalpellino, Kai E. Bogatzki | Produced by: Lucio A. Rojas, Sandra Arriagada, Lorenzo Zanoni, A Chiarenza, The Enchanted Architect, Ulkurzu |Cinematography by: Diego Fierro Lablee, Daniele Trani, Domiziano Cristopharo, Lucas Blank |Editing by: Lucio A Rojas, Diego Fierro Lablee, Gianicuca Conca, Domiziano Cristopharo, Kai E. Bogatzki |Music by: Ignacio Redard, Francesco Petronelli, Antony Coia, Klaus Pfreundner | Special Effects by: Grumpy VFX, Abigail Ruiz, Athanasius Pernath, Philipp Rathgeber | Cast: Felipe Rios, Kimena del Solar, Rayloren Mata, Tommasco Arnaldi, Silvia Morigi, Chiara Pavoni, Arianna Bonardi, Poison Rouge, Francesco Giannotti, Max Evans, Justin Salowsky | Year: 2019 | Language: English, Spanish | Color: Color | Runtime: 1h 44min
Studio: Border Motion Cinema, The Peacock’s Tale
Distributor: TetroVideo
