the fretless bass reviews:Contagion

Alright, this certainly took a while, it's been a few days since I saw contagion, and several since most people who are interested in it will have, so this review might not be timely, but people like to either have a semi-professional agree with them, or have something to argue, so here goes nothing.

Contagion was good, it was like a zombie movie without zombies (which ironically, would have improved it a ton). It followed the outbreak of a deadly flu-like virus worldwide through the eyes of several different people. The closest the movie came to a main character was the dad who's wife was patient zero and who also turned out to be immune. He had to spend the rest of the movie defending his daughter, so all of the societal breakdown was told through his point of view. There was also the high-ranking doctor in the CDC to explain the virology behind it all, and the journalist, to give the perspective of the genius capitalist, making millions off of deaths.

The plot is really simple, disease enters public, and society almost collapses. The aspect in which the movie shines is suspense. You see, the nature of the virus is that you contract it by touching something a sick person touched. So throughout the movie, the camera would pan in on doorknobs and peanut jars, it's a mysophobic's ultimate nightmare.

There are many parts of the movie where the CDC's overreaction to swine-flu is brought up, which leads me to believe that this movie is essentially saying "THIS IS WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED!"

The other good point the movie makes is that fear is the most contagious disease. And that's true, there is no force on Earth that moves faster than sheer terror.

At the end of the day, Contagion is terrifying. Not in the same way that most other horror or thrillers are terrifying, but in a totally unique way that makes all other horror movies look like Care Bears. Contagion could happen, and this one, single, all-encompassing truth will rock you to the very core, and keep you up at night wondering about God. It is entirely possible that a disease could be introduced to the population that would wipe out one out of every twelve people on Earth. So don't see contagion if you don't like The Walking Dead (so essentially, if you don't like Contagion, you can't appreciate good suspense films, and should probably culture yourself).