Contracted: Still on the fence between "Liked It" and "Really Liked It" let me know what you thought and help me decide.

I’m not gonna get my hopes up anymore. I probably would have loved Contracted had I not gotten my hopes up. It’s an independent horror movie, and that can mean anything. Toad Road? God I hope not. Absentia? I hope so. It was neither, and though closer to – it still was not a knock-out surprise that my wife and I found Absentia to be.

            I saw the preview of the movie, and still I thought the whole thing was going to be something more than what the preview hinted at. My wife did not see the preview and it wasn’t but a short while into the movie – probably around the time the Day 1 title card appeared – that my wife called what was going on. Again, I held out hope that it would all be something original, but alas my wife was correct once again.

            But then, so was I, to a degree, because it was done in a way that my wife and I agreed was original and an interesting perspective of a tired idea that was done very well for an indie movie.

            A movie is good if my wife will sit through the whole thing while having to look away more than once. If she doesn’t give up after having to look away more than once then she’s interested. I enjoyed the gross parts, crying out in discomfort (the scenes varying from massive menstrual blood – like multiple scenes of massive menstrual blood – to teeth being easily pulled out as well as nails being pulled off) but laughing at the same time.

            With everything that was good about this movie, the interesting take on an old idea, and the acting which was pretty good, the fact that it does still just all come down to something that we see way too much in movies now-a-days was a bit disappointing. The other part that hurt the movie was the fact that it takes quite a big step out of reality to keep the story going.

            The effects of the disease on the girl are intense and gross and her acting is well done so that it all combines a sort of tense dread and sorrow for the girl, but the way the story is written is has her reach a point of grossness that it is nearly impossible for the people around her to ignore or just pass off as her being sick – and yet they do, even the doctor reacts to things in a way that is completely unbelievable, and it is these moments that really hurt the movie.

            It may be unfair, but when a movie is really good, the most minor mistakes seem to be much bigger than they are because the rest of the movie is so good.

            I just did not understand why she had to be at the level of grossness that she was at and still she needed to do things that moved the story forward that made it unbelievable that she would even try to do those things with the state that she was in. Why not have her NOT be so gross, keep the story going, and then at the end reach that level when she essentially becomes the monster? She’s a good looking girl, I can admit that, but there ain’t no girl good looking enough (sorry to my wife) that I’d kiss, much less sleep with, when they got the sort of things going on with their body that this girl has – but in this movie, a guy can get over her teeth (rotting? Hello bad breath!), her skin (nothing a vat of lotion would probably still not help). I mean, at this point it’s clear what’s going on so there’s gotta be some obvious signs, smell, feel, taste, that would turn a guy off. Not the guy in this movie though, this guy powers through all that stuff like a pro and get’s the job done (if there’s a sequel, I’d love to find out if the sex was worth it for that guy).

            This movie is an origin story, and through all the bad parts in this movie, it’s not a bad movie, and though my wife said she’d put she liked it, I was on the line between liked it an really liked it.

            My wife said that this was the most disturbing movie she’d seen since The Human Centipede. Yes, my wife actually sat through that whole movie, and I will forever love her for that and will forever proudly tell my friends, family, and complete strangers how awesome my wife is for doing such a thing. Granted she hated it, but she watched it all, and that says something. Of course she didn’t watch the second one, but my wife and I – we’ll always have the first Human Centipede.

            Now I would not say it’s like the Human Centipede, even the gross factor is not the same, but my wife disagrees, so – whatever. Maybe it is, but I stand by my own feelings that this movie and the Human Centipede are not even close to being similar, this movie is gross and all but not like Centipede gross.

            A total bonus of this movie though is Dave Holmes. The minute he walked into the movie I had this smile on my face, and his one scene is hilarious and I had to pause the movie to fill my wife in on the history of Dave Holmes, and if you don’t know it then don’t read my blog, just get out, seriously. If you do know it, correct me if I’m wrong, but back in the day MTV would have competitions to see who would be the next VJ (trying to make it a big deal since it hadn’t been since the glory days of Tabitha Soren) and Dave Holmes actually lost to some weird guy named Dude, or something like that. Anyway, the weird Dude guy did like a few gigs as a VJ but it was Dave Holmes who ended up becoming like a guest VJ and got all the cherry gigs and went on to star in a few movies. Not sure what happened to Dude.

            Anyway, it was cool seeing him in this movie.

            I digress, though I’m pretty much done anyway. It’s not a bad movie, and with lower expectations it would be a pretty good movie, which, I guess that’s why I’m here, to lower you expectations of movies streaming on Netflix as well as blogs.

            You’re welcome.