There are bad zombie movies. Then there are bad sequels. And then there’s Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, a film that decided George Romero’s 1985 classic wasn’t just a zombie masterpiece—it was also a franchise begging for an unrelated, incoherent, direct-to-video fever dream.
This isn’t a prequel. This isn’t a sequel. This is what happens when fan fiction sneaks into Blockbuster under a stolen title.
The Premise: Thermos of Doom
The story begins in 1968 with a Soviet man infected with something nasty. Soldiers show up, massacre everyone, and some poor schmuck student runs off with a thermos full of viral nonsense. A thermos. Not a top-secret vial, not a canister. A thermos. If Stanley had known their products would be the chosen vessels of apocalyptic bioweapons, maybe they’d have charged more.
Fast forward nearly 40 years, and a group of hospital patients dig up this thermos. Naturally, they open it. Naturally, they unleash the zombie plague. Naturally, you regret pressing play.
The Cast: Zombies Deserved Better
-
Justin Ipock as Isaac: looks like he wandered in from a community theater staging of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
-
Laurie Maria Baranyay as Emma: gets the honor of carrying the worst pregnancy subplot in zombie history. Yes, she’s bitten. Yes, she’s pregnant. Yes, it ends exactly as you’re dreading.
-
John F. Henry III as Jackie: proof that bad acting is contagious.
-
Stephan Wolfert as Dr. Donwynn: the kind of doctor who’d lose his medical license for Googling “what is virus” during an outbreak.
Every line is delivered with the conviction of someone reciting a fast-food order. “Extra ketchup… brains.”
The Zombies: Discount Store Ghouls
Romero gave us decomposing nightmares that dripped metaphor and guts in equal measure. Contagium gives us… Halloween makeup rejects who look like they fell asleep at a tanning salon with Elmer’s Glue on their faces.
The infection spreads not with dread but with melodrama. Skin peels, veins bulge, and actors writhe like they’re auditioning for a Pepto-Bismol commercial. “Indigestion, heartburn, nausea, turning into a zombie.”
And the zombies talk. Yes, they talk. They form zombie cliques, have zombie conversations, and at one point, try to convince the survivors to “join the family.” This is less Day of the Dead and more Fast & Furious: Zombie Drift.
The Hospital Setting: Sanitized Horror
Most of the film takes place in a hospital so bland it makes IKEA look Gothic. Instead of claustrophobic corridors dripping with tension, we get beige walls, fluorescent lights, and the distinct sense this was filmed in an abandoned DMV.
At least Romero’s underground bunker had personality. Here, the scariest thing isn’t the zombies—it’s the hospital cafeteria.
The Plot: Death by Subplot
This film is a narrative hydra. Cut off one subplot and two more grow in its place. We’ve got:
-
A pregnancy subplot.
-
A “you’re already dead by human standards” subplot.
-
A “we should be a zombie family” subplot.
-
A random video message subplot warning about the thermos (again: thermos).
-
A wig-snatching catfight subplot (because why not?).
By the end, you’re not scared—you’re exhausted, wondering how a film could manage to be both too long and completely unfinished at the same time.
The Violence: Bloodless Carnage
Zombies should rip, tear, devour. Here, they nibble politely, like they’re testing hors d’oeuvres at a wedding. Gore effects are limited to ketchup splatters and latex peeling. Even when people are “devoured,” the actors just shake around while the zombies gently paw at them like overexcited puppies.
The most terrifying effect is the acting itself.
The Writing: A Virus of Clichés
The dialogue is a mix of medical babble and soap-opera whining. Highlights include:
-
“By human standards, you’re already dead.” (Translation: By cinematic standards, so is this movie.)
-
“We just want you to turn and be a family.” (Zombie Olive Garden—when you’re here, you’re undead.)
-
“Don’t open it!” “I’m opening it!” (This exchange repeats often enough to qualify as the film’s theme song.)
The script is allergic to subtlety, drowning you in exposition that even the characters don’t seem to care about.
The Romero Connection: Grave Robbery
Calling this a sequel to Day of the Dead is like calling a tuna sandwich a sequel to Jaws. Romero’s Day was bleak, layered, and terrifying—a meditation on humanity eating itself alive. Contagium is about a cursed thermos.
Romero’s film had Bub, the sympathetic zombie. Contagium has Jackie, Boris, and Sam, who act like undead frat boys crashing a kegger. Bub had pathos. These guys have halitosis.
The Ending: Apocalypse by Committee
By the finale, zombies are running loose in the city, survivors are dying in laughable ways, and you realize the filmmakers had no idea how to end this mess. So they didn’t. They just threw more zombies at the screen until the runtime hit 90 minutes and slapped “The End” on it.
It’s not terrifying. It’s not shocking. It’s like watching a group project collapse in real time.
Why It Fails
-
No atmosphere. Romero’s genius was dread. This film’s idea of dread is waiting for someone to finish their monologue about DNA mutation.
-
No gore. If you’re going to be trash, at least be trash with entrails.
-
No tension. Quarantined hospital? Should be terrifying. Instead, it feels like waiting in line at urgent care.
-
No respect. Slapping “Day of the Dead” onto this is like spray-painting “Ferrari” on a lawnmower.
Final Verdict
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium isn’t just bad—it’s necrotic. A shambling corpse of a movie that insults Romero’s legacy, your intelligence, and even your DVD shelf. It’s the kind of film you find at a yard sale for 50 cents and still feel overcharged.
If Romero’s zombies represented society’s collapse, these zombies represent filmmaking’s collapse. They talk too much, bite too little, and prove that sometimes the dead shouldn’t walk—they should stay six feet under, with a thermos lid screwed on tight.
