Contracted 2013

Contracted is an indie horror movie that focuses on one character getting an STD, and quickly deteriorating. The tension builds throughout the entire movie, and it has a brilliant and satisfying ending. I could spell out much of what happens within, however the less you know going in, the better.
Before I get into that, I want to address a controversy that I have seen in more forums than just here. "Not your average one-night stand" is the tag line of the movie, it's on the poster, it's not Trakt's fault, it's not IMDb's fault, it's simply at odds with what happens in the film. Get over yourself, stop expecting the world to bend to your will because you don't like something.

The movie takes place over only three days, so it really moves. We follow Samantha (Najarra Townsend), who is hopelessly in love with her avoidant girlfriend, Nikki, while at the same time being lusted after by her friend Alice, and permanent friend-zone pal, Riley.
At a party, a distraught Samantha is drugged, and raped. I touched on the controversy around this already, but I have to mention that it is the only part I dislike about the film, and it's because it flies in the face of what the story is about. There are clear references to AIDS, and other STDs in the movie, and that's obviously what the metaphor is supposed to be. Now, this makes sense if our lead has a one-night stand with some random guy. The trouble is, the narrative falls apart the moment she is not a willing participant. You lose the moral high ground at that point. You can say "be safe out there, kids, you don't know where people have been." However, you can't really get the idea across that safe sex is going to save you from super AIDS when it's being raped into our protagonist. So, yes, that does take points off from the movie, but it's still really good.
The next morning, Samantha wakes to find that there are already symptoms of her being sick. Rapidly, she becomes more ill. A great parallel I love in the movie is that a big part of Samantha's life is dedicated to taking care of a rare plant, and as we watch her wither and decay, so does it.
As Samantha becomes more, and more sick, her actions become violent. By the end, she is so far gone, that she barely seems human - although, I still think she's hot, because I'm a crazy goth kid - it's then you realize you have been watching a zombie movie the entire time. It's a clever twist, and the movie plays differently after you have seen it once. As a big fan of the zombie genre, I really liked this portrayal of how the outbreak starts. Often times the zombie mythology is entirely skipped or simply left vague.

I'd call this a better version of what It Follows was trying to be. If you want to watch a horror movie that has an STD metaphor, go with Contracted. If nothing else, Najarra Townsend, alone, is worth the run time.

I'm just gonna get this out of the way and say that I've hated this movie ever since the makers branded it as a "one night stand gone wrong" (and still do so! 4 years later despite years of people complaining!) and don't call it what it is, the story of how a lesbian was roofied and date raped and got an "STD" . Very tacky and disrespectful. Netflix changed their description of it due to backlash when they still had the 5 star rating system, but you can only do so much when even the creators of the film themselves are deliberately obtuse.

Sh!tty marketing aside, this film was really draining to watch. You WANT to like it, because the "disease" seems pretty interesting, but there's so much bad acting, bad characters, bad everything, to wade through. No wait, the effects were pretty great. The rest was just garbage. No one would experience the bodily reactions that the protagonist experienced, and think "oh let me just hide this and act normal". And if she didn't realize what was going on, or most likely was in denial, the people around her should have realized way before then. The disease gets to "are you f*cking kidding me" levels of disbelief by the end.