In a understaffed hospital everyone's feeling the enormous pressure put on them and a careless mistake makes one patient end up dead. Instead of reporting what just happened, the doctors and nurses involved tries to cover up their mistake and destroy the evidence. But while trying to do so, a new patient arrives that carries an infectious disease which makes their plans for the dead patient go up in smoke, and all of a sudden the whole hospital is in danger while the patient's disease keeps spreading.
Infection (Kansen) is the first film in the J-Horror Theater series, with Premonition (Yogen) being the second and the newly released Reincarnation (Rinne) being the third. All in all there'll be six films released. I actually ended up seeing Premonition before seeing Infection, and while that film breathed some new life into Japanese horror in general, I must say that Infection is pretty much just as good. I believe that this J-Horror Theater concept is a great thing and luckily the films have so far proven to be way better than the terrible Tales Of Terror series, and hopefully the fortcoming flicks will be just as good as those so far released.
Infection starts out as more of a drama that seem to have some psychological horror to it, but is more of a drama for the first 30 minutes or so. But it's interesting enough, has some good character development (we get to know the characters before the shit hits the fan) and since you know that the horror is about to be delivered eventually, the drama parts are a good way to start the movie with. It keeps building in a really good way, take things slow and shows the viewer the hospital itself and its staff. And when the real horror finally kicks in, you're already familiarized with everything else which makes it a lot easier to focus on the scary side of things. The movie is well put together and does a fine job building up some tension along with creating a generally creepy atmosphere that surrounds the whole hospital.
 
The film is just as disgusting as it is scary, or actually it's even a bit more disgusting when thinking about it. Just the whole enviroment of the hospital is somewhat unsettling with all the people being there having something that is wrong with them. The hospital itself is way understaffed and both the doctors and the nurses are stressed out, and that may be why a careless mistake is made that leads to a patients death. With all the doctors and nurses being at the scene of the accident, they agree on that it was an honest mistake, but that it would just hurt them if they would report it so they try to get rid of the evidence on their own. Meanwhile a new patient arrives at the hospital that carries an extremely infectious disease, and it doesn't take long before that disease starts to spread and it all turns into chaos.
This disease causes its victims to bleed some green type of goo, and takes over their bodies to eventually disolve them. Panic starts to spread and things just keeps getting more worse as the disease starts to claim more and more victims to be found within the hospital. Even though I can't say that Infection is extremely scary or anything close to it, it still delivers a whole lotta tension and is at times a pretty fast-paced gruesome ride. Towards the very end the movie has a few twists and turns which makes everything you first believed change a bit. I remember first time I watched Infection I wasn't too thrilled with the ending, but now, after having re-watched it again, I believe that the ending worked a lot better this time around.
Even though Infection might not have answered all the question it asked when the credits starts to roll, the film is still a very good ride on the japanese hospital horror train. The enviroment of the hospital itself does a lot of great work for the movie, and the way the movie's built up is something that was really good. Acting-wise, it really had nothing more to ask for and the cast all do an ok job with their characters. The movie's not very scary but a bit unsettling, disgusting (cutting, sewing, slime etc) and a bit creepy as well. Not really that fast-paced but never slow either, and starts out in a slower more drama-ish way to later turn into a horrific film that manages to be a bit creepy every now and then. Well worth watching.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Kansen, J-Horror Theater Vol. 1, J horaa shiataa 1
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Masayuki Ochiai
WRITING CREDITS: Ryoichi Kimizuka, Masayuki Ochiai
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Michiko Hada, Mari Hoshino, Kaho Minami
COUNTRY: Japan
RUNTIME: 98 min
RATING: 8/10
Infection Website/IMDB Click here
Infection Trailer Click here
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