Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005, video) - Quality-bereft, exploitative zombie trash

[ZERO]

+ Worst Movie of the Year

This poster for Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson's Day of the Dead 2: Contagium tries to rip off the style of the poster for George A. Romero's original, great Day of the Dead (1985)

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The zombie virus comes to America from Russia. Decades later, some lunatics find a thermos with the disease and bring it back to their asylum.

This is filmmaking at its least pretty. The idea is bad, although not necessarily horrendous. Unfortunately this entire movie is carried through completely deprived of simple logic and talent. Everything is wrong with Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. And let me make it absolutely clear; this production has nothing to do with George A. Romero, his great Day of the Dead (1984) or his entire Dead franchise. Contagium is a name-only attempt to ride on the back of an existing success to make a buck.
The movie is over-lit, full of annoying shaky-cam, head-scratchingly poorly written, without any charm, gross in the uncool way, full of bad effects and even worse acting. Nothing is okay about Day of the Dead 2: Contagium.
The film is directed by Ana Clavell (Chick Street Fighter (2003)) and James Glenn Dudelson (Lesson of the Assassin (2000)) and written by Clavell and Ryan Carrassi (The Pool 2 (2005)).
In short: avoid this film!

 

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Because no material concerning the film is available on Youtube, here instead is Beethoven's Silence, (which is undoubtedly a lot better anyway)

Cost: 1 mil. $
Box office: None (straight-to-DVD)
= Unknown
[Contagium was shot in LA in April 2004. A 10-minute promo reel was shown and was badly received at the 2004 Fantasia International Film Festival. The film screened at London FrightFest Film Festival. It has no Tomatometer score, but nearly 3,000 IMDb users have awarded it a 2.2/10 rating there, - bottom of the barrel for sure.]

What do you think of Day of the Dead 2: Contagium?
Other exploitative horror or other genre films that must be avoided, in your opinion?

Cannibal Holocaust II/Natura Contro/The Green Inferno (1988) - Climati's outrageous jungle adventure

♥♥♥♥

Barbarism and adventure exudes from this original Italian poster for Antonio Climati's Cannibal Holocaust II, [the Italian title means 'against nature']

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A professor gone missing in the Amazon must still be alive! - A sensationalist reporter and a group of adventure-seeking fellows set off on a danger-filled rescue mission.

Cannibal Holocaust II is a totally unrelated follow-up to Ruggero Deodato's original masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust (1980). This film is even missing cannibals!
Unsurprisingly, co-writer/cinematographer/director Antonio Climati's (This Violent World (1976)) original Italian title doesn't include any mention of the non-existing cannibals, and indeed the Cannibal Holocaust II-title was devised solely for the (somewhat appropriately exploitative) distribution-purpose of cashing in on the notorious earlier film.
Still, the English nonsense-title is actually somehow well in line with the entire film at hand, which is impressively produced with vicious animals of all kinds (a panther, crocodiles, piranhas, snakes galore etc.) and plenty of exotically presented adventure.
The film also has a bizarre 80s-style score (by Maurizio Dami (Top Line (1988)) in the jungle-context and extremely irregular editing.
Cannibal Holocaust II is silly, funny and not-so-disgusting. It is sometimes referred to as the film that ended the Italian cannibal exploitation sub-genre.

Watch a funky, short original trailer for the film here that showcases some of its many qualities

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Cannibal Holocaust II?
Other such nonsense-titled films that you can think of?