Contracted (2013)★★★☆☆

Tonight’s post is a special one, because it’s really half of a post. I saw the first Contracted a year or two ago on Netflix, and while I mostly liked it, I always felt there was something missing and I wasn’t sure how to articulate it.

I saw that the sequel was recently added on Netflix and was pretty excited, but wanted to watch the first one again – it had been a while since I’d seen the original, and I read that the second started immediately after the events of the first. And it turns out, I’m pretty sure what was missing from the first movie was…the second movie.

Now, I haven’t watched the second one yet to confirm (that’s tomorrow’s movie), but watching the first tonight made that a little clearer. As movies go, Contracted is reasonably well acted (everyone except BJ, really) and has a great background score to it. The story is interesting, and realistic enough to make the scary bits even more horrifying.

But it’s a slooooow movie. I don’t mean that the pacing is slow, because that’s not quite it. I think the movie is paced okay (albeit missing a real ending), but all the action and chatter happens…slowly. It’s similar to the effect in Final Girl, and rubs me exactly the same way as it did in that movie – which is to say, the wrong way.

Anyway, I’m excited that Phase II is available now. It’s like I’ll finally get closure to this half of a movie I first saw a year ago! I think I would have rated this one higher if I felt like it wrapped itself up. I guess it’s accurate as it stands, though – it’s an incomplete movie, so it gets an incomplete rating. I hope the second one does better at that.