Another class effort from Japanese. This slice of J-horror doesn't offer an easy, linear viewing experience; it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and the viewer is required to make his or her mind up about a lot of what is happening. The obtuse, abstract nature of the production might be off-putting to viewers who want spoon-feeding, but I really liked it.
And it's an incredibly eerie production set in one of the most run-down and depressing locations ever: a dark and dingy hospital, full of dirt and tired medical staff who wish they were somewhere else. The plotting begins when an unspecified patient suffering from some kind of infection is brought in, stretching the already stressed staff to breaking point.
There are some quite wonderful set-pieces, my favourite being the extended sequence and aftermath of the team trying to resuscitate a burns victim; haunting stuff indeed. There are the requisite jump scenes and gore spread out here and there, but it's the incredibly foreboding atmosphere which I liked the best. The director makes great use of his colour palette, particularly the contrast between green and red, and the performances are the ultra-professional ones you'd expect from Japan. INFECTION might be just too unwieldy a film for me to describe it as a favourite, but it's certainly a remarkable one all the same.
And it's an incredibly eerie production set in one of the most run-down and depressing locations ever: a dark and dingy hospital, full of dirt and tired medical staff who wish they were somewhere else. The plotting begins when an unspecified patient suffering from some kind of infection is brought in, stretching the already stressed staff to breaking point.
There are some quite wonderful set-pieces, my favourite being the extended sequence and aftermath of the team trying to resuscitate a burns victim; haunting stuff indeed. There are the requisite jump scenes and gore spread out here and there, but it's the incredibly foreboding atmosphere which I liked the best. The director makes great use of his colour palette, particularly the contrast between green and red, and the performances are the ultra-professional ones you'd expect from Japan. INFECTION might be just too unwieldy a film for me to describe it as a favourite, but it's certainly a remarkable one all the same.