Ten Days of Terror!: Infection

Film: Infection (Kansen)
Format: DVD from Stockton Township Public Library on gigantic television.

I like a good horror movie, and sometimes I like a bad one, evidenced by just how much of the They Shoot Zombies list I have watched. And while I don’t seek out gore, I’m not someone who tends to shy away from it very often. The horror stuff that bothers me isn’t blood or the supernatural or even home invasions. It’s medical stuff. For whatever reason, horror that happens in hospitals, or things happening badly in a medical setting affect me a great deal. Why else would it have taken me a decade to get to Infection (or Kansen if you prefer)?

This is a horror movie that takes place in a hospital. It’s also a film that moves very slowly in terms of the infection in the title. But don’t worry—there’s plenty that is upsetting before we get there. We’re going to be centered in a run-down, underfunded and understaffed hospital. Everyone is overworked, patients are being ignored, and the staff is desperate to keep the hospital open if only to save their own jobs. Two things happen at the same time. One, an ambulance brings in a patient with a strange black rash, but Dr. Akiba (Kōichi Satō) refuses entry to the patient. Second, a patient suffering from severe burns is given the wrong medication and dies on the table. (