INFECTED (2008)
Stars: Gil Bellows, Maxim Roy, Judd Nelson, Isabella Rossellini | Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov, Christian Ford | Directed by Adam Weissman
Infected is another story of alien invasion, this time set in Boston. Ben (Gil Bellows) works for The Boston Daily in their “Mysteries of Science” department, whilst looking for the latest weird story he stumbles into an alien plot infect the earth’s population: When city hall employee Taylor Lambert becomes aware of an alien plot to infect humans with a plague thought the water supply, he tries to prove it by assassinating the Mayor and taking a sample of his blood. Now a wanted man, he contacts newspaper journalist Lisa Wallace (Maxim Roy) for help. Attempting to contact her he gets her ex-boyfriend Ben instead. After getting the mayor’s blood analyzed Lisa & Ben find out that the blood is not what it seems and that they have walked into an alien conspiracy to use Earth as an alien breeding colony, with its inhabitants as both host and food for their offspring.
Coming across as a feature length X-Files episode, Infected reflects all that was good about the Fox series in its early days. Ben and Lisa are very much like Mulder and Scully at first, with Ben as the skeptic and Lisa the believer. Until, of course, Ben sees the truth for himself. There’s also an organic food farm in the opening that looks it was filmed at the same location as the iconic X-Files alien bee farm. And the TV references don’t stop there: the aliens wear human skin like the aliens in V, and Infected even goes as far as to “homage” an alien face-ripping scene from the original V mini-series.
Whilst Judd Nelson is promoted as one of the stars of Infected, his role is sadly more of a cameo. He pops up as a “good” alien, who doesn’t agree with his compatriots plan to invade the earth. He only stays long enough to explain why Ben is key to stopping the invasion – he has one-of-a-kind genetic defect, which whilst sterilizing him, makes him immune to alien infection; thus leading to Ben becoming a sort of ‘living weapon’ against the aliens. The same goes for Isabella Rossellini – her role as the Editor-in-Chief of The Boston Daily sees her pop up in just a couple of scenes, including one highly notable scene where alien arms burst out of her [fully clothed] boobs! Being a TV production, the SFX in Infected are mostly CGI – including Rossellini’s alien arms, alien faces, bodies crawling with alien larvae, a rotten eye socket and larvae eating their way out of our hero, Ben’s, abdomen. Most work well, and it helps that they’re not on screen for long. When we see the final ‘boss’ alien, which resembles a cricket/grasshopper on two legs, it does start to look like a videogame however.
Like many TV movies Infected is let down slightly by the budget, but the production is held together by the excellent performances of leads Gil Bellows and Maxim Roy. And whilst not a classic of the alien invasion genre, the film has much more to offer viewers than recent rehashed Hollywood sci-fi movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Invasion…
DISC SPECS:
Screen Format: 1.78:1 Widescreen / Color
Audio: English / Surround Sound 2.0
Subtitles: English
*** (3/5)
