"Infection" ("Kansen"), a Japanese medical horror film with a story by Ryoichi Kimizuka and screenplay and direction from Masayuki Ochiai, has the potential to be a winner because of its particular mixture of horror tropes. It combines the obvious opportunities in a hospital environment for physical horror with the psychological, throwing in a hint of the supernatural for good measure. However, its complicated plot fails to resolve all of its subplots and leaves the viewer wondering just what was behind the "infection" that causes the horrific psychological mayhem that the film portrays.

 

Released in Japan in 2004, this movie made its U.S. premiere via DVD (Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment) in 2005. Writer-director Ochiai, whose filmography also includes "Shutter" (2008), most recently directed "Ju-on: The Beginning of the End," the seventh installment in the Ju-on franchise, which was released in Japan this year.

 

"Infection" is set in a small Japanese hospital that has seen better days. Due to incompetent management, morale is at a low among its nurses, many of whom have quit, forcing the remaining staff to work long hours. Dr. Akiba (Kôichi Satô) , the doctors' representative, has just found out that he and his colleagues are no longer being paid. Business is so bad that the nursing supervisor (Kaho Minami) no longer has a budget to order new supplies. As a result of all of these factors, the hospital closes to new patients, shuttering its ER. The doctors would like to transfer the remaining inpatients to other facilities, but there is nowhere for them to go.

 

Unfortunately for all concerned, one more new patient arrives -- or (more accurately) is dumped, by an ambulance crew who has been unable to find a hospital that will take him because he appears to have an unknown, aggressive infection. This is one of the central events of the film, which is foreshadowed from the film's opening by a series of radio transmissions from the ambulance driver which are heard as a voice-over while the camera presents an image of a flashing red light.

 

The other key event is the death of a long-term, severely ill patient due to a medical error that occurs during a failed resuscitation. When Dr. Akai (Shirô Sano), who was thought by the staff to be sleeping in another room, overhears them conspiring to cover up the error by hastening the decay of the now-dead patient's body, he uses this knowledge to blackmail the other doctors into helping him to investigate the infected patient's disease so that he can become a famous physician.

 

Soon thereafter, the infected patient appears to dissolve into a puddle of rotten, green flesh, but the doctors and nurses discover only too late that he has actually transformed into something sinister that is hiding in the shadows of the hospital. One by one, the staff begin to come down with symptoms of the infection, beginning with the nursing supervisor. But what is causing it and how is it being spread? The answer to this question comes only partially and too late for those who discover it -- Dr. Akiba and his neurologist colleague, Dr. Nakazono (Michiko Hada), for whom the answer is beyond medical science.

The full answer, however, is revealed only by the viewer at the film's end; even then, there appears to be more to the story -- information that could only be supplied by a sequel. This film has a very interesting premise that generates more loose ends than it ties up. For example, there is a recurring segment involving a playground, on which one of the swings moves as if someone is swinging on it -- but there is nobody there. This suggests some type of supernatural influence. However, the significance of this segment is never made clear. Also, there is a young boy who is a patient in the hospital. He wears a costume mask, which suggests he has something to do with the evil that is going on, but he appears to be afraid and is not presented as involved in the infection and its aftermath. Perhaps there is some aspect of Japanese culture at work here that I am not able to understand or references to other horror films that I have not yet seen. Rated "R" by the MPAA, "Infection" is currently available on DVD from Netflix.

 

The Frisco Kid