This is the first in a series of Japanese horror films released under the banner J-Horror Theater — a projected run of six movies, each with different directors, linked by the same production team.
Infection begins in a small run-down hospital in the middle of a crisis. Too many patients, supplies running out, staff not paid... you almost think that the infection in the title is already overrunning the city outside (which we never see).
Of the remaining staff and patients, each one has a different preoccupation. One of the nurses is having trouble giving injections (she keeps missing the vein), two patients have fallen out of their beds and injured themselves, and one patient sees people in mirrors who aren’t in the room.
For the busy doctors, torn between an operation that's going badly and an ambulance trying to leave a seriously ill patient in the ER, things start going very wrong. As an unknown infection turns the new patient into green slime, everyone in the building suddenly finds themselves at risk of a fate worse than death, as the hospital dissolves into chaos.
The film cleverly distances itself from TV medical dramas with a ‘look’ that’s not quite right for a hospital. It’s not quite ramshackle or dirty, but maybe has a few too many dark corners. The cinematography achieves an unusual visual style – a crystal clear image, but with queasy, green-edged shadows.
A sense of unease and uncanniness is quickly established that soon put me on edge and creeped me out. The many storylines that are established with each of the characters, slowly start to pay off. For a long while I wasn’t sure just which direction the story was going to go, which made it even more intriguing.
Despite melting patients and glops of green goo, there’s still much that is left unseen, which would certainly have been shown in an FX-fest if this were a western horror film. There are still some excessive scenes, but the director wisely chooses to leave some extreme moments to the imagination. He achieves a fine balance of being subtly gory.
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