Contamination .7 (1990) — Triskaidekafiles

CONTAMINATION .7

WRITERS: Daniel Steel and Albert Lawrence

DIRECTOR: Martin Newlin

STARRING: Mary Sellers as Josie

Jason Saucier as Matt

Bubba Reeves as Taylor

Chelsi Stahr as Susan

Vince O'Neil as Sheriff

Edy Eby as Jack

QUICK CUT: Sometimes, you gotta remember to trim your trees.

THE MORGUE

Josie - A small town girl who’s returning home after a few years in the big city. She loves her family and friends, and makes them easily.

Matt - The boy Josie left behind in town, and he’s got some major big lug energy, but he’s smarter than that. Typical small town boy.

Taylor - A scientist who works at the local power plant, who isn’t about to let them contaminate everyone with radiation.

Dr. Krueger - Taylor’s boss, and he IS gonna let everyone get contaminated.

Sheriff - The local authority in this small town, and 100% in the pocket of the power plant.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! I slightly goofed up my schedule, and suddenly had a hole in it. I was gonna do a 50 packer, but wasn't feeling that. I grabbed this disc, it felt right, and hey! Bonus! Earth Day content! So let's just dive right into Contamination .7! A title that will never make a lick of sense. The alternate title of The Crawlers isn’t much better. And the less said about this being Troll 3, the better.

Things start off on a bus, as we meet our lead Josie. She is returning home, and she meets someone who feels like another lead, but spoilers, will end up dead by the end of act one.

And it's not starting off well for Susie, when she gets off the bus at a local gas station to get a drink, and misses the bus before it leaves. She's now stranded at Jack's gulp 'n' go, and will spend pretty much her last few hours here.

Josie, on the other hand, does make it home, and reunites with her high school boyfriend. Wait, let me double check that I didn't walk into a Hallmark movie.

While all this domestic stuff is going on, there's a problem with the local trees; they're drying out mysteriously. And at a nearby power plant, Doctor Taylor tries to tell his boss there is a strange, ridiculously high, levels of radiation all over the forest.

Doctor Krueger dutifully listens to his employee, says his concerns are noted, and will look into it. Spoiler, he will not, because it could affect business.

And just to make sure Taylor keeps quiet, Krueger blackmails him with some booze he found, and holds it over him if he should talk. I mean, he doesn't outright SAY that, but the implication is clear

Don’t forget your bottle of balsamic vinegar!

Taylor stops at Jack's, where Josie is still waiting, so she at least can get a ride into town. However, he's a bit too much into one particular choice on the "Ass, Grass, or Cash" payment system, and he gets a bit too hands on.

She jumps out of his truck, and he chases her off into the woods, eventually giving up. She gets left behind, now even more remote than she was before. Josie is NOT having a good day.

As Josie wanders around the forest for a bit, something stalks through the branches after her, and this unseen thing eventually grabs and drags her off.

Wait wait, that WASN'T Taylor. Damnit movie, if you're gonna have one slovenly drunken brown haired dude, don't throw another one in, it gets confusing. I had to watch several scenes repeatedly just to confirm enough for myself it was two different guys. It was an entirely DIFFERENT Drunky McGropesalot.

Actual Taylor shows up at the bar, getting drunk, and heads off to take his mind off things with a local prostitute. But he can't get it up, and instead muses about the radiation in the woods.

While he tries to sort things out, Jack's dog, Chester, breaks free, runs off into the woods, and is reunited with Susie in the worst way possible.

Yes, I would like to help you, Mister Nigerian Prince…

Josie and Matt continue to reconnect on a nature walk, and decide it would be a great idea to bone right there on the forest floor.

She hears something and wanders around a bit. Just as you think she's about to be the next victim of the unseen thing in the woods, Matt spooks her.

That's when they stumble over Susie's body, crumpled on the forest floor. Congratulations, you just fucked next to a corpse!

Like responsible citizens, they report it to the local police, and Sheriff Overdub just brushes it aside, not believing them, and instead choosing to believe they got high in the woods.

But they threaten to go to the state police, and he eventually, reluctantly, sluggishly, agrees to go with them to see the body.

And to no one's surprise, the body is gone. It has been picked up by the people at the power plant to hide it, and do an autopsy to see what's going on. And oh, gasp surprise the second, the sheriff told them, so he's on on all this.

Someone really needs their beauty sleep.

Taylor wanders back in, and I'm sure it's him this time at least, as he tries to bring more evidence to Krueger so it can be further ignored. He's found out the trucks disposing of their radioactive waste, are not arriving at their destination.

He gets chased out of work by two men in black suits, while Jack loads his shotgun and goes into the woods to get revenge for his dog after whatever is out there turned it into kibble. Which goes about as well as you'd expect.

Meanwhile, Taylor is caught in a rural highway car chase, as he tries to lose the two men in suits, until he bails on his car and runs off into the forest.

This plan actually works out in Taylor's favour, as whatever is lurking within the woods takes care of the agents for him.

He watches from a nearby tree as the branches reach out and strangle the two men to death, and he escapes.

I am sure, with all this build up, all this teasing, this holding off on revealing the creatures, will be well worth the wait!!

Oh, things haven't been working out between Matt and Josie, so he ends up visiting the local hooker too. They end up talking about Taylor's work, and oh hey, he actually left some notes behind!

Yes, that's right, a visit to the hooker actually ends up being *important to the plot*. I…that’s kinda amazing.

Meanwhile, Taylor rushes to Sheriff Overdub, but again, Sheriff Onthetake brushes it aside, and even threatens Taylor with a gun when he tries to call the governor.

Matt and his dad go up in a helicopter, access to which is never really explained, and meanwhile, Jack's grandson suddenly shows up. Yeah, because dropping a major character into the plot midway through is always a good idea!

Yeah, this movie is suddenly shifting into "And suddenly, things just happen!" mode.

Bonus points, Brian is an investigative reporter, and doesn't believe what little Sheriff Overdubbed tells him. So he heads to Matt's dad, since he was close with Jack, and this has Brian and the kids teaming up for justice.

So everyone meets that night to go investigating, and Josie drags her kid brother along, because she couldn't find a babysitter. But to be fair, he pulls his weight, because he knows the symbols on Taylor's maps are about radiation levels.

They head off to dig up Jack's grave and check out his body. Once they do, they find the casket empty, because the power plant doesn't want any evidence.

Susie shows up to warn them she saw someone coming, so they run off before they get caught or worse.

It turns out to be Sheriff Overdub and his deputy, whom he delegates to fill in the empty grave, while he goes looking for the gravediggers.

And it's not long before Plantman shows up to fill the hole in with the deputy's body.

Meanwhile, Taylor uses his scientific know how to get his hands on a tiny spring he bends into a lockpick, so he can escape the holding cell he's in.

They realise there's still one body left the cops probably never thought of, and go to dig up Jack's dog, Chester. Who is buried over some RIDICULOUSLY loud stones.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Overdub has thought of it now, and stops them before they can reach the canine corpse.

Fortunately, the vines decide to break in and save the day, killing Sheriff Overdub.

I twigged the sheriff, and okay I also twigged the deputy.

Our quartet regroup at a nearby general store, and decide they need to rush around town and warn as many people as possible. So, 1-2-3...BREAK! and Josie and Davey go to find her parents, while the boys will take care of the rest.

Things don't go smoothly, as cars get stuck, there's the occasional vine attack to break things up, and generally people don't wanna believe someone banging on their doors in the middle of the night yelling about killer plants, even if you're Mark Wahlberg.

Once the sun comes up, everyone regroups at the local diner, to their varying degrees of success. They decide their next course of action is to go to the nuclear plant to warn them, and again try and warn the people.

And I genuinely love hos fuckin' *done* Brian is after spending a night getting shot at by distrustful locals.

Oh ho ho, the ol' vine in the tailpipe bit, a real classic!

On the drive to the plant, they see Taylor who needs a ride, and like a good infodump hitchhiker, he fills in the blanks of the plot for them.

So they all confront Krueger, but they let it slip that they don't know where the dump site is, limiting their evidence.

But he knows his days are numbered, pulls a gun, and threatens the group, before finally turning the gun on himself and pulling the trigger. ...I am finding a LOT of suicides in my movies lately.

They regroup and try to figure out what to do next, Brian wants to call in the EPA or any sort of authority, but that could take days, or weeks, or who knows!, and he eventually gets fed up and leaves the rest to their own devices.

Which is when the entire town comes in, rallied by Josie's mom, to lend a hand and do what only a united townsfolk can.

The one time when an angry mob came together to do some good.

So Matt's dad and Taylor hop into the never explained helicopter, to fly over the area in search of the dump site. Which they find by Taylor pointing his Geiger counter around, and directing them towards the radiation spikes until they do.

And uh, I may not be entirely sure on this, but I do not believe that is quite how those counters work. I mean, in general the idea is sound, but I think it falls apart because of range?

They eventually find a pile of barrels just dumped in the dirt somewhere, and Taylor gets attacked by the vines when they land to investigate further.

Matt’s dad hops back in the chopper and takes off with a very "Oh no! ...well, anyways" attitude, but the vines won't let him leave so easily.

He fires a flare off into the air, and the entire town piles into their cars and drives off to deal with the problem.

The chopper can't take the strain the vines are putting on everything, and like a good piece of Hollywood machinery, dutifully explodes.

Matt and everyone show up and are ready to get to work, but Matt wants to find his father first, sure he must be nearby. And yeah, he's over there. And over there. And a bit over there. And...

And that's how the entire town got radiation poisoning.

Seriously, these barrels have been out there for who knows how long, leaking all over the place, and they're just digging 100s of them up in tank tops and work gloves??

The townsfolk start digging up the barrels so they can be properly disposed of, and the vines don't take kindly to that, protecting their home.

Everything looks pretty bleak, because while the work is going apace, the vines are too strong, and too many, and slowly overwhelming the townsfolk.

...Which is when BULLDOZERS SUDDENLY APPEAR TO SAVE THE DAY.

Back when Brian stormed off, he made some calls and brought in some proper authorities, and not in weeks or months, like everyone feared.

Although, uh, how exactly is just bulldozing the entire dump site gonna do anything? Yeah, it might smother the vines but...they're roots, so they like the underground. Plus, wouldn't crushing the barrels and burying them in a hurry like this, when *they are already leaking* just make the problem worse, or at least not go away?? Wasn't the whole point to get the barrels out, sealed properly, and disposed of where they belong?? Grah.

But whatever, everything gets swept under the rug, we cut ahead to Christmas, and we learn that Josie came home from the big city and got herself knocked up by her high school sweetheart, and I am frankly offended.

However, something weird is going on with the Christmas tree, as roots are breaking out of the pot as the movie goes to credits.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not too bad, nothing to stand out though.

Audio: Serviceable as well.

Sound Bite: "If you really saw a corpse, it's not going anywhere! It won't run away!"

Body Count: Definitely not bad! Even if a large chunk of them come from the massacre at the end.

1 - Susie gets tree groped about 17 minutes in

2 - Chester gets gobbled in the shrubbery

3 - Gas station dude gets dragged off

4 - Agent Trebek gets vined

5 - Agent Handlebars is next

6 - A deputy gets dragged off by the vines

7 - The vines come next for the sheriff

8 - They next get Matt's grandma

9 - Taylor gets drowned and choked by vines.

10 - Matt’s dad goes boom.

10 - Random townsperson gets attacked while removing barrels

11 - And another

12 - And another

13 - And another

14 - And another!

15 - And yet another, oh wait, that might’ve been the hooker.

Best Corpse: Definitely not spoiled for choice, that’s for sure. I’ll give this to the sheriff, who has a slow, gruesome death.

Blood Type - C: There’s not a lot, but they do a few good bits of makeup, and the tree attacks are done well enough.

Drink Up! Every time Taylor drinks up.

Movie Review: This is a pretty basic story. If we rank it by Troll movies, it’s probably the best of the trio. The acting is all right, overdubbing aside. The story definitely makes sense, which is at least a plus, and everything is just fine from a storytelling standpoint. My biggest complaint is that there’s nothing to really make it stand out. It feels very average. There are a few stand out moments though, like Brian encountering small town folks, getting shot at, and the hooker actually being integral to the plot. But ultimately, it’s very much there. Nothing bad, nothing great. Three out of five Geiger counters.

Entertainment Value: The best stuff in this is some of the overacting. Even overdubbed, the sheriff brings it. Krueger is almost a cartoon villain, but rides that line VERY close. The vine attacks are fun. Aside from some scenery chewing though, there’s not a whole lot here, again, just enough to keep you going, but nothing stand out. Three out of five carnivorous plant toys.