Infected (2008), a genre derivative Canadian television adventure/science-fiction thriller, is also known as They’re Among Us and The Hatching. Stinkweed by any other name is still stinkweed.
An X-Files re-dux, which also borrows heavily from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a newspaper reporter and his ex-girlfriend (also a reporter, who won’t put it on the glass for him anymore), uncover an extraterrestrial plan to take over human bodies so that aliens can live more comfortably on this toilet Earth. Most of Infected is spent running, hiding, and uncovering proof of the colonisation. What little pay-off there is comes in the form of a naked humans wrapped in sheets that probably won’t be able to be cleaned and kept under alien sedation in a facility that looks suspiciously like my proctologist’s office.
Once the aliens have been outed their true selves emerge, looking like a cross between a lobster and black. The reporter risks his neck to save his ex, who previously did not want to put it on the glass for him anymore. But it’s amazing how alien intervention can mend broken glass. So does Infected end happily for the aliens or the humans? I am beyond caring.
Jeff Gilbert, Drinkin’ & Drive-In
