Infection 2005

In a run-down, understaffed hospital, a troubling sequence begins when Dr. Akiba refuses to admit a patient who arrives with a strange black rash, and a severe crisis unfolds in Room 3: a burn victim dies after receiving the wrong drug. To avoid blame, Akiba, Dr. Uozumi, and four nurses decide to shield themselves, moving the body to an unused room while the eyebrows of suspicion grow. The head nurse later discovers that the patient Akiba previously refused to admit has been left in the hallway and informs him, triggering a tense moment of realization.

When Akiba goes to check, he finds that Doctor Akai has taken the patient and chosen to study his symptoms. Although the patient is alive, his body mass appears to liquefy into a green, viscous goo. Not knowing how much Akai understands about the events surrounding Room 3, Akiba and the others reluctantly agree to assist with the examination. Yet upon returning to the patient’s room, they discover the patient has vanished and the head nurse is unconscious, intensifying the fear that something is terribly wrong.

The head nurse regains consciousness and begins acting oddly, bleeding green goo from her ears and eyes. The doctors recognize the risk of a contagious infection and respond by placing her on a bed and wrapping her in plastic to try to contain the spread. Soon after, the mean nurse encounters the young nurse drawing blood on herself, and their conversation spirals into chaos as the young nurse releases a maniacal laugh and drives two needles into her own body, splattering green goo onto the other nurse.

As the medical team confronts the consequences of their actions, emotional guilt overtakes Dr. Uozumi during a conversation with a patient he treated earlier. Akiba enters and finds Uozumi alone, and a startling transformation occurs: Uozumi’s eyes turn white and green goo seeps from him. Akiba panics and flees the room, only to encounter the infected, now-infected mean nurse, who smiles eerily and hangs upside down from the ceiling, her blood-green visage a chilling sign of the danger that has invaded the hospital.

Realizing the infection behaves as more than a physical pathogen, Akiba accuses Akai of creating and spreading it. Akai denies responsibility, offering a different explanation: the infection travels through the subconscious and is spread mentally. He urges Akiba to revisit what happened in Room 3 earlier that night. Dr. Nakazono walks in on Akiba speaking to himself, forcing him to recognize that he has been confronting a reflection rather than a colleague. Behind him, the corpses of the two nurses lie still, their bodies both bloodied and devoid of the green goo, signaling a moment of eerie calm amid chaos. Nakazono concludes that the preceding hours were a hallucination, and she formally summons the police as Akiba remembers that Akai was actually the burn patient.

The narrative then reveals a startling reversal: the same sequence unfolds again, but this time with Akiba occupying the role of the burn patient and Akai as Akiba, who gives the order for the wrong drug and precipitates a massacre of the entire staff. The hospital is evacuated by the next day, with police combing the premises for Akiba, who has disappeared into the night. As Nakazono leaves the hospital, she notices a chilling phenomenon—the red lights flip to green and back again, and in a moment of panic, she cuts her hand, watching green blood spill forth.

A final, haunting image closes the tale: a locker in the room where the burn victim was held; someone inside calls for help as green goo pours out. The locker top slides open, and Akiba’s hand, smeared with the green substance, reaches out before collapsing to the floor, leaving a lingering sense of danger, illusion, and unresolved menace hovering over the hospital.