Throughout the runtime of MadS, I could feel the constant tension in my body, and that goes to show that the film does a pretty good job when it comes to horror. MadS, to describe briefly, is an hour and a half of complete insanity where nothing is what it seems. The sound design is intelligent and impactful, the execution of the one-shot is seamless and intriguing, and it creates tension that builds up to a feeling of constant panic. The visuals are mostly blurry, absurd, and shocking. MadS is definitely worth a watch, but the ending left me a little disappointed. I wished the element of absurdity continued till the very end instead of concluding on a realistic note. But regardless, MadS was quite an experience.
Spoiler Alert
Who was the woman who hopped into Romain’s car?
MadS began with a young man snorting cocaine at his dealer’s place and walking out high as a kite. He hopped into his luxury vintage car, ready to join his friends at his birthday party. But his good trip turned bad immediately after a random stranger got into his car. The stranger’s head was bandaged, and her clothes suggested that she escaped from some facility—either a hospital or a mental asylum. Even though she did not speak, it was evident that she desperately wanted to run away. Romain did not know how to deal with the situation. This was all too sudden, and he was extremely high to think logically. He decided to drop the woman off at a hospital, but she did not want that. She turned on an audio device that stated that the subject C39 was a female between the ages of 20 and 25, and her nationality was unknown. The audio recording went on to describe her features, but Romain did not know what to do with the information. The woman was not ready to be taken to the hospital, so she plucked out a sharp device from the glove compartment and repeatedly stabbed herself in the throat. Blood oozed out of her body, and before Romain could figure out what was going on, he was covered in her blood. Romain drove as fast as he could to his house. He assumed he would be in trouble if he reported the case to the police. Romain also seemed to share a strained relationship with his father. He was worried that his father would think he was worthless, and he did not wish for him to ever learn about the incident. The worst part—Romain could not think clearly. He needed to be alert and in the best of his senses, but then again he was high, and he did not even know what was real and what was imaginary anymore.
Romain took a shower, and by the time he went to the garage, the body was gone. It was obvious that the woman wasn’t dead, but where did she go? Before Romain could find an answer, his friend and romantic interest, Anais, dropped by his house. She wanted him to be romantic, but Romain was too wrapped up in his head. His friends showed up in front of his house, and Romain joined them to attend his birthday party. Before leaving, he turned on the alarm system at his place. Romain felt overwhelmed; the lights, the music, the loud conversations—everything made him feel uneasy. He was high; he had witnessed a possible death, but the body was missing—was it all a bad trip? Anais and her friend Julia entered the washroom, and they snorted the coke Romain had bought from his dealer. Anais noticed that Julia was carrying a pregnancy kit, and when she asked her if she had slept with someone, Julia responded that she had sex with Romain. Anais felt betrayed even though she tried to act cool about it.
Romain had been hiding in the bathroom. He repeatedly cracked his neck, and there was an overall uneasiness that he experienced physically and mentally. Julia did not expect Romain to surprise her in the washroom. While she enjoyed his passionate romance, she was terrified after seeing his glowy eyes. Julia left the washroom, and Romain received a call from his father asking him to immediately return home. The home alarm had gone off, and his father could see someone moving inside the house. On his way out of the party, Romain brutally punched a guy he ran into and left the party in a bike parked outside.
How did Romain spread the disease?
Romain hurried back home and turned off the alarm system. He was afraid of the police showing up at his place, and he was relieved to reach there on time. Romain realized that the woman was still in his house, and she had gone through the kitchen cupboard. He also found the audio device, and the recording suggested that the woman in his house was not an ordinary human being. She was studied in a laboratory, and scientists concluded that she showed unimaginable strength when exposed to light. They believed that the emission of photons resulted in a physiological reaction and excess adrenaline production, and they concluded it was due to neuroendocrine modulation. Romain followed the blood trail and entered the washroom. He saw her seated in the bathtub with a fork stabbed into her throat. It looked like she wanted to pull out a device embedded in her body, but she could not. It was evident that the woman/entity was impossible to kill and possessed superpowers.
All of a sudden, a group of commandos surrounded his house. Romain could not figure out if it was all a figment of his imagination or real. They intentionally exposed the entity to strong light. As expected, she responded to it and crawled out of the washroom. The men took her away, but they soon figured out that there was someone else in the house as well. They followed Romain. Romain turned animalistic; he licked the road, and he started biting his body. He had lost control of himself; he was no longer the man he once was. The commandos grabbed hold of him and took him along with them. While initially I was under the assumption that the drug Romain had taken was the reason behind his condition, as MadS progressed, it became evident that the entity he had come in contact with was the one responsible for spreading the infection, or at least that is the conclusion I came up with. Had it been the drugs, the effect would have faded at some point. Moreover, there were real-world effects of their actions, which would not have been possible if Romain and his friends were just high. Romain was covered in the blood of the entity, and maybe he had ingested some of it unknowingly.
What led to the shutdown of the entire city?
It was not just Romain who was infected; he had also successfully infected most of the people he had come in contact with! Julia and Anais could already feel the effect. Anais was high; she felt uneasy; her body started to involuntarily twist; her neck cracked; and her eyes were glowy. Her sane/rational side was scared of what she was turning into; it was almost as if a demonic being had taken possession of her body, and she did not know how to control it. She could also see the commandos following her, and she ended up entering a pub. She locked herself in the bathroom hoping that she would be safe there. She was surprised to see all the blood stains on her clothes. Anais could not believe that the night had turned this tragic. All she wanted was to get high and party, but here she was feeling as if the world was about to come to an end. Julia contacted her and complained that she was feeling unwell, and she too could see commandos following her. They agreed to meet at the station bridge.
As time passed, Anais’ condition worsened. She started to lose herself, and her demonic side took over. She attacked random strangers on her way and stole a bike. When she snapped back to her senses, she regretted her actions, but immediately after the demonic side took over and she forgot everything. Julia was riding her scooter. Even though she was high, she did not seem to be going through the bodily changes that Anais did. This came as a surprise because she had done drugs as well as kissed Romain. Maybe she was resistant to the foreign element, and that was what kept her alive. We soon realize that it was not Anais and Romain alone who had contracted the disease and turned into blood-craving zombies; the entire city had come to a standstill because of the epidemic. Warning alarms went off, and maybe it was an experiment gone wrong, and perhaps the woman was not the only one who had escaped. The government was definitely involved, given how prompt they were in dealing with the escapees.
What happened to Anais?
When Julia met Anais, she realized she could not save her best friend. Anais repeatedly tried to attack her, and Julia was genuinely scared. She pushed Anais off her scooter and decided to head home to help her mother, who was wheelchair-bound. It was tough for Julia to navigate through the city considering every other road was blocked and she was extremely high. She wanted to believe it was all her imagination, a bad trip that would fade away soon, but unfortunately, that was not the case. She could hear Anais following her. She had the power to run at great speed, and she followed Julia to her apartment building. Julia got stuck in the elevator, and she could hear Anais attacking the people living in the building. She screamed and begged for help, but there was no one around. Julia heard loud banging all of a sudden; it turned out to be the commandos. They asked her to turn herself in if she had been in contact with an infected person, but Julia did not respond. The lift started to work all of a sudden, and Julia tried to search for her mother. The building had turned bloody, and by the time she entered her apartment, she found Anais feasting on her mother’s body. Anais was about to attack Julia, and she ran for her life.
In MadS’ ending, Julia had to surrender herself to the commandos in masks. When they realized that she was not infected, they tried to help her. One of the commandos killed Anais but got bitten by her in the process. The woman behind the mask told Julia that she was instructed to kill herself if she ever came in contact with the infected. Before shooting herself, she advised Julia to stay in the dark and never to ingest the blood of the infected. She left Julia her weapon, and in the final scene, we see Julia laughing and crying at her misery. Julia lost everyone she loved without even understanding what was going on. All of a sudden she was handed a weapon and was asked to fight for survival, and she did not know what to do. Perhaps she hoped that it was all a bad dream and everything would go back to normal the next day. But that unfortunately does not seem to be a possibility. The epidemic was real; the only problem was they got high on the worst possible day.
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