Quarantine
Directed by John Erick Dowdle
When a news crew decides to trail a brave fire-fighting team, they never suspect that the first call for help they respond to that night may be their last. Now they're trapped in an apartment complex sealed off by the government. With no way of escape, they find themselves surrounded by frightened residents who are infected with a deadly mutant virus. What happens next is only known because of the footage they left behind.
Based on the Spanish-made chiller [REC], Quarantine is an effective piece of scare machinery that derives most of its terror by viewing the action from the perspective of a cameraman covering a routine emergency call that blooms into a nightmare. Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) is a TV host who accompanies a firefighting unit on a disturbance call at a decrepit apartment building. Once inside, the group discovers that the tenants are infected with a disease that has turned them into ravenous cannibals--and that all possible exits have been sealed off by a government-issued quarantine. As POV horror goes, QuarantineThe Blair Witch Project with the super-sized shocks of Cloverfield (without its nausea-inducing camerawork), and it largely delivers in both departments. Characters are stock at best, and the relentless jumping and shrieking gets wearying before the end credits, but the cast is game, especially Carpenter (a world class screamer, as established in The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and Jay Hernandez as one of the firemen, and the technical aspects (including some gruesome gore) are top-notch. -- Paul Gaita
Dumb Behavior
This should have been an excellent film because viewers already know the actors are very good from watching The Practice, Dexter, and other shows. The script portrayed the reporter, firemen, policemen and others to behave unprofessionally and sometimes in just plain foolish ways which made it hard for viewers to relate to them or the movie.
Movie Spoilers
Someone is experimenting with a rabies type disease in the attic of an apartment building. Max, a dog belonging to 5 year old, Briana, gets the disease possibly from an infected laboratory rat. Briana's father takes the dog to the veterinarian leaving an infected Briana and her mother at the apartment. The little girl or her dog infected an elderly woman and her dog. The elderly woman is screaming and acting crazy so police/firemen are called to the scene taking along a reporter and her cameraman along for a story. The city quarantines the building while everyone is in there because the Max the dog at the vet clinic attacks everyone and the dog is wearing a tag with its address on it so they know where it lived. Police, firemen, reporters and apartment renters are trapped in the building while the city police tell outside reporters everyone has been evacuated. There is a veterinarian in the building who says tears, saliva and fever and death occurs to anyone bitten.
Pro
1. The cameraman, Scott Percival was a true professional. He hung onto the camera through it all and even put it down still rolling at times to assist his fellow survivors when they were attacked including his reporter co-worker. He even continuously comforts his hysterical reporter co-worker who pays him back by deserting him.
2. The last fireman Jake is also professional and courageous. He was going to kill an infected woman when trapped in an apartment with others and another idiot prevented him from doing so. That woman attacked them all later. Fireman Fletcher is also a hero.
3. Firehouse mascot Wilshire the Dalmatian and his stop, drop and roll routine if caught on fire was educational and amusing.
Con
1. The last policeman Danny Wilensky acts completely unprofessional. This guy initially pulled a gun on the fireman, reporter, cameraman and renter when he finds them trying to escape. He knows people are dying around them and if bitten, they are infected and he foolishly wants to obey the order of a superior officer who turned off the electricity to their building and lied to the city saying they were evacuated. This policeman sees people getting bitten and sees little Briana bite her mother. He stupidly handcuffs the infected soon to be violent mother to the staircase endangering anyone coming up and down the stairs. Then he runs after little Briana KNOWING she is dangerous and infected and says "take my hand".when her mouth is bloody and she is crazed. He had the gall to act surprised when she bit him.
2. The young professional female reporter Angela Vidal is truly pathetic. She never helps anyone who gets attacked especially towards the end. Yet, she expects the cameraman and the one remaining fireman to help her when she is attacked. She screams and jumps at every sound giving away their position and clings to the men. Her Blair Witch filming towards the end was only missing the snotty nose. The film photo above shows 2 hands and no weapon. She is in a lab with glass equipment, chairs, and lab chemicals and all sorts of things that can act as improvised weapons but she just whines. It was truly disgusting for a modern professional woman to behave this way. There was a kind of satisfaction when she didn't make it either.
3. Too cliched. The mother over reacting to the idea that her quite clearly infected 5 year old be isolated in other room was just too cliched. If this woman had other children, she would not have acted like this and as a mother she should have wanted to protect the other children and people in the building. She could have stayed with her daughter in isolation. Instead the mother fights off the others from getting to her daughter and the mother gets bitten/infected and the infected child runs off to attack/infect others later.
A tense and chilling horror film...
I really liked "Quarantine" despite the number of people who bash it. Yes, it's an example of a serious and debilitating problem in the US horror movie genre right now in that it's a remake of another movie. I'm sure most horror fans like myself are tired of seeing unnecessary remakes of classic horror movies we've already seen and are ready to see some original stories being written. However, when the film in question is a remake of a foreign-language film and it sticks to the original concept and story, then I don't have so much of a problem. And so it is with "Quarantine".
Yes, it's a remake of the Spanish movie [*REC]. Since the two films are almost identical, I prefer this one since I don't have to take my eyes off the action to read subtitles. "Quarantine" is a claustrophobic, tense, and chilling little film and I enjoyed it very, very much. Jennifer Carpenter put in a great performance, as did the rest of the cast, and if you enjoy good horror movies you will enjoy this one. Is it a milestone in the horror film genre? No. But then again, milestones are few and far between, hence the term. I *can* tell you that "Quarantine" is the most memorable horror film I've seen since it premiered in US theaters and pretty much kept me on the edge of my seat once things kicked into gear.
My only qualm with the DVD release is the price. $19.95 for a single edition DVD with so few extras? Come on... Not cool, guys.
Cheers
B
Far better than the previews would lead you to believe.
Quarantine is a much better movie than its previews would lead you to believe. Previews make it look like people are trapped in an old building with zombies running amok in it. Maybe they came up from the sewers.
In fact it follows a reality TV reporter who is following an LA fire crew on calls. They go to a building when neighbors have reported screams coming from the apartment of an old lady. What follows is the outbreak of a savage, mind destroying disease where tenants and first responders find them sealed in with those already infected, by the CDC.
Like Cloverfield and Blair Witch, the film is shot from the single camera view of the reality reporter's camera man. Unlike those films the camera work is clean and does not distract the viewer. Watch the long shot when a call comes as the camera man has to follow the reporter down a hall, a flight of stairs and into a truck and realize it was all done in one take without cuts. The first 20 minutes of the film are the `reality show' walking around the fire house, talking to members of the fire crew and setting the stage by letting you meet the key players in the film. This is clearly the set up but it doesn't feel stilted. You don't feel like saying `get on with it" because you care about the characters. Carpenter, as the on air talent is likeable and believable, going from bubbly on air talent, to real reporter as things turn serious to scared human as she realizes just how deep in they are. And she takes the viewer with her.
Previews make this look like just another zombie film. There are certainly elements of that in Quarantine but for the genre it is so much better than much of the competition. They even have an explanation, scary in how reasonable it is, for what is happening. Is it "Sound of Music?" of course not. It is a horror film, but one in which the director has taken a lot of care to make the whole thing frighteningly possible.
