Movie Trick

Most audience members stumbling into “Quarantine” will have no idea it’s a remake of a 2007 Spanish horror film titled “Rec.”

Quarantine Screen

since the original picture never broke through to America due to distribution disinterest, and that’s a cryin’ shame. “Rec” was a beautiful chiller, constructed with resourcefulness and genre filmmaking wizardry that instilled a modest concept with the right amount of armrest-ripping content to fuel nightmares for weeks. “Quarantine” is the unavoidable American replica, only this version has ingested a bottle of idiot pills and washed it all down with a full glass of directorial incompetence.

The list includes The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield the three share their reliance on the illusion of hand-held camera effects to achieve a homemade, ‘more authentic’ visualization and if hadn’t hit the theaters nine months ago, Quarantine would have seemed so much more original. Sure, it’s a remake of a 2007 Spanish horror film, so in truth, Cloverfield was the rip-off movie. However, most of the movie going audience is going to see this movie as a knock-off of that J.J. Abrams giant monster movie.

Still, rip-off or not, Quarantine is a great film for horror-philes to whet their appetites before Saw V comes out in a few weeks.

Quarantine is somewhat scary i must say, it relies primarily on fear of the dark and the “stuff jumping out unexpectedly” techniques to make it so. Arguably, the decision to stick with the film being that made by the news camera operator shuts down many, many angles of exploration that could have made the film so much better because as it is we only see what he sees in one continuous line. Who knows what else might have been going on elsewhere that would have been far scarier or more terrifying.

The film follows a news crew that is shadowing some firemen. After a rather unspectacular introduction to the crew and the firemen, they respond to a 911 call in an apartment building. They come in to rescue a sick old woman in her apartment, but soon they find themselves in a much more terrifying situation.

A mysterious illness that resembles rabies with a terrifyingly short incubation period is ripping through the apartment building. The authorities outside seal off the building, leaving the residents, the news crew and the firemen to fend for themselves as the disease runs its course.

There have been several of these fly-on-the-wall sort of movies made recently, from both the studios and the indie circuit. With only a few getting wide theatrical releases, they haven’t suffered from overkill yet, but if Quarantine sees the success of Cloverfield, that might not be far off.

For the mean time, horror movie fans can enjoy the visceral experience presented in Quarantine. While the film has plenty of flaws, the core purpose of the film – to make people jump out of their seats – is executed with intense precision.

Like many horror movies, this film is filled with characters who make god-awful decisions. Rather than barricading themselves in their apartments, everyone gathers in the atrium to die or get infected one-by-one. Also, it literally takes an hour into the film before anyone really figures out what’s going on, but you don’t have to be an expert veterinarian to see that people are getting infected by each other.

Anyone going to see Quarantine should know exactly what they’re going to get. The trailers and advertising of the film literally reveals the entire plot, and even treats the audience to the very last shot of the film.

There is absolutely no reason why anyone under 17 would ever in a million years need to see this gruesome, violent film. It is Rated R which means that no one under 17 can get in without a parent or guardian. Don’t be that parent or guardian.

Still, it’s not so important what happens as it is to watch the grisly events of how things happen.

While the film is a bit of a slow-starter, things reach a frenzy soon enough. The action is top-notch, especially for such an intimate film. And the violence, while off-putting to the weak-stomached, is powerful, creepy and terrifying.

My Rate is:  C+

Reviewing “Quarantine” on its own merits is a difficult challenge, since “Rec” is as close to perfection as fright films get these days. To the uninitiated, the remake will be easy enough to swallow, with plenty of boo scares and hysterical overacting to justify the price of admission. For “Rec” fans, there’s no reason to return to this story.