Reviews
Quarantine
Reviewed by: Ryan Rotten
Rating: 7 out of 10
Movie Details: View here
Cast:
Jennifer Carpenter as Angela Vidal
Steve Harris as Scott Percival
Jay Hernandez as Jake
Johnathon Schaech as George Fletcher
Columbus Short as Danny Wilensky
Andrew Fiscella as James McCreedy
Greg Germann as Lawrence
Directed by John Dowdle
Review:
I never thought seeing Rec would have made writing a review for Quarantine such a bitch. In fact, shortly after seeing the latter, I considered exhuming my Rec critique, swapping out the title, replacing the Spanish actors names for their American replacements and calling it day. That's how similar the two films are. Except, one exhilarated me. The other left me feeling rather apathetic. Care to guess which one? (Hint: Check out my rating for Rec.) Quarantine is by no means a failure on the Dowdle Bros. (John and Drew) part. They were asked to redo Rec in English. They succeeded.
Quarantine is a taut production with infectious on-screen energy (evident in the performances and camera work), only very slight wicked and welcome additions to Rec's base story, and similar scare beats. Will it make you jump? I have no doubt about it. Is the ending bound to freak you out? The Dowdles were smart enough to excise none of Rec's best moments, so to answer the question, yes. "What's up then, Rotten - why so glum?" you ask. Well, I disagree with the approach. It's too accurate. Too clean. The Dowdles' film doesn't reflect their identity - similar in the way Carpenter made The Thing his own or Cronenberg imbued The Fly with themes indicative of his past works. The Dowdles have created a serviceable facsimile and that's about it. And, unlike Rec, the frazzled emotional residue Quarantine works so hard to build diminishes quickly once the film is over. It's like wandering through a Halloween haunted attraction you've been through before: Filled with predictable, hollow thrills.
That's not to knock Quarantine's efforts in front of and behind the camera. Jennifer Carpenter starts the film off on an amiable note as convincing television reporter Angela Vidal, a gal assigned, with her camera man Steve, to take a look at the goings-on at a Los Angeles fire department on the night shift. Her desire for "action" (not that kind of action, perv) is answered when the two firemen she's been shadowing are called to a downtown apartment building. What is seemingly a routine health emergency call descends into a nightmare when one of the first responders is attacked by an old woman and the building is sealed off by the CDC. Vidal's, at first, innocent video package becomes a first-hand account of a rabies outbreak that spreads like wildfire through the tenants, and animals, within the building. Dangers from inside and outside threaten her and the rest of the survivors.
Vidal and company go through the motions like those in Rec, hitting various degrees confusion, paranoia, defeat and debilitating fear. Carpenter's the only one in the cast who walks away plausibly hitting every note; Jay Hernandez gives it his best, especially when it comes to the physical demands Quarantine's "zombie" or "infected" sub-genre trappings require him to meet (bashing people with blunt and/or sharp objects, barricading doors). Columbus Short is the most ill-fitted one in the film to don an official's uniform. The rest of the cast don't get nearly enough development or empathy time and are lost to the action and roving eye of the subjective camera.
Where the Dowdles obviously have their fun is in the orchestration of the "infected" attacks. They're violent and gory, nauseating to watch at times, but effective nonetheless. There's an especially pleasing "rat squish" for you rodent haters out there. The "infected" dog and snipers are unexpected flourishes not from the original but do well to enhance the ride. Still, I couldn't shake a prevailing sense of déjà vu. As I mentioned before, it's too on the money when compared to the original for my tastes, but those not familiar with Rec - if they haven't gotten tired of the subjective camera approach to horror by now - are sure to get the heebie-jeebies from Quarantine's house of horrors scenario.
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Comments
Posted by: Cam on October 10, 2008 at 12:18:09
nice. i wasn't gonna see this but now it sounds like a good time. thanks rotten.
Posted by: BoggyCreekBeast on October 10, 2008 at 12:21:03
Well, I've seen [REC] and found it a fun ride, but will still see Quarantine because the Saw movies have played themselves out for me and how many other scary movies are being released this October? But I know I'll walk away with similar feelings.
Posted by: djblack1313 on October 10, 2008 at 15:54:32
BoggyCreekBeast, i agree w/ you %100. there's NO other horror movies in OCT (Saw is tired), so i'll probably go see Quarantine. i've seen REC so i know what to expect, but the fact Quarantine sounds gorier that REC is enough to make me check this out.
Posted by: Brodck on October 10, 2008 at 16:41:58
heeeeeeell no, I like the original (REC) than Quarantine, I mean, it's a copy of the film, the same copy it's like REC was directing QUARANTINE
Posted by: Mike on October 10, 2008 at 18:40:54
just saw the movie and it was great, right up until the ending. I thought I read something previously where the directors said the ending wasn't ruined by the previews, which is completely FALSE!!! If you've seen the trailer, you know how it ends! Other than feeling completely screwed, it was a good movie, it was what House of the Dead should have been!!
Posted by: Erik V. on October 11, 2008 at 17:18:54
Solid flick, IMO.
Posted by: nick on October 12, 2008 at 03:39:02
what is up with people saying saw has been played out?!?! i dont get it. if the movies are good and they can still carry out a good story line. why shouldn't they. i think they are great.
anyway...i really want to see this and to Mike im guessing what you mean by if you have seen the previews you know the end that it means when she is dragged and the camera is sitting there...thats the end.?
Posted by: jean marc on October 13, 2008 at 09:27:05
Saw it yesterday and thought it wasn't bad. Glad I saw it in the theatre and the slight variations in the storyline didn't hurt it. Is it worth a DVD purchase, probably not.. But glad I can say I have seen the original [REC]
Posted by: Grav on October 14, 2008 at 10:04:07
If you've seen [rec] I don't see the point in paying to see this movie. It looks like a shot for shot remake. I may catch it on DVD because I like the Dexter's sister.
Posted by: frank on October 15, 2008 at 09:39:25
Went to see Quarentine yesterday and i taught it was preatty good the story was good and the acting was great. I live in ottawa Ontario Canada and it is hard to get a copy of (REC)i really want to see that movie...
Posted by: Mass on October 21, 2008 at 17:21:35
Just saw the movie:
LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!
I'll never watch anther Dowdle Bros movie after they lied to the fans and promised them a new ending.
Posted by: Payne on November 14, 2008 at 15:48:59
I dissagree
Quarantine sucked
When I went to see it everybody was laughing
at the parts were people were being killed by "rabbies infected"super humans.AND CMON MAN how ould a person get rabbies that bad to the point where they were foaming frm the mouth.And Fleetcher got a drill in his head and he was still alive he also fell dwn two stories who surrvives tht??
Posted by: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor on November 14, 2008 at 15:53:34
"And Fleetcher got a drill in his head and he was still alive he also fell dwn two stories who surrvives tht??"
I watched a Dateline special about a teenager who fell two stories from a balcony in a shopping mall. He survived, albeit he was paralyzed from the neck down.
I respect your opinion, however. Never expected everyone to like this film.
Posted by: Dale on January 6, 2009 at 11:16:29
I'd agree with this. I thought it was very good and very scary, but from what I understand that's because they took almost all those good and scary parts straight from [REC], and the only things this movie can really call original are the cast, obviously, and the rabies explanation, which I did quite like. So you may as well see the original, unless you like Jennifer Carpenter on Dexter and want to see her in something else, or would like to see it on the big screen. That's why I went.
Posted by: gman716 on February 10, 2009 at 12:41:12
This movie sucked so bad. When I went to see it there was only 5 people in the theater. The only part that was slightly scary was when the camera was looking up in the attic.
Posted by: noob on February 18, 2009 at 20:05:12
serial killers in movies are laughable. when michael myers or jason voorhees cuts someones head off in a movie, i laugh. the gore is cool not scary in the least bit. i've been legitimately scared by 2 types of movies in my life. ghost movies or movies such as the original pulse ( not the god awful sequels) and end of the world movies. including zombie movies. this movie was insanely scary. the scariest part is that this could easily become a reality in our world today.
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