Quarantine (2008)

I realize the fact that this is a 2008 movie doesn’t technically make it a New Release, but in my defense, I had been wanting to see it for quite awhile and it only turned up on my Blockbuster’s New Release shelf just recently.  With no further adieu, I present the Quarantine review…

Director: John Erick Dowdle

Writers: John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle, and the writers of [Rec] Luis Berdejo, Jaume Balagueró, and Paco Plaza

Notable Actors: Jennifer Carpenter and Steve Harris (The cameraman)

Story Rating:

(7/10)

A local news team accompanies a group of firefighters on a routine call to help a woman trapped in her apartment building.  Upon arriving they find that the police are already there.  The woman is found to be very disoriented and violent, to the point of brutally injuring two people.  The building is suddenly and mysteriously locked down from the outside, leaving the tenants, news team, firefighters, and police all trapped inside with no reason why or when they will be released.

Sound familiar?  Good!  The plot is exactly the same as its Spanish counterpart, and the characters are essentially the same minus some nationality changes.  So what does this version have to offer?  Ramped up violence, the cameraman as a more central character, extended pal-around with the firemen scenes in the beginning,  and an ending that is dreadful compared to the original!

I believe that the ending is what made [Rec] a really good story.  Since Quarantine does not end in the same way, it suffers in Black Cat ratings.

Gore:

(8/10)

For the most part this movie has the same amount of gore as [Rec], although it has a few additional zombie violence scenes.

Spookiness:

(6/10)

This movie has a considerably less spooky ending than [Rec], seeing as the reasons given for the zombie outbreak are far more fuzzy and nonsensical.  Other than that the zombies are pretty frightening.

Overall:

(6/10)

I’m sure I’ve made it quite clear by now that I don’t think Quarantine was as good as the Spanish movie it was based on [Rec].  Although, putting the fact that I have seen [Rec] aside, Quarantine is an okay movie.  I enjoyed watching it and still thought that the story was good, even though the ending is a little unclear on how exactly the “zombie virus” came to exist, which I believe is crucial to such a movie.

The shooting style was accurate and believable.  Despite the fact that it had the shaky-cam effect, it was not nauseating in any way shape or form.  The acting was well done, and I enjoyed the character development used for the cameraman.  He could have been used as a faceless character that throws out dialogue every so often, but instead he was a thoughtful individual who protected those around him.

The character relationships were believable, and the bond between cameraman and newsgirl was touching.   Wether you like this sort of thing or not, it is completely necessary for horror movies to show some sort of bonding between their characters, because that is the sort of thing that occurs in real-life high-stress situations.  It adds another element of believability to the film, which is important to selling the plot.

All in all, Quarantine is a good movie.