Quarantine (2008)

Waste of time

It is a performances centric movie

hyped garbage

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I was hoping for a little more out of Quarantine. The first half of the movie was a complete bore and I had to try to convince myself to keep watching in hopes that it would improve. I was glad I continued watching because it did get more intriguing. The story of the outbreak of a ravenous disease was nothing new, but being locked into an apartment building gave a new claustrophobic twist to the plot. And when all contact to the outside is cut off and the power is shut down, the chaotic pursuit of survival ensues. I won't give away any of the suspense, so check out this pretty decent horror flick for yourself. I give it 6 stars. I hope this review was helpful. -MovieJuice

Quarantine was a terrifying roller-coaster ride: there were so many jumpscares moments, it was a surprise that my racing heart hadn't recovered from all the banging against my ribcage. I applaud Jennifer Carpenter's performance: she was convincing, and she has proved to be a candidate for a Scream Queen. I feel like she was never off-key.I actually watched Quarantine before I watched the original Spanish REC. And though I enjoyed Quarantine, REC was superior; it seemed more authentic. But as I said: Quarantine was a terrifying roller-coaster ride, just like REC, and I would say it is worth a watch, and, perhaps, a rewatch.

Cub TV reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (Steve Harris) follow a group of firefighters for the night. Jake (Jay Hernandez) and George Fletcher (Johnathon Schaech) take them on a tour of the fire house. They are called to help an old lady. She attacks the cops and all hell breaks loose. The doors are locked and the apartment building is quarantined.This is the American remake of REC. It has the 1st person POV of Percival recording everything on his camera. It works for the first half or so but I struggle with it more and more. There are two things about the camera work that always annoy me with this type of work. The fact that the camera always catches the action is a big concession. The other problem is the shaky cam. This is more problematic than most because Percival is suppose to be a professional. The camera work in this one actually annoyed me. The acting is fine but there is slightly too much screaming and arguing.

I myself am a huge fan of zombies and other similar creations in movies, therefore it only seemed logical that my first review was based on a movie which should have had everything I needed! The scares, the thrill, the storyline etc… and in some cases "Quarantine" did not disappoint, however in other areas it was not up to the standard that I was hoping. The acting of a movie is one of the most important components of a movie because if either of these areas fail then the movie is likely as not going to be disastrous. In the case of Quarantine I say the acting was fairly average, not because there were some bad actors/actresses and some good ones but rather that the majority of the characters were not that difficult to portray. For instance, one of the main characters was Angela Vidal a local news reporter (played by Jennifer Carpenter) who throughout the whole movie only really portrayed two or three emotions, in this case she was either the determined news reporter or petrified young woman. As said earlier I am not saying that Jennifer Carpenter or any other member of the cast performed their roles badly and in the case of Jennifer I in fact she played her character in a very believable manner. My main issue with the acting as said before is that there was a lack of variety in characters. However I would like to highlight one character/actor who I thought was great throughout, the character Columbus Short (played by Danny Wilensky) displayed an inner struggle between a cop doing his job and someone who was obviously scared out of their minds. Out of all the cast I thought Danny Wilensky deserved a mention. Although the limit of the characters can be partly blamed on the writing it could also be partly the blame of the director who is supposed to drive the movie. Despite this I think that John Erick Dowdle was a fairly decent director who was able to put his own spin on a movie which was by its definition a remake of the movie "Rec". In particular I liked how the camera man was fairly quiet throughout the movie. As the movie uses the technique of POV (Point Of View) filming it is very easy for the camera man to take some of the attention away from other aspects of a movie. In the case of "Quarantine" this could have meant that certain "jumpy points" would have been less scary because the camera man's intrusion could have spoilt the moments leading up to it. However I do have to say that I found the lack of ingenuity in all aspects of the movie to be quiet disappointing, I cannot think of one point in the movie where I saw an original idea. As stated earlier I am aware that this is a remake so I am not comparing this to "Rec" instead I found myself thinking of the movie "Cloverfield". As Cloverfield was released much earlier in 2008 (it was released in January/February while "Quarantine" was released in October/November).The structure of "Quarantine" is fairly standard for a horror movie, the first half is used to set the scene and to slowly introduce the viewer to the story while the second half is where the viewer gets the thrill of being scared. This again highlights how "Quarantine" is not a very unique movie as it follows the standard horror movie structure. Again this is seen with the plot with the majority of characters being killed off/infected within the last 20/30 minutes of the movie. However despite its lack of ingenuity "Quarantine" does have its positives when it comes to the plot! For instance the movie itself is a fairly realistic representation of what would happen if there was a very infectious disease within a given location. Also the virus itself (rabies or similar) is more realistic than other zombie-like diseases seen in movies. This helped me to relate to the story and the characters which in turn immersed me in the story which meant I jumped more often than if I did not believe in the story.I thought the lack of music was in fact a very good technique used by the Director (John Erick Dowdle) mainly because it made me believe that I was watching something that can actually happen in real life. This is a key aspect for any horror movie as a lack of belief (at least in my case) makes me much less scared of the movie as a whole. However it should be stated that "Quarantine" may have benefited from the tension which music sometimes creates. This is because I found that "Quarantine" was jumpy rather than scary. By this I mean that there were plenty of points in the movie where I jumped however I was never really on the edge of my seat as a result of me being scared witless. In the case of the realism the special effects overall I have to stay that it was decent, the most used special effect was blood and other such injuries. Generally the blood was realistic and the injuries weren't too over the top (e.g. the wounds weren't overly gory etc…).Overall my main impression of "Quarantine" is that it is purely average, it's not original and although it is an entertaining and jumpy movie it is not scary which is what you want a horror movie to be!