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Directed By
John Erick Dowdle
Written By:
John Erick Dowdle, Paco Plaza, Luis Berdejo, Drew Dowdle, Jaume Balagueró, Luis Berdejo
Cast:
Jennifer Carpenter, Rade Serbedzija, Johnathon Schaech, Columbus Short, Jay Hernandez, Marin Hinkle, Steve Harris, Greg Germann, Joey King, Denis O'Hare, Bernard White, Andrew Fiscella, Shawn Driscoll, Barry Sigismondi, Stacy Chbosky, Jermaine Jackson, Benjamin Stockham, Sharon Ferguson, Ronnie Lewis Jr.
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Quarantine (2008)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
October 12th, 2008
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'Quarantine' is a remake of a 2007 Spanish horror film called Rec, which I have never seen. I can think of this as a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, in the sense that the whole movie is shown through the perspective of a camera lens, and tends to shake so violently that it is almost impossible to know what it is going on, but it does have its share of scary and intense moments, especially once the lights go out and we must rely on night vision, which casts everything in a dull green hue. Jennifer Carpenter garnered attention and acclaim for her role in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, playing the title character, in which she revealed her talent for contortionism, able to twist her face and body into bizarre shapes.
Her work here is much more straightforward, but tests her vocal strength. She screams and whimpers and descends into bouts of pure hysteria, and it is all annoyingly overblown. Carpenter is Angela Vidal, a rookie TV reporter who is doing a story on firefighters, accompanied by her faithful cameraman Scott (Steve Harris). Her two primary subjects are Jake (Jay Hernandez) and Fletcher (Jonathan Schaech); she flirts with them and follows them around, and even goes with them when they receive an emergency call that takes them to a decrepit apartment building, where the tenants are behaving strangely. They all get trapped inside once local officials decide to quarantine the place. You see, the building's unfortunate residents are afflicted with rabies, or rather a mutant strain of rabies that turns them into crazed zombie-like creatures. They are not really zombies because they are still alive, but there is hardly anything left in them that could be called human.
They have been reduced to a primal, animalistic state, one of extreme aggression and bloodlust. There is a fairly simple medical explanation for this phenomenon, given the neurological nature of the disease, and a veterinarian is conveniently on hand to point out how contagious and deadly it is, and to confirm that it is, in fact rabies, as opposed to something else, at least, he draws this conclusion from what he observes of the symptoms. Old Yeller and Cujo both suffered from this same illness, although there were differences in severity, of course, Cujo, as a Stephen King creation, was far more vicious and homicidal than Yeller, the faithful friend of a young boy in a wholesome Disney flick. Like Yeller, there is no way to save these poor rabid souls, except to kill them, or let them kill each other.
The movie's ending has already been exposed by the trailers, and the final shot was inexplicably chosen as the poster image, but most viewers will probably not be aware of that until it they actually see it, unless they are told in advance. So maybe I just committed a major spoiler faux pas. This is a creepy, unsettling, and nightmarish film, but the protagonists are weakly written, and beyond their names and occupations, we know very little about them. Therefore, it is hard to care about them and whether they die or not. Scott, for whatever reason, remains steadfast in his devotion to record these events as they happen, instead of throwing down his equipment and running for his life, trying to escape, even if such an effort proved futile. I have to question Scott's sanity.
'Quarantine' is certainly not original; its premise is cobbled together from Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project, 28 Days Later, and Romero's Diary of the Dead, and it apparently lifts entire scenes and bits of dialogue from Rec, but also adds some new material, which makes it about ten minutes longer than the original film. As for the origins of the outbreak, they are never explored sufficiently, but it is suggested that the contagions were spread by rats, or maybe an infected pet. Insects are another likely candidate, but they are not mentioned.
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