Movie Review: Quarantine

QUARANTINE

Main Players: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, et al.

Calling the shots: John Erick Dowdle

Running time: 89mins

What's it about? A TV crew following the night shift of a couple of Fire Fighters get when they bargained for when they follow the duo to a call. Without warning they are trapped within the building from the outside by government officials and are confronted with a building full of residents on edge and a mysterious symptom that begins to spread.

What did I think? The format of the film; first person, shaky camera, home-video style, that we've already seen this year in 'Cloverfield' works much better for a horror movie like this and it shows why. You feel the panic, the helpless-ness and it's bloody full on.

The plot is nothing new, a virus that spreads making people into aggressive zombie-like creatures. But it's still one of the better horror movies out there. I guess that's not much of a consolation with the junk out there nowadays. Still it is very watchable and it's intense. The start drags a little, the happening at the fire station is rather boring and you with they'd just get on with it. It does build the characters well though and the fact that they've no idea about the night they are about to have.

The relative unknown cast work for this. If you see a Zac Ehron or a Jessica Alba on screen you'd almost groan. They beautiful people to look at, maybe, but it would take the effect out from the whole movie. But digress. Following 'Hostel', I guess Jay Hernandez has a taste for horrors. He does his usual shtick. Everyone else is good because they don't stand out in anyway, they just play their roles. Jennifer Carpenter though, gets on your nerves. You almost hope a character slaps some sense into her. Though given the situation the hysteria is justified.

I heard the chatter during the film and people were complaining about the movie being in-and-out of focus and the shaky-ness. Dude, I guess you guys just missed the point of the movie. The climactic "night-vision" scene is very tense, harks back to 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

Incidentally, this is apparently a carbon-copy remake of the Spanish horror movie '[REC]'. Haven't seen it yet but I'm curious to find out why they bothered.

So, check it out if you're a horror fan but if you're not and you hated the likes of 'Cloverfield' or 'Blair Witch...' or anything zombie related, stay away.

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