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Quarantine

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: R
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

As Halloween approaches, the usual slew of horror films are beginning to stalk multiplexes, and one could do much worse than Quarantine. With horror films being so blasé recently, especially remakes (hello Prom Night and Mirrors), Quarantine stands out as a film with some genuine tension and scares. The plot is pretty simple: a young reporter, Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter, a.k.a. Emily Rose in The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Debra Morgan in the macabre, yet wonderful television show Dexter), is shadowing the Los Angeles fire department when a distress call comes in from an apartment complex in the city. Once at the complex, Angela, her cameraman, a few firefighters, and the building’s residents are locked in by police and told that more information will follow. Soon, the shit hits the fan as people become infected with “something” and begin to attack one another, not to mention the fact that it seems as though the police have no intention of letting anyone out of the building. All of this happens while being documented by Angela’s cameraman, Scott (Steve Harris), on his handheld news camera.

Take Cloverfield, Dawn of the Dead, and 28 Days Later, throw in some Cujo and The Omen and add a dash of The Hills Have Eyes. What do you get? Well, you get Quarantine, of course. Originality is an element that the film does not thrive upon. Other horror films are referenced and borrowed from, yet Quarantine stands out because it still manages to scare without really having a terribly unique premise. There are some scenes that are genuinely tense, and others that are terribly brutal, with scares coming quite fervently and frequently. A remake of Jaume Balaguero’s 2007 Spanish film [REC], Quarantine is easily one of the best horror remakes to come out of Hollywood’s gates in a long time, as it utilizes atmosphere, camerawork, and unease to strike a nerve in viewers. Director John Erick Dowdle (whose other film, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, has been generating buzz for a long time even though it hasn’t been released yet) has made a well-crafted film that does exactly what it is meant to do: it scares.

The film does have some originality going for it, however. When it is revealed that the disease infecting everyone is in fact a super-fast-acting strain of rabies (yes, folks, rabies…the same rabies that can hit those cute squirrels running around the quad), the film never veers into ridiculousness. In fact, it almost seems more plausible than other “outbreak” films, as rabies is a disease that nearly everyone has heard of. People, dogs, and rats all serve as vicious villains who will attack, unprovoked, at any minute, and Quarantine offers one hell of a ride as audiences experience everything first hand as a result of Scott’s camerawork. Since Scott is primarily taping Angela, it is mainly her point of view that the audience can most closely relate to, and Jennifer Carpenter does a nice job of portraying a woman who is unraveling in the midst of the hell occurring around her. Carpenter’s Angela is not a strong woman, she doesn’t always make the right choices, and she screams her damn brains out. It’s refreshing to see a heroine who is not calm and collected as she is thrust into a horrifying situation. Jay Hernandez plays Jake, a firefighter who also illustrates the realistic actions of the film’s protagonists. Instead of being the moral center of the story and the tough guy (as most horror narratives would insist of his character), Jake screams, he kills people immediately after they have become infected, and he leaves others to die in order to ensure his own safety. The characters of Quarantine seem much more relatable than other horror movie characters, as they act in ways that normal people would.

Quarantine is scary. If you’re looking to jump a few times, if you like sitting on the edge of your seat, and if you don’t want to see the latest Saw film (what number are they on now? Fourteen?), then go spend an evening with the residents of Quarantine. You’ll be glad you did…unless you start foaming at the mouth.