Quarantine

Quarantine (2008)

A reporter named Angela Vidal is working on a human-interest story where she follows a group of firemen around with her cameraman in tow recording what a shift is like for them. While working with them a call comes in for an injury at an apartment building. When they arrive an elderly woman attacks a cop and fireman with ferocious strength and before they can leave to get help they find themselves locked in the building. Every time they try and find a way out they are turned away and after a while shot at by snipers. If that weren’t enough it seems like there is a particularly virulent strain of rabies loose in the building and that one by one they are becoming infected. Soon the survivors are not only trying to avoid being killed by those on the outside, but by the infected in the building as well.

This is another of those found footage movies that allow filmmakers to have one of the characters carry the camera around. This of course lets them off the hook so they then don’t have to actually worry about lighting, direction, or cinematography. To be honest the concept really bugs me, but some of the better-made films actually manage to pull it off. I enjoyed Romero’s Diary of the Dead, Cloverfield, and The Blair Witch Project (though I don’t think it holds up well on a 2nd viewing). I don’t think Quarantine is as good as the first two examples, but in the end it isn’t a bad movie. The story starts off very slowly as we are treated to the early parts in the firehouse, which basically establish the three main characters of Angela, her camera man Scott, and Jake the fireman. It isn’t really that interesting and goes on for 10 minutes before anything happens. Now when they get to the apartment building things really pick up and the action never really stops. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Quarantine is never slow or boring and there is always something happening on screen. The flip side to that is I never really got into the characters at all. Especially the residents of the apartment building that are clearly only there to act as fodder for the infected. The cast is solid, including Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) as Angela and Jay Hernandez (Hostel 1 and 2) as Jake. Again this isn’t the kind of movie that gives them much more to do than run around and look scared. Ironically my favorite actor might be Steve Harris who plays the cameraman. Since he is shooting the footage we hardly ever get to see him on screen and only hear his voice. Even then I though he gave a decent performance.

The special effects are limited and have a lot of CGI to them. Luckily the movie uses a lot of quick cuts to hide the mediocre effects shots. Again I wanted to mention that the movie is shot as found footage so you get a lot of strange shots of doorways, floors, and the back of the people in front of the camera. This actually isn’t too bad because the movie makes excellent use of sound to let you know what is going on. Though I do want to mention that if you have the tendency to get motion sick this is another movie that might make you want to toss your cookies.

In the end I didn’t think this was a bad movie, but it wasn’t great either. Still for a by the numbers horror film I’ve seen much worse. It is definitely worth a rental, but I hesitate on purchasing it. Once you have seen it I’m not sure there will be much desire to watch it again.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer