Starring: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez
Directed by: John Erick Dowdle
Rating: ★★★★
Filmed in ‘shaky camera’ with the premise of being a documentary, Quarantine opens with two television reporters, Angela (Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Harris) walking around a fire station. They plan to follow the firemen for a night to give their viewers a taste of what really goes on in the fire service. After seeing Angela slide down the fireman’s pole several times, and flirt with fireman Jake (Hernandez), the station is quickly called to a local block of apartments, where a woman has locked herself into her apartment. After finding her they quickly realise that she is infected with a deadly virus, as do the outside policemen, who trap everyone into the building with the zombiefied victims. Cue long dark corridors, out of focus camera work and scary looking zombies who soon turn nasty, splattering blood across the camera in some unique and original ways. Will the survivors ever escape? And what exactly is the virus that is infecting everyone?
When the film eventually gets into its stride, it never stops. Building up nervous tension and fear, and then letting it explode into horror style jumps and leg snapping gore, Quarantine is a really good chiller-thriller with plenty of blood splattering to appease horror fans. Although it is a remake of the Spanish film REC, Quarantine is one adaptation that deserves to be treated as well as its original counterpart. And in this reviewers opinion, it is actually better than the original, as it is faster, scarier and more tense.
Boasting an incredible (though sometimes annoyingly) realistic performance, Jennifer Carpenter delivers a solid and scene-stealing role, carrying the audience along with her as she runs, screams, and freezes with fear. How would you act if zombies were chasing you around a dark block of flats? She perfectly captures how most people would react to this unreal situation, and this heightens the films scares.
The action sequences are very effective: this film is not for the squeamish as the blood and body parts fly at the camera thick and fast, one brilliant bit involves the cameraman using his own camera to bludgeon a zombie to death. Pretty grisly stuff, but also pretty cool.
Quarantine will keep you on the edge of your seat, but will also have you jumping out of it, as the scares are not done for cheap laughs but for real terror. Sometimes the camera work can get annoying, mainly because a professional cameraman would not be so out of focus and shaky, but once you get used to it you get immediately sucked in, finding yourself wishing he would turn it certain ways so you could get a better look at the environment.
As I horror fan, I am usually disappointed with what film makers have to offer, but Quarantine is a highly effective and enjoyable film, and I would definitely recommend it to horror fans, as well as anyone who is up for being scared: and I mean really scared. But if you leave the cinema and find yourself looking over your shoulder, and then sleeping with the lights on, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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