En quarantaine

Despite being an almost scene-to-scene rehash of the Spanish horror masterpiece, REC, Quarantine is one of the worst remakes in existence. Made specifically for the viewers who can't read but are too smug to admit it and use the stupid excuse of distraction caused by subtitles as their defence, Quarantine is one of those crappy films you deserve to watch if you can't be bothered to read a few subtitles.

Set in Los Angeles, the story of Quarantine follows a television reporter & her cameraman as they are assigned to follow a firefighting crew on their night shift duty. Things are set in motion when they respond to a call coming from a small apartment building but soon find themselves locked inside it along with its residents when the place is quarantined by CDC without an explanation and end up filming much more than they bargained for.

Written & directed by John Erick Dowdle (known for The Poughkeepsie Tapes), Quarantine fails at everything that the original managed to get right with immaculate precision for this film has no understanding whatsoever of what actually made REC work so well in the first place. The direction is terrible as Dowdle is unable to recreate the bone-chilling atmosphere and the screenplay is poorly written as well for the dialogues end up feeling quite forced.

Another problem with Quarantine is its unconvincing cast. They all seem so well rehearsed with their lines and equally aware of the camera hovering over them that they end up trying a little too hard, because of which the whole realistic approach this film was aiming for falls apart. Carpenter's performance is better than the rest but still not good enough to keep the film together. Camera-work fails to recreate the frenzy, chaotic style of the original, Editing is a mixed bag for the pacing is fine but its runtime is unnecessarily extended.

On an overall scale, Quarantine is a half-assed attempt to remake one of the scariest films of all time and despite being filmed with six times the budget fails to improve upon or even match any of the aspects of the original. If Americanising a film usually means lowering the IQ of the original characters and allowing them to act stupidly, as evident in so many other examples, then world cinema would definitely be a much better place if no foreign language is ever allowed a Hollywood adaptation. All in all, Quarantine is a cinematic turd that itself should be quarantined from the filmgoing audience. Skip it & savour the vastly superior REC instead.

Overall, it was a pretty good movie. It entertained me, and it had zombie-like people (well, it was actually a virus, like in 28 days/weeks later- but still, that concept of zombies is always awesome). The camera was pretty shaky at times, which was a bit much, and at the end, Jennifer Carpenter, as hot as she is, got pretty annoying with the screams, crying, and hyperventilating. Kind of wish she would have shut up near the end.

Pretty good jumps, some decent little gore parts- so overall, not a bad movie. I would probably buy it on DVD. Obviously no movie is perfect, and everyone will have their own views, likes, and dislikes. If you look at all the other past horror movies, this one isn't too shabby. Look, a movie entertains you, then it did it's job. That's why it's called "entertainment." Just because some jackass on the street says it sucks, and just because it didn't get many "stars," doesn't mean it's a bad movie. Plenty of "bad movies" have entertained the hell out of me- in turn, making them good movies- to me, at least.

The reason a lot of people don't like this just doesn't make sense. Many people complain about the main actresses performance but I thought she did amazing. Many other people complain that its to slow because nothing happens in the beginning, hate to break it to you but thats called developing the characters, something that a lot of horror movies lack. This movie is really good, really scary, and one of the few horror movies that is actually re-watchable. Its such a crime that this has only a 5.9.

I had high hopes for this movie when I saw the trailer and felt that the movie delivered what it intended to.

The movie itself takes place from the point of view from a cameraman named Scott. The cameraman is shooting a take on what firemen go through on an ordinary day when their ordinary day turns into extraordinary. They get a call to an apartment complex and get locked inside with what appear to be zombie like creatures.

It is a movie that I would place in between the 28 days/weeks movies and Cloverfield. It has suspense (will be great on DVD w/surround sound in the future) but some of the characters lack common sense. The fact that the movie is shot from one camera had some people disappointed since it didn't involve too much of a story as to what is being "quarantined", but that is to be expected.

I would say that the movie could have been a heck of a lot better with a solid story and a bigger climax/plot. It is worth your time to watch, but if you don't like shaky cameras like Cloverfield and Blairwitch Project, then I wouldn't watch it.

As a rule I do not like found footage aka shaky cam movies. Besides being terrible quality, most of the time it defies logic and common sense for the person to continue filming while in such dire situations, and I can't get past that. Just like I can't get past the cellphone camera generation today that has an insatiable need to film the most appalling events without thinking, "Maybe I should put the camera down and help." Or my favorite --while holding their cellphone to video-- "Someone call 9-1-1!"

"Quarantine" is a found footage movie based upon the movie "REC." "REC" was a foreign film with the exact same premise, but it was better. In "Quarantine" a reporter named Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) follow a few L. A. firefighters out on a call. When they arrive at an apartment they find an elderly woman seemingly on the brink of death. Suddenly, she sprung to life with the vigor of a person one-fourth her age and bit a firefighter on the neck. As weird as this was, no one would become truly panicked until they found out that they were being locked in the building.

From that point on the movie was a lot of screaming, yelling, growling, and running in circles--all with very poor camera shots because the cameraman was a part of the fracas. This movie would've been better had I not seen "REC" already. Also, it would've been better had they gone with a traditional movie format. However, there were a few awesome shots of bodies dropping and/or falling which kept me engaged.