Let me start out this grand piece of writing by simply stating one word that can basically describe what you’re about to read…….UGH! After hearing such amazing things about its Spanish predecessor, [REC], I was hopeful that Hollywood wouldn’t completely destroy this remake.
Quarantine tells the tale of local news reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her camera man (Steve Harris) as they plan to "shadow" the LA fire department for a story on exactly what it’s like behind the scenes at a local firehouse. Things seem to be going swimmingly until a call comes in and the firemen leap into action. Anxious to get some "real", "raw" footage, Angela and her lackey tag along on what seems to be little more than a routine call. Arriving on the scene, they greet police already swarming the place responding to calls of an alarming scream coming from one of the units of a downtown apartment complex. Soon the inhabitants of the building are alerted to the fact that the screaming woman is infected with some kind of a strange, unexplainable virus. Several vicious infected human on human attacks later those inside of the building realize that a swift exit would surely be the smartest plan. Too bad the CDC has effectively "quarantined" off the entire building blocking every exit and entry as well as shutting off all power and telephone service. Trapped inside the building, Angela, the firefighters, the residents, and a few other stragglers realize that the mysterious virus is spreading rapidly and finding out why is certainly the only way to insure their survival.
I wanted this to scare me. I wanted nothing more than to be freaked out beyond all recognition. At the screening of the original Spanish version of this film, one theater patron literally defecated himself from fright. This fact made me hopeful. Not hopeful that I would suffer the same fate, but hopeful that I might actually be scared by Hollywood’s version of this thriller. Instead, boredom is what I suffered. Seemingly everything that happened between scenes of vicious attacks and "fake out" scare tactics nearly put me to sleep.
I wasn’t at all vested in this film. It didn’t make me want to care about why this "virus" was taking over and/or how it was spreading. Jen Carpenter was ok in the lead role, but when she tried to pour on the emotion I felt like somewhere off camera the director was holding an applause sign only his was directing her to act scared. It felt like her tears and seeming terror filled rants were so forced they could have been guided by flash cards.
Angela Vidal’s camera operator was just that, an operator. I like to refer to him as the tripod with legs. His shoes, oddly enough, got more on screen time than he did. I am guessing that the only reason they gave him a line or two was to give him the sense that he was actually a valid part of the film. The scenes that he was actually involved in annoyed me because it seemed obvious that those scenes only existed so Steve Harris had something to do.
By the time the big reveal part of the film came about, I was so over it that I couldn’t have cared less. I really just wanted to make a swift exit and escape the nausea caused by the Cloverfield-esque camera work that seems to be gaining so much momentum lately. This film is good if all you’re looking for is something to jump out sporadically and scare your pants off when you’re not expecting it to and then repeat that same tactic approximately 400 times, but if a quality horror thriller is what you want, Netflix [REC]
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