Quarantine (DVD, 2009)

Somewhere in L.A., Angela (a news anchor) and Scott (the cameraman) are shooting a piece on a fire station during night-shift. After a few minutes, the firemen get a call and the news crew rides along in the fire truck, covering the entire trip with the camera. After arriving on the scene, the police and firemen find that a hysterical tenant upstairs has gone bananas, and we soon see
that this old women agressive attacks and bites one of the police men.

We soon discover that the entire building is under siege by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) - LA Unit, and that no one is going to get out.

The Characters Ángela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and the cameraman Scott are soon running from room to room trying to pacify and stave off attacks from fiendish Zombie-Like people who have evidently been infected by some terrible germ that is reminiscent of rabies.

The firemen Jake (Jay Hernandez) and Bernard (Bernard White) try to help keep the residents calm but the continue to insist on explanations as the dreadful screams and tantrums continue, which ushers in only what soon turns into the beginning of a chaotic and nightmarish night.

The idea behind making a movie like has been long coming. Oh, yes there have been other movies that have attempted to make a movie interesting and believable as far as real-time footage goes, but this movie TOPS all others.

If you are at all phobic about getting confined in a building with Rabid Zombies, don't watch this movie. The action was full of chaos which is perfect for movie goers who want a new thrill every 30 seconds.

The News Anchor, Firemen, Police, and tennants, as well as the cameraman's comments and reactions were, all too believable. The zombies were more than serious about getting a bite or two into whatever crossed their path.

Many people I talked to and watched this with complained about her character screaming and crying for the last 20 minutes of the film, but I just told them that any person in the same situation would have probably screamed themselves to death in the first 20 seconds of the outbreak.

Don't miss this movie if you can help it. You'll want to watch it all over again and again.

Your enjoyment of this movie depends on whether you like films using the hand-held-camera approach. I don't, but the camerawork in QUARANTINE is steadier than most, probably because it was allegedly filmed by a TV news cameraman, who would of necessity have a steadier hand than a college student with a camcorder. The camerawork gets shakier near the end, but you can't fault the guy because by this point everyone else has been bitten by rabies victims, driven insane, and killed. Logically, the cameraman would be freaked out by this time. But let's talk about logic. The residents of a Los Angeles apartment building have been infected by a fast-acting virus that causes them to foam at the mouth and bite people. While there are no doctors in the house, there is a veterinarian (why is he living in a seedy building with all these poor people?) who identifies the disease as rabies (duh). Before even one person can get outside (given that the first attack happens very quickly with police and paramedics inside), the CDC has the entire building sealed off with a plastic bubble. They turn off the electricity and intend to let everyone inside go crazy and kill each other, while telling people in the outside world that all the residents have been evacuated. One of the residents gets the idea of opening a window and slicing through the plastic. Immediately, he is shot & killed by a CDC sniper in the building across the street. This was the moment that wrecked the film for me. Logically, I could accept the premise that the CDC would let the victims die, and even that they would actively kill them...in fact, it would have made much more sense to leave the electricity on, march into the building wearing protective suits, and kill everyone...leaving them in the dark to kill each other means you risk someone hiding & surviving. Also, the CDC wants the public to believe the building is unoccupied...so how to explain armed snipers shooting people who try to exit? Something like this just COULD NOT be concealed in urban Los Angeles, especially with news crews already on the scene. Furthermore, the victims are not zombies; they have rabies, but they can be killed. They could also probably be knocked out by flooding the building with gas (the exterminator's bubble is already in place), and retrieved, restrained, and studied (which would be the CDC's style, given that there may be more outbreaks). Setting logic aside, QUARANTINE has some scary moments of people running around in the dark, screaming and being chased by bloody rabies victims. If you like to be scared and don't care whether the plot makes sense or not, QUARANTINE is for you.

The idea behind making a movie like this has been long coming. Oh, yes there have been other movies that have attempted to make a movie interesting and believable as far as real-time footage goes, but this movie TOPS all others. Even though the movie was 89 minutes long, it should have moved a bit faster in the beginning and had a more productive ending. This movie came out in October, 2008 and could just as well had been the Halloween pick of the season.

Television reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman are assigned to spend the night shift with an LA Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartments. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crew’s videotape.

If you are at all phobic about getting confined in a building with Rabid Zombies, don't watch this movie. The action was full of chaos which is perfect for movie goers who want a new thrill every 30 seconds.

The News Anchor, The Firemen, The Cops, The Tennants, and the Cameraman were all believable. Don't miss this movie if you can help it. You'll want to watch it all over again and again.

Quarantine was nominated in 2009 for Best Horror Film by Saturn Awards.

I'LL GIVE THIS A 5/5 FOR TOTAL ORIGINALITY.

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Okay, yes, it's a remake. And yes, I would have like to see [REC] get a wide release. But Quarantine delivers the goods, and does a few things better than the original.

For one, we get a bit more character development in the beginning, allowing us to bond with the leads more than the Spanish original. The gore is amped up as well, and the decision to change the cause of the zombie epidemic is appropriate, given the target audience for the remake.

As I said, I would have love to see the original get a wide theatrical release. Unfortunately, the truth is that most American film goers will not sit through a subtitled feature. And this is one of the better remakes out there. Yes, some of the scenes are lifted from the original, but the remake adds in some nice touches of its own.

So save the anti-remake cries for a film that deserves it (like, oh, the lousy Nightmare on Elm Street reboot or The Crazies). Quarantine is a fun little film, regardless of whether you've seen [REC] or not.

Speaking as an avid horror film/zombie film fan this film scared me. The film was very well done in an even scarier Blair Witch style in which a reporting them following a group of fire fighters into the unknown and documents the events that follow. The atmosphere, intensity, great acting and superb effects make this film terrifying. They depict an infection is spreading turning people into rabid flesh eating zombies, but never have I seen this type of film, and a zombie film no doubt done with so much realism. This is one of the greatest films I have ever seen, it's not very often a horror film buff gets to be scared by a good horror film anymore. Enjoy many horror films yes, scared no. I have had three films truly scare me: 1. Excorist 2. Blair Witch and now 3. Quarantine. This is one of those films that will leave you thinking about it for a while. Great film.