Quarantine

(2008)****
News reporter Angela and her camerman Scott are shadowing Los Angeles firefighters Fletcher and Jake as they work the night shift at a Los Angeles fire station. Initially not a lot is going on and Angela covers mundane topics such as the proper way to slide down a fire station pole. When Fletcher and Jake are suddenly called to an emergency at an apartment complex, Angela is all too eagar to film some action.

Arriving at the apartment complex the superintendent informs them that an elderly woman has been raving in her apartment but is now silent. After two police officers join them the group is led to the woman’s apartment and are forced to knock down her door when she does not respond to their voices. Inside the find her foaming at the mouth and before she is subdued the woman viciously bites one of the police officers. When the firefighters go downstairs to seek help they find that the building has been sealed off and their cell phones no longer work. Meanwhile others begin succumbing to a rabid state as they are bitten by those already infected. Desperate for answers a television is turned on where they hear the chief of police giving a news conference informing the public that everyone has been evacuated from the building. The power is then shut off and the denizens of the large apartment complex suddenly find themselves shrouded in darkness. Angela has Scott film everything as they work their way through the apartment complex to find answers. This proves to be very dangerous given their limited light source (i.e., the television camera) and the increasing numbers of infected individuals who are trying to attack them. What follows is an intense attempt to escape as things go from bad to worse in the almost pitch black building.

Quarantine is a remake of the 2007 Spanish film Rec (i.e., “Record”). For the first 10 minutes of the film I was bored and almost aborted when the scenes of Angela interviewing firefighters and filming the fire station went on for far too long. Seriously, I wanted to punch her. However, once they arrive at the apartment complex the tension never lets up for the rest of the film (all is forgiven ‘beginning of the film’). Quarantine is essentially The Blair Witch Project, but a Blair Witch film that actually shows the threat. If The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield hadn’t already done the first person shaky-cam thing, I would’ve rated Quarantine higher. Given that the entire film is viewed through the lens of a cameraman trying not to get bitten in the dark, there is A LOT of shaky shaky-cam and at times I became frustrated because it was difficult to get a fix on the people attacking the protagonists. Overall, however, this is a solid, scary, bleak film and one of the better ones I’ve seen over the past few years.