Quarantine (2008)

Quarantine (2008)

Before I type anything else I need to put that Quarantine is a remake of the Spanish film [rec] and as amazing as this movie is - [rec] was was an even better film. The American remake was directed by John Erick Dowdle and written by both he and his brother. While the two brothers don't have a long history in film what they have shown us so far says one – watch these two. I only hope that in the future their next movie is able to match Quarantine in quality. I’ve heard a people complain that the remake is bad because it wasn’t as good as the original film. In all honestly I have no idea where to begin to disagree with that point of view because in all honesty it still is a great film.

OK. There is another complaint and I’ll address that right about now. Quarantine suffers from that wonderful movie going experience known simply as “The Shakey Cam.” We are following a news reporter who was shafted with doing a public piece on firefighters and are watching the entire film unfold point of view style through the eyes of the cameraman who is assigned to film her story. After a ridiculous interview process (that almost seems too long) the alarm goes off and our reporters go out on the call.

While a fire seems like a great way for the story to progress we arrive at the scene and find absolutely nothing. After establishing that there is in fact no fire to be put out it’s suddenly made clear that there is no way out of the building. While they were searching for the reason they were called in the entire building has been sealed off by “the government” without giving a single reason whatsoever.

Suddenly they find that one of the inhabitants of the condo building they are in is sick. Not just sick but apparently delusional as they attack our news crew as well as the firefighters that they are with. It quickly becomes clear that what everyone has been locked inside with is an infection that resembles the walking (or in this case) running dead. After they realize partially what is happening the first thought is of course to try to both survive and escape as no one believes that they can be infected. The clear thought that happens in every infection movie. Escaping where the infection is won’t infect others it’ll keep those there at ground zero safe.

I am usually the first person to argue against a remake as the vast majority fall far short of the original. This is a case where the movie is made to truly emulate the original and not try to take too many liberties. While I’ve stated it is not as good as [rec] if you are someone who hates subtitles or just in general want to see a decent horror film and don’t have the ability to track down the movie it’s based off this is a must pickup. For any who are so stuck on the original that they cannot accept the remake? I know I’ll get slack on this but just remember I agree with you that the original is better.